Remember the Eurocopter X³? It broke the record in 2013, achieving a mind-blowing 255 knots (472 km/h) with its unique hybrid configuration. The program was momentarily paused when Eurocopter rebranded to Airbus Helicopters in 2014. Then, in 2017, the Racer—which stands for Rapid And Cost-Effective Rotorcraft—a direct evolution of the […]
This vehicle here which flies and drives is called the Switchblade. But don’t worry—Miles Mayhem’s V.E.N.O.M. isn’t behind it. The company responsible is a U.S.-based aerospace startup called Samson Sky. While it shares the same name as Mayhem’s ride of choice, the Samson Sky Switchblade isn’t a VTOL that turns […]
The concept of a VTOL with fixed-wing airplane flight is not new. Hell, even a cartoon like M.A.S.K. had this concept with the Switchblade. Meanwhile, in real life, VTOLs with fixed-wing flight have proven to be costly to develop, as demonstrated by the V-22 Osprey. Where it used to take […]
Who needs traditional runways when you can have a flying machine that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like a plane? Enter AutoFlight, a trailblazer in eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) technology, which just achieved a historic milestone with its first successful flight in Japan. Taking to the […]
American aircraft manufacturer, Sikorsky, best known for its helicopters, is working on a unique unmanned VTOL aircraft for DARPA. This is no ordinary VTOL—it is a novel vertical takeoff and landing uncrewed aerial system with a twin proprotor ‘rotor blown wing’ configuration that sits on its tail to take off […]
As far as commercial jet goes, the aerospace industry is going through a shake-up phase. There is a couple of companies working to revive supersonic air travel and then there was the KLM and Delft University of Technology’s proposal of a Flying V fuselage jet, the most radical design change […]
The iF Product Design Award 2024 winners have been recently announced, and among the 2,294 iF award recipients from 10,800 submissions, a UAV piqued our interest. It’s the new Shadow S3 from Chinese UAV maker Ziyan, designed for law enforcement, security, and various commercial applications. Just a recap, Ziyan is […]
It has always been mankind’s dream to shave travel time. Humankind achieved that at some point but the sonic boom created by the Concorde proved too much when it flew over land. That, and safety-related issues – among others – ended supersonic travel.
What you see here is AirFish, a wing-in-ground craft by ST Engineering AirX, a joint venture of ST Engineering and Peluca (formerly Wigetworks). The young JV works to continue to build on Wigetworks’ AirFish family of Wing-in-Ground craft.
If you did not already noticed, except for a handful, almost all so-called urban air mobility is based on quadcopter or multicopter VTOL which are essentially person-size drones. But recently we stumbled upon a company that took an entirely differently direction; an urban air mobility that is based on today’s […]
Supernal LLC, Hyundai Motor Group’s high-flying division, just showed off their latest sky-skipping toy, the S-A2, at CES 2024. This electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle is like a magic carpet for the modern age, designed to zip people around cities faster than you can say “Up, up, and […]