Posted on 12/08/2025 5:20:10 PM PST by Brian Griffin
"King Salman International Airport (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)....covers roughly 57 square kilometers....Around 12 square kilometers have already been reserved for residential construction"
"Al Maktoum International Airport (Dubai World Central), Dubai, UAE...."
"The large-scale Dubai South development program envisions an integrated city with a population of more than one million people that will include housing, business clusters, logistics zones, and technology parks.
"According to estimates by analytical agencies, average annual housing price growth in Dubai South is expected to reach 15 to 20 percent in the coming years."
"Ho Chi Minh City’s existing airport handles more than 40 million passengers per year despite a design capacity of about 25 to 28 million."
"New Manila International Airport (Bulacan) is being built as a key element of the Philippine government’s long-term strategy to relieve the capital region and create a new transport and economic center north of Manila."
"The project includes the creation of an “aerotropolis” that will function as a full-scale urban cluster around the airport with office centers, technology parks, hotels, and residential districts."
This is exactly what we need around DFW landing on smaller than a football field length. You could plant a half dozen short strips to lay asphalt right next to existing taxiways and green space on DFW. Looking at the sat images there are at least six 500 meter plus grass areas next too existing taxiways parallel to the north south running triple runways so traffic flow is always in line and parallel never crossings. Love Field could host a single STOL strip just to the south and parallel to 13R/31L. Addison already has FBO ops , so does McKinney..these are the other local GA or executive airports all with FBO ops and could do TSA and point to point STOL and airtaxi to DFW or LOVE.
Dallas Executive Airport (RBD)
Fort Worth Meacham International (FTW)
Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance (AFW)
Arlington Municipal Airport (ARL)
Grand Prairie Airport (GPM)
Fort Worth Spinks Airport (FWS)
Rockwall Airport (RWF)
EVTOL have short range due to the battery only power supplies and they all have a coffin corner twice per flight. STOL aircraft can glide even with zero power.
The real advantage is this STOL is a gas turbine powered hybrid so it has all the power to weight of electric drive units and redundant motors and props but none of the range limitations.
“When it hits the market, it’ll carry a pilot and 3,000 lb (1,361 kg) of cargo, or nine passengers with luggage, distances up to 1,100 nautical miles (1,265 miles, 2,037 km) at a cruise speed around 200 mph (322 km/h).”
“you can use a runway smaller than a soccer pitch. Electra says it’ll operate from airfields as small as 300 x 100 ft (92 x 31 m). That’s one-tenth the size of a standard runway, “
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/electra-estol-9-billion-preorders/
The title is right they have now over 9 billion in pre-orders this STOL fundamentally changes the air transport landscape. It is exactly what FAA NEXTGEN is specifically designed to not only accommodate but optimize.
BRING IT!
Imagine being able to take an uber to a regional or better yet a dedicated STOL grass strip the size of a soccer field and then be taken directly to Austin area again landing on a tiny field right near your destination again uber or better yet a Cybertaxi or Robotaxi takes your directly to the front door. No TSA up the backsides no massive crowds it’s all semi private flights like JSX but better. The only thing better would be a gyrodyne that can do vertical landings and takeoffs from anywhere that has a 8:1 slope obstacle clearance path like a helo but twice as fast and twice the range.
A hybrid powered one of these. 1000+ miles range 200 mph or more and is licenced like a helo so it’s VFR and IFR minimums are way less than GA or type rated jets. Zero zero is possible with a helo not recommended but not illegal as long as the PIC believes it’s safe. Adding in modern synthetic vision with sub meter DGPS and enhanced vision via a HUD using thermal, SWIR, LIDAR, and or millimeter wave imaging and you really do have zero zero ops anywhere all the time even the densest dog is transparent to MMW and with a Cat III DGPS the autoland will put it down on the center stripe or center of the helicopter H in the LZ.
NEXTGEN is going to F’ing rock can’t wait.
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/skyworks-aeronautics-evtol-gyrodyne/
Wait for FAA NEXTGEN it’s optimized for point to point airtaxi type flights from small regional or small general aviation airports. With STOL coming to market very small STOL strips become viable under 100 yards long and 30 feet wide, no need for thick concrete , grass works so does gravel or basic squirt top asphalt. The aircraft have less wheel loading than a car so really any road could be used that’s at least 100 yards straight and no trees or power lines over it.
MEXTGEN is electronic flight plan filing, VFR and IFR, it also does ADS-B out&in , TCAS traffic avoidance, MODE-S, and UAT it’s fully automated for aircraft separations, clearances and vectors.
Having a STOL or gyrodyne you would Efile a flight plan for takeoff from a field or helo LZ then when you get the electronic clearance takeoff and fly the vectors out of controlled airspace which in nearly every city extends to the ground for big portions of the area due to proximity to existing airports. Once outside of class B,C,D you are either in VFR and free to fly class E on your own or if it’s IMC then you are flying IFR on your already filed flight plan to your primary airport,STOL port or Helo LZ all of which would have instrument procedures to be your primary in IMC.
No need to deal with large airports when EVTOL(aka uberair) , STOL or gyrodynes are in the market.
“Electra”
There’s 8 engines and propellers all along the wing.
The propellers thrust the air backward at high speed all along the wing to create tremendous lift.
,,, thanks Brian. My wife clocks into Nagi’s site.
That laser is FIRE!
Missiles are too expensive for FPV class drones and fiber optic drones are resistant to EM attacks and don’t need GPS either. 150KW burns most things including titanium and carbon fiber. Tungsten is too heavy to fly as armor. Maybe ceramics but pulse lasers can do plasma shockwave based kills.
Love it, its probably the only way to put up a protective bubble around a high value target.
“There’s 8 engines and propellers all along the wing.
The propellers thrust the air backward at high speed all along the wing to create tremendous lift.”
Since the entire wing is in prop wash they could take a page out of history and tilt the wing, making a full on tilt wing with redundant motors and twin power supplies or triple redundant power inverters you don’t need mechanical connections between all the props like past tiltwings and also tilt rotors need otherwise they flip over if you lose an engine on one side of the wing or the other. With a tilt wing you can change the lift and thrust vector to be vertical with enough prop wash lift and prop thrust a t 45+ degrees up angle the sum force vector is straight up and vertical take off is possible. You would lose pitch control unless you put a 9th rotor just behind the tail mounted horizontally so with variable pitch it can work as a lever arm to pitch the fuselage , roll is by differential power output on each wing and yaw is by the ailerons which in a near vertical orientation have yaw vectors not just roll. The computer compensates for the residual roll component with again differential power to the motors.
This is the system was used by the Canadians on their tilt wing plane that flew to US aircraft carrier for COD testing, including the horizontal rotor on the tail it was stopped in flight and was stowed fore aft so no drag.
You would.go from 90m takeoff to zero and have hover ability too. Range would take a hit because you take off and hover at 100% power ripping through fuel. Still you could go back to STOL mode and get all the range back it’s an option for when you need to drop into a helipad or ship deck.
The perfect nightmare: Living at an airport.
The fees from the airlines for the federal trust fund that hands out grants for building airports has not kept up with the construction demands for airports. It’s been backed up recently by the “general fund” - the treasury, hitting the treasury for $400 million in both 2020 and 2021 and $554 million in 2022.
This looks like a winner for personal sized VTOL.
https://interestingengineering.com/photo-story/janus-i-foldable-suitcase-aircraft#slide-1
Gas turbine powered, tandem rotors so no tail. 3x3 meter landing zone. It’s downwash would be small as all downwash is proportional to both disk loading and gross mass both of which would be small for a under 270kg gross mass.
5 gal of fuel for 30 min at top speed is 160kmh or 100mph is 10gph about what a Cessna 172 burns...it’s the turbine eating the fuel up small turbines are hideously inefficient while great for power to weight. You known what is great for power to weight...rotary engines they have near gas turbine level P/W but otto or better yet diesel level BSFC half of a full sized turbine of equal HP and nearly 1/3 a small single stage turbine.
This thing should fly with 100hp for a 1hp/2.5 kg typical of tandem rotor helicopter systems. Rotary engines can do 2hp per lb of mass Mazda got that and NASA got 4.8hp/lb with its direct injection aircraft version’s. That’s spot on for the 5-6hp/lb for gas turbines and the NASA version running on JP4 was half the turbine BSFC per HP.
It’s 5 gal limit is to keep it legal for unlicensed ultralight aircraft rules in China and the USA. With 200kg of lift fuel is 6.7lb per gal or 3.02kg/gal assuming a 180lb man = 81kg you have 119 kg for more fuel if you forget part 103 and move to LSA even before MOSAIC rules now about to be in full effect. 119kg is 40 gals more fuel.
Now we are talking real flight times. With a air cooled, charge cooled direct injection rotary not a turbine half the burn rate so 5 gph and 45 gallons total fuel under LSA weight limits not part 103. Any PPL-H or LSA plus MOSAIC vtol cert could fly the heavy version. 45 gal is 9 hours endurance at 5gph save 45 min for reserves and you have a solid 8.25hr flight range cruise was 62mph at somewhat less than 5gph with the turbine figure 3 gph at 62mph with a rotary engine. Potential for 700 mile range with reserves is there that’s a long time to be out under rotor wash. More realistically is swap in the better rotary keep it at 10 gallons or so for LSA and have a 200 mile day tripper vtol setup.
Even with low disk loading the noise of these would make them a no go for residential suburban area’s but for exurban 5-10 acre homesteads now it gets interesting. Every municipality in North Texas has ordinances against helos landing or taking off from anywhere other than FAA certified and city approved helipads this is to keep the upper class from chartering large yard pick ups. You need a special permit for an event for helo ops to a field or parking lot other than LEO, fire and air ambulance of course the alphabet bois are exempt and city goons too.
Again for homestead and rural treks looks like a winner all $280,000 of it.
I would want to use. Rotary driving a axial flux generator then two direct drive axial flux motors driving the rotors no mechanical anything in a fail safe config. There is no 90 degree mechanical transmissions,no drive shaft between the rotors and no reduction gear box. You lose power the rotors are already on auto rotation and unless the single bearings lock up on the axial flux motors single moving part it will turn just as easy power off as power on there is no dog clutches or clutch at all everyone is fail safe from moment zero. Axial flux motors beat mechanical anything by a factor of ten or more in power to weight.
Motors like this bad boy 8kg for 300hp nothing mechanical can touch that NOTHING. Any triple phase motors is also by physics a generator of equal power and mass. No need for large inverters if you are driving triple phase axial flux motors from a identical triple phase axial flux generator you only need simple resistors or triacs to vary power transfer. Direct drive motors into swash plate controlled solid non-pivoted composite rotors. They must be not flapping non pivot rigid rotors if they overlap and are not geared together otherwise you must intemesh them via a cross shaft and gears for syno so they don’t collide.
https://newatlas.com/aircraft/evolito-axial-flux-aircraft-motors/
Hum this company has patented a zero zero recovery system like the Russians use for dropping BMPs out of cargo jets with crews in them sometimes. ...retro rockets right before impact. SpaceX and Boeing both wanted to land capsules under retros and no chutes, NASA said nope nope nope , Boeing still uses airbags and retros under their chutes for land based landings , the Russians do the same with Soyuz landings too.
https://www.advanced-blast.com/avcp-2/
Zero/zero survivability is going to be the only way the FAA let’s EVTOLs fly paying passengers and over congested area’s too. Good to see the tech has been worked out. 50kg out of 2000 is small enough to mandate it on every part 135 operating VTOL not just EVTOL all of them.
Helos, gyros and gyrodynes can autorotate in but if the Jesus nut falls in all three or your transmission locks up in a helo you are having a bad day. GRS has the solution for that it’s a rocket propelled ballistic parachute with a slip ring , combine that with the retro rocket pack and that nifty ballon ring 1 second airbag like chute plus skid airbags and you survive even a Jesus nut failure.
https://www.galaxysky.cz/gyro-amp-helicopters-s65-en
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