remember the e-volo? the multicopter that caught our attention about two and half years ago? (apparently, the original prove of concept was dubbed as a VC1). well, it has evolved, or rather the company behind has came up with another awesome way of taking to sky and it sure is a whole lot safer and less intimidating to the pilot, and oh, it seats two now. billed as the world’s first green helicopter, the Volocopter VC200, as it is called, is a completely new take of the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) manned aircraft and like its predecessor, lift comes from multiple electric motors and in this instance, it has eighteen of them (and thus qualifies it as a multicopter). one of the goal of the Volocopter is make flying a little less perplexing and due to the use of separate electric motors for lift, it is simpler to construct and is also deem safer as the multi-rotor setup will allow the aircraft to land safely even if some of the drives fail.
the Volocopter aims to be available to private pilot license holders in German to fly in “near future”, though there is no timeline of when it will actually be available. the eventual aircraft will carry two, cruise up to at least 54 knots (100 km/h or 62 mph) and has a ceiling of 6,500 feet (1,980 meters). it will have a payload of 450 kilograms (992 pounds) tops and aims to offer over an hour of flight time per charge. as we have read, it currently offers only 20 minutes, which sounds more like my RC helicopter for now, but i am sure they will get there soon. check out an indoor test flight video after the break to see it in action, erhmm, try to ignore the noise made by remote helicopter that’s taking the aerial shot.
e-volo via The Awesomer
