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 […]
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 […]
Here’s one way to prove the airworthiness of a personal electric aerial vehicle, aka eVTOL: a race. Tomasz Patan’s other company, Jetson, has just achieved another milestone with its Jetson ONE eVTOL—pulling off the world’s first manned eVTOL race. For those not in the know, Jetson ONE is more of […]
If you haven’t already heard, Amazon’s new air delivery drone took flight last December—and no, it’s not here to spy on your barbecue. The MK30, which was first unveiled back in October 2023, is now buzzing around the West Valley of Arizona’s Phoenix metro area, dropping off packages like some […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
This is Roadrunner-M by military hardware maker Auduril. It is a variant of the Anduril Roadrunner Twin-Turbojet VTOL Autonomous Air Vehicle. The Roadrunner here has nothing to do with the road, though. It is a reusable, VTOL, operator-supervised Autonomous Air Vehicle powered by Twin-Turbojet and boasts modular payload configurations allowing […]
We have seen many firefighting hardware here. There are rocket launchers and drones to fight high-rise fires, a jet engines-powered fire-fighting tank (yes, a tank!), and robotic firefighters – just to name a few. Now meet a firefighter that descends from the sky. I know. Dropping fire suppressant from up […]