Posted on 07/05/2024 7:50:45 AM PDT by Red Badger
A road-going helicopter that handles like a go-kart and drives at highway speeds - Pegasus
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It drives at highway speeds, handles like a go-kart, transforms from drive to fly mode in three seconds, takes off vertically, and can fly for up to three hours on a hybrid powertrain. This remarkable road-going rotorcraft is now headed to the USA. Based in Melbourne, Australia – but clearly also with a presence in China – Pegasus is now moving its head office and production facilities to Las Vegas. The company says it's been working on its flying car design since 2009. Indeed, the project looks well advanced, and the company's naked early prototypes, first flown around 2016, have long since given way to the handsome, fully-enclosed Pegasus E, which made its debut in 2021.
Effectively, it's a small, single-seat helicopter with automatic quick-fold rotor blades, with a bare-bones open-wheel vehicle chassis grafted on, using carbon fiber rods. It's not precisely clear exactly where the electric part of the hybrid drive system comes in, but the combustion power appears to come from a lightweight, buzzy "Pegasus 800" two-stroke, making around 160 horsepower.
Before we get any further, you have to see this frankly insane "only in China" urban flight test footage, shot in what appears to be a deserted industrial estate.
(Excerpt) Read more at newatlas.com ...
Aviation Ping!.....................
That is just a lawsuit or murder charge waiting to happen.
Oh boy this is going to be great. /s
Australian video filmed in China with German music?
My first thought.
Oh goodness, what a failure. Wait until some pedestrian gets their head lopped off.
In part of the video, the tail rotor is turning counterclockwise (as seen from the left side), and later the tail rotor is turning clockwise (as seen from the left side).
Also the tail rotor seems to be turning at different speeds, somtimes very slowly, although this could be due to the effect of slow-motion video.
From what I’ve seen, the best way forward for “flying cars” that I’ve seen so far are those cylindrical propellers. They look almost like a small paddlewheel, only the vanes are movable. The vehicles I’ve seen with them mount four of these propellers, one at each corner. There are no exposed blade ends whirling around, so it’s not going to take someone’s head off if they’re inattentive.
This thing looks fun, but it’s really just a helicopter that can drive itself to the helipad. The “car” aspect is an afterthought.
I want one, but one built by, say, Honda. Something that will stay in the air when you want it to.
It’s the difference in frame speed vs eye speed.
It happens is Westerns when they show wagon, buggy and stage coach wheels seeming to turn backwards............
That appeared to be animation to me.
Since there’s no traffic congestion anymore, this isn’t much needed.
Stage coach wheels did the same trick in old Westerns.
Power. Lines.
Liability insurance might be a problem.............😏
And watched in America...................
Easily solved by placing placards or stickers on the vehicle. It’s not my fault they didn’t see/read/observe the warning.
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