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Now this looks interesting... (Jetson 1)

Which again puzzles me with this board. Why must every aircraft conceivable be reduced to a means of transportation from A to B of human bodies?

It is because EuroGA is full of smart people. And when smart people see something which looks like a stupid engineering idea, they ask questions. Google for “black hat” – example.

Black Hat: “the Judge’s Hat”
This hat is about being cautious and assessing risks. You employ critical judgment and explain exactly why you have concerns.

That’s the right personality for a pilot who is good at the job, enjoys it, and lives to die of something other than crashing.

Most of the other hat types work in Sales and Marketing Then you need a Black Hat to sort out the mess…

Pilot personality threads.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Actually, I think there might be a business case for this thing. Not as a transport vehcile, but exactly as a fun thing to race in the forest or some other secluded space. I believe most ATV-s, scooters and snowmobiles are used mostly for fun,not for transport (if we exclude lapland etc).. Nobody would get a PPL(H) for it.. Then again,there are flying things under 500ft- paraplanes..

EETU, Estonia

@Ivark, I think you’ve identified the market… in the US the ATV and off road four wheeler market is huge, with e.g. lots of people loading up trailers behind RVs to spend their weekends playing in the desert. This would fit right into that scene. It looks like a fun toy, at least as fun as the 1000 HP rear engined off road vehicle one of my coworkers just finished building

Apparently they’re making 12 of them in 2022 at $92K each and I note half were bought for shipment from Sweden to the US. It apparently weighs 190 lbs which would put it within FAA Part 103, which requires no FAA registration or pilot certificate.

Personally, I wouldn’t fly it any higher than I was interested in falling!

Last Edited by Silvaire at 28 Nov 15:14

Mooney_Driver wrote:

The company claims that in the case of one of 8 engines failing, the device can land safely.

Given the current design, the most likely failure mode is not one engine going out due to technical issues, but 2 propellers disintegrating due to contact with a house, tree, child, etc. So the question is what happens if both engines on one corner quit.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

The main question for a device like this is off airport operations.

Even w/o flying, in all European countries it is not allowed to operate a vehicle in public, that has 2 1.5m razor blades on each corner that shred everything in its range. Even as a car this device can not be operated in public in Europe – and I doubt it can in the US

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Elsewhere it might be beyond cool.

Sure: If your backyard is big enough to have fun with it.

Germany

ivark wrote:

. Not as a transport vehcile, but exactly as a fun thing to race in the forest or some other secluded space.

I fear that was how Roy Halladay used his Icon A5. A well known German aviation journalist was killed about 2 years ago when he flew his autogyro in similar style. So I fear the death rate will be worse than 1950s formula 1 :-(

After all you can also fly that way with a real helicopter but somehow this did not become a popular weekend sport.


www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Actually, I think there might be a business case for this thing. Not as a transport vehcile, but exactly as a fun thing to race in the forest or some other secluded space. I believe most ATV-s, scooters and snowmobiles are used mostly for fun,not for transport

Or a combination of fun and transport. Actually, I’d love to get one to fly to my airfield, plug it in while I fly my ‘real’ aircraft and vice versa. That would make it a really satisfying flying day!

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

LeSving wrote:

Why must every aircraft conceivable be reduced to a means of transportation from A to B of human bodies?

of course you can just use it as this guy in the video did. But look at it one other way:

Often enough a workplace is close distance wise but not transport wise. Heck, even I can daydream to fly this thing from my house in a 2 minute trip to my work station (not that the airport would allow that, but one can dream). To get there the “regular” way is an almost 1 hour exercise on a bad day, 40 on a good. (Drive to airport,park, get keys for airside, go airside, drive north). Yea, I could have fun flying that thing right where I need it.
Or even commute to my “old” home 33 nm air distance, while driving takes the better part of one hour and is a pita. Both places have backyards plenty enough for this air-bike.

Malibuflyer wrote:

Even w/o flying, in all European countries it is not allowed to operate a vehicle in public, that has 2 1.5m razor blades on each corner that shred everything in its range.

I suppose they could easily enough add prop guards. Even my 15$ Wish purchased drone has them, detachable. That should take care of most of this problem. But I agree, this would be one of my major concerns with this design, both for the pilot and for anything/one getting too close while you operate it.

Then again there are other projects out there which are similar in principle, some of them German.
This one does not have guards either.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

With a lot more endurance this could be a nice tool for a helicopter cowboy.

EDQH, Germany

It might be useful to spend a weekend at e.g. Glamis to see what people do “in public”. Some of these guys spend $200K on their motor home and $150K on their sand rail, have a great time and there are hundreds of them there every weekend. As I implied before, I think the first guy who shows up at Glamis with a Jetson One to watch the scene from overhead might kick off significant demand This was a month ago.



Last Edited by Silvaire at 29 Nov 22:54

Silvaire wrote:

It might be useful to spend a weekend at e.g. Glamis to see what people do “in public”.

Mad Max pre-enactment.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
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