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Bellwether's gorgeous Volar eVTOL begins flight testing at half-scale
https://newatlas.com ^ | December 30, 2021 | By Loz Blain

Posted on 01/03/2022 12:36:14 PM PST by Red Badger

The Bellwether Volar: a flying hypercar for private ownersBellwether Industries VIEW 13 IMAGES

The UK's Bellwether Industries has built and flown a half-scale prototype of its stunning Volar eVTOL, and is preparing to release footage. It's the most brazenly futuristic design we've ever seen, a flying hypercar for a utopia even sci-fi doesn't dare dream up.

I mean, look at the thing. It looks like it's doing 200 miles an hour sitting still. The lines are graceful, even sensual. The profile razor-sharp. The slanted louvers give it a rib cage and warn of frightening velocities. The stubby vee of the tailfins evokes the threat of a fighter jet, but the layered bodywork and its sumptuous, gleaming finish tell us this is a design of peace, hope and ambition.

This is a design to stir the imagination and the passions. You can picture it knifing into a cloud bank, leaving gently swirling vortices of vapor as the only calling card of its silent visit. You can see it gently touching down on an impossibly high-rise vertipad, its sleek glass roof retracting to let a lady and a gentleman out, dressed for the opera and right on time.

A stunningly-designed flying supercar for a sophisticated and genteel utopian future A stunningly-designed flying supercar for a sophisticated and genteel utopian futureBellwether Industries It's not only the most beautiful eVTOL concept we've ever seen, it might be the most beautiful we're likely to see for a long time. So take one last magical gaze through the image gallery before we look any closer, eh?

(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Outdoors; Sports; Travel
KEYWORDS: hype
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To: Flick Lives

It’s a Cylon Raider from Battle Star Galactica.


41 posted on 01/03/2022 3:27:54 PM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: Red Badger

📌


42 posted on 01/03/2022 3:28:09 PM PST by Varsity Flight ( "War by the prophesies set before you." I Timothy 1:18)
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To: Yossarian

from the article.
This from the article.
“We love a beautiful design as much as anyone, but the Bellwether Volar is so long on style and so short on substance that we’ve gotta call it like we see it: a designer’s wet dream and an engineer’s sticky problem. When flight footage of the half-size prototype, flying untethered, drops in January, we may learn more and change our tune, but if it turns out to be a big quadcopter with a pretty shell on it, it’ll be hard to get too excited.”


So, right now it’s just a RC Model. I like the idea and I’m glad they keep trying. I don’t know why they’re insisting on fans and ducted fans. I suppose they’d rather carry batteries for fans than fuel for jet power.


43 posted on 01/03/2022 3:30:23 PM PST by Samurai_Jack (This is not about hypocrisy, this is about hierarchy!)
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To: Red Badger

Somebody was busy with a thesaurus. That said, it looks pretty sweet.


44 posted on 01/03/2022 4:00:32 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
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To: GingisK
The rest of us will be on horseback by the time it goes on the market.

Nope, we'll be reduced to eating our horses by then.

45 posted on 01/03/2022 4:01:53 PM PST by PAR35
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To: Organic Panic

I need to figure out who makes long extension cords. Should be a good stock play for all these magical electrical planes.


46 posted on 01/03/2022 4:06:37 PM PST by PAR35
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To: PAR35

At least they’ll last longer than the turkey.


47 posted on 01/03/2022 4:10:21 PM PST by GingisK
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To: PAR35

Swing them from extension cord to extension cord like Tarzan


48 posted on 01/03/2022 5:15:30 PM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: Organic Panic

OK, here’s the plan. Get old C-130s. Put a generator and extra fuel tank in the cargo bay. Run electrical cords from pylons like the fuel pylons on the KC-130. Then refuel these electric planes mid-air.

Let’s get a federal grant for this.


49 posted on 01/03/2022 5:31:30 PM PST by PAR35
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To: Noumenon
"Flying an aircraft is one of the most no-bullshit things you can do."
Airplanes like the single engine Cessnas pretty much fly themselves. A bit like riding a 3D bike (if you don't run into weather).
50 posted on 01/03/2022 7:08:30 PM PST by Hiddigeigei ("Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish," said Dionysus - Euripides)
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To: Hiddigeigei

Agree wrt the smaller Cessnas. Still, if you don’t pay attention... nicest aircraft I ever got to fly was a Beech Bonanza. Had a lot of time in gliders. You only get one shot at landing.


51 posted on 01/03/2022 7:30:32 PM PST by Noumenon (Black American flag time. KTF)
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To: Noumenon

“Not everyone is cut out to fly. Gravity and physics are cruel masters who care not one whit about someone’s feelings.”

Very true. True even of ships, much less of flying cars.


52 posted on 01/03/2022 10:11:52 PM PST by dsc (Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans.)
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To: marktwain

“Only one autopilot needs to pass. Then it can be duplicated a million times.”

I don’t think that’s going to work even on surface vehicles.

Stand by for fiery death.


53 posted on 01/03/2022 10:24:33 PM PST by dsc (Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans.)
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To: dsc
I don’t think that’s going to work even on surface vehicles.

Surface vehicles are much harder.

Already working pretty well with military aircraft and drones.

Automated pilots don't get tired, automatically learn the entire lessons of the whole fleet, don't forget their lessons, and have much better sensors than humans do.

54 posted on 01/04/2022 1:47:57 AM PST by marktwain (Amazing people can read a persons entire personality and character from one photograph.)
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To: Red Badger

Only the very rich could afford an automobile before Henry Ford began mass-producing them. The real obstacle would be full self-serving in three dimensions. Vespasian having enough problems doing it on a road.


55 posted on 01/04/2022 2:08:03 AM PST by jmcenanly ("The more corrupt the state, the more laws." Tacitus, Publius Cornelius)
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To: EQAndyBuzz

eLECTRIC.......................


56 posted on 01/04/2022 5:10:09 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

57 posted on 01/04/2022 5:32:22 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (They call me mellow yellow)
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To: EQAndyBuzz
Is it a combustion engine or are they going electric?

Since the article says a 60 - 90 estimated flight time, my guess is that it will be electric

58 posted on 01/04/2022 5:35:15 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (They call me mellow yellow)
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To: Organic Panic

Whatever the current bugaboo of the times is, there will be those that will figure out a way to make money off it, doesn’t matter if it works, as long as people ‘believe’ in it.

Green Energy, Climate Change, Global Warming, Cancer, Covid-19, Air Pollution, Water Pollution, Sea Level Rising, Population explosion, whatever they can gin up fear against they can sell something to alleviate those fears.............................


59 posted on 01/04/2022 5:43:20 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Looks like a futuristic cop car. Maybe not Fifth Element but one of those types of movies.


60 posted on 01/04/2022 6:57:06 AM PST by Svartalfiar
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