Cruise-capable eVTOL flying motorcycle rocks tilting thrusters

newatlas.com ^ | May 30 2024 | Joe Salas

[martin_fierro]

Czech company UDX is flying scale prototypes of a tandem 2-up eVTOL it calls Airwolf. With individually-tilting ducted fan propulsion, it's got enough wing surface for efficient cruise flight as well as agile movement from a hover.

Imagine waking early Sunday morning to ride the twisty coastal mountains of beautiful southern California. It's going to be a perfect day and you expect exactly zero traffic, because you're leaving the Hayabusa in the garage and taking your UDX Airwolf hoverbike.

You don your lid, crank up your favorite tunes, spin up the ducted fans, lift off and hover out of your garage before blasting off with all the youth and vigor you've ever known. Within seconds, you're doing 142 mph (230 km/h), speeding over traffic, stop lights, and police with radar like a Peregrine falcon on your way to your favorite canyons...

This is the dream Czech startup UDX is working toward. Airwolf is a 430-hp (320-kW) motorcycle-esque eVTOL with "hummingbird-like" agility that seats two. It may look like a typical quadcopter, but what really sets the Airwolf apart from most other buy'n'fly eVTOL designs I've seen is the tilting propulsion pods. Each of its four shrouded fan units can move independently.

[BBB333]

“...But it took off horizontally using wing-generated lift to get airborne instead of fan-generated thrust....”

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The Wright Brothers also used a derrick with a heavy weight - attached to cables and pulleys to pull the aircraft forward on a track to achieve lift-off.

Gustave Whitehead needed no such ‘help’ when he flew a powered aircraft 28 months before the Wright Brothers...

https://gustavewhitehead.info/about-gustave-whitehead/

[left that other site]

I guess I’m just an old fart.

I ain’t giving up my 93FXR for nuttin.

[Mashood]

You’d probably get it keyed for taking 6 parking spaces at Walmart.

[SaveFerris]

Heh