JetPack Aviation speeds on with 2nd-gen flying motorcycle tests

https://newatlas.com ^ | January 26, 2022 | By Loz Blain

[Chode]

100%

[zeugma]

I WANT ONE!

[Paal Gulli]

Vertical takeoff and landing is an extremely power-hungry phase of flight, witness the fact that commercially-built low-end 2-seat helicopters have about 120-hp engines. But the 2-seat Piper J-3 Cub airplane has been available (and would indeed fly) with a 40-hp engine. Because a big wing moving through air only as fast as the a/c itself is going is a FAR MORE efficient way to create lift than a skinny little wing (AKA a "rotor") going several times faster (at the rotor tip) than the a/c itself is.

Which is exactly why all Soviet military helicopters had wheeled landing gear, so they could use STOL whenever they had the room for a running take-off or landing, allowing them to benefit from entering effective translational lift before leaving the ground, and never having to come to a hover on landing.

Speeding up horizontally and then tranlsating the momentum to vertical is also a key component of space flight. It's why most rockets leaving earth (including all of the Apollo moon shots) only fly vertically (sort of) until they get to a low earth "parking" orbit, then they speed up horizontally until their momentum ejects them from their orbital altitude and further into space (a Hohman transfer)

It's also how Burt Rutan won the 2004 Ansari X-Prize, using an airplane for a parasite launch vehicle that could take off horizontally and carry the rocket to an altitude where there was less gravity and less wind resistance before cutting it loose to fly vertically. Because wing-generated lift is far a more economical way to gain altitude than vertically-directed thrust created by a jet engine or rocket motor.

Aviation history is full of examples showing that you can rarely justify the expense and inefficiency of vertical take-off and landing unless there is no other option.

The less power you use to get off the ground, the safer and less expensive the flight tends to be. Which is why these things are rich men's toys and will never be the gateway to The Jetson's flying cars for everyman. At least until they invent micro-fusion reactor airplane engines

[Red Badger]

Anti-gravity...........it’s only 30 years away!...............

[shotgun]

a 747?

[Bigbrown]

You bet.

[jmcenanly]

This seems more like a small aircraft than a motorcycle. I would think that a flying motorcycle would be more like this.

via GIPHY

[martin_fierro]

Send FReepmail if you want on/off FMH list
The List of Ping Lists

Existential Stormtroopers

[BraveMan]

All the flying I’ve done on motorcycles has ended poorly.