Its was 53 years after the Wright brothers flew until the first Cessna 172 was made. I’ll wait about 52 years and then I’ll trust one.
” was 53 years after the Wright brothers flew until the first Cessna 172 was made. I’ll wait about 52 years and then I’ll trust one.”
I can fly and would never fly one they all have a coffin corner twice per flight. Once on takeoff and again on landing where you are too low and slow for a ballistic rocket deployed parachute to land you safety but too high for even airbags and crash rated seats to keep your G loads under 50Gs the edge of survivability 75G is LD50+ and 100G is LD100. If your engines die or your lose your power electronics for the E motors you die in coffins corner.
The FAA has not fully set the powered lift cert PART regs if they use the Help regs then it’s 40 hours flight time with an instructor for 20, 10 solo. The typical 40-20-10 of any PPL but it must be done in the Helo even if you already hold a PPL I would bet good money the FAA adds the powered lift too under CFR 14.61 which would be a full PPL at the 40-20-20 in the aircraft type to be operated.
Under the new Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) category under the MOSAIC coming in 2026 the weight limits for LSA are being removed as is the speed limits, but helos and vertical lift unless they change it are excluded from LSA specifically. LSA still requires 15 hours flight instruction time+ check rides and ground school and practical plus written exams. No night flights, one passenger only after 2026 and no IMC for weather other than VFR.
The only VTOL I would fly or fly in is either a helo or a gyrodyne. More so a gyrodyne because unlike a helo they are in full auto rotation from the moment they leave the ground and can return to a soft landing from any altitude and speed they are the ONLY aircraft that can do this helos cannot they also are the only aircraft that doesn’t have a dead mans zone on takeoff or landing the rotors are spun up before you do a zero / zero take off and in flight they never stop being at auto rotation speeds as they are unpowered in flight as is, if your engine dies in a gyrodyne you just settle down like under a parachute using the airflow already flowing upwards through the blades from the moment you left the ground. A gyrodyne fly by air flowing upwards through the rotor disk creating rotation and lift exactly opposite of a powered helicopter which must reverse the airflow in the rotors and then spin them up to auto rotation speed, and worse still for powered lift with small quad props the disk loading is so high they can never auto rotate at any speed they fall like a brick. Nope nope nope.
This is the way...
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/skyworks-aeronautics-evtol-gyrodyne/
Watch the videos they show zero / zero jump takeoffs and it’s always in auto rotation for landing by physics. You can cut your engine at will and drop to a soft zero / zero landing every time in fact to land you throttle back to idle and coast in that’s how you land a gyrodyne. As they say an aircraft so safe they would put their gramma in it. I agree it’s the only VTOL I would put my wife or myself or children in. Never ever a EVTOL I hold a PPL-H which I added years after I got my regular PPL and I still don’t like getting under the Jesus nut even with two engines and dual dog clutches for a single engine out capable helo.