The inventor and physicist Thomas Sankel created an internet sensation with his first and only spied, a spider -proof -off -concept flight of October 2011, in which 16 router helicopters are known as multi -copy 1. Long -term plans to go 100 % battery power.
The new design demands 1.8 meters, 0.5kg of carbon fiber blades, each is folded with a motor. They are ready around one center in two concentrated circles above one or two personal cockpit.
After a Landberg Prize for Innovation of the Wulcopeter Concept in April, Yulnaka Wolf, executive director of the Charles A and Ann Moor Landberg Foundation, acknowledged the idea of the first multi -blade helicopter that the first “nut” appeared. However, looking beyond the appearance of the novel, she says, the concept of e -valve is beyond safety, energy efficiency and simplicity, which were the rewards bases.
These three attributes thank the removal of Evulo’s classic helicopter elements on a large scale. First, the high -powered high -powered mass router, transmission, tail boom and tail rotor ended. A common helicopter cabin produces many blade lifts above the cabin, but they wear advanced tension on the craft. And the small tail router, standing vertically on the back of the cabin, prevents the helicopter body from rotating in the opposite direction like the central blade, but it also eats about 30 % of the helicopter strength.
Vulcopter’s multiple router blades do not individually make the torque that produces the same big router, and they offer spare for safety. The aircraft’s co -invention car and lead Construction Engineer Sankel, the lead Construction Engineer, says, as a fictitious, Volcopter can fly with some to 12 working routers, unless those routers were cluster with each other on one side.
Without the famous two prop confession, it would be mild, which would make it more fuel effective and reduce the physical complexity of power supply above a single engine and from the back blade. Nor will the Wulcopeter need an energy -stricken transmission. In fact, “there will be no mechanical connection between gas engines and blades,” Sankel says. This means low energy loss points and safety more more spare.
The e -valve design eliminates dependence on the same source of power on the blades. As a serial hybrid vehicle, there will be a gas fuel engine in the vulcopter, in which case an engine is capable of producing 50 to 75 kW, which is like a very light aircraft. Instead of running the routers mechanically, the engine will charge the power to the power motors as well as the ship on lithium batteries. If it fails, batteries are expected to provide enough backup power so that the craft can land control.
While the helicopter and the tail rotor change the pitch of the blade, the wolcopter plan will depend on changing the speed of individual rotors. Although more complicated, but controlling a craft is more precise that three to six useless microorkers (fails one or more) to translate instructions from a pilot that include game console – such as Joyce Stick – Roder Pedals, using a control stick and a throttle.
Wolf’s first impression about the Wulcopeter design is not trivial. Under the blades, a shining white, carbon fiber and fiber glass craft’s e -valve computer dynamic promotional videos remember many wings flying machines at the end of the 19th century. This point is not lost on a cenkel.
“I understand the opinion of these skeptics,” he says. “The concept of design looks like a blender. But we’re really making a safe flying machine.”
This will be progress in itself. Multi -Copter 1 looked like something from McGur, especially from the IFFY episode, which was complete with a landing gear, which included a silver yoga ball. The riders on the cenkel are sitting among all the routers that only run through lithium batteries. Multi -Copter 1 produced an average of 20 kW to shake and was very high for just a few minutes.
One of the reasons is that the experimental craftsmanship is shortly and only once. Sankel describes the first deer as “sticking and worsening together”. Sitting on the same platform like spinning blades, he says, “I was aware of the fact that I would die, may be. In addition, we showed that this concept works. If we fly it twice, what do we win?” He asks the rhetoric.
In addition to keeping the pilot under the blade, the modified vulcopter design will work extensively like an early prototype. Sankel says the design calls for three to six useless aclameters and gastroescopes to measure the position and familiarity of the Vulcopter, which produces an opinion loop that stabilizes the craft and makes it easier to fly.
The revised prototype can begin with the next spring. It is expected that the first production model, which is probably available in three years, is expected to fly at least one hour speed at 100 km per hour and at least 2,000 meters, which is still about 3,000 meters from the general operating height of the standard helicopter. Sankel added, “It can change our lives, but I don’t expect any like this for 10 years.”
“It is easy to understand the idea that,” says Carl Kahn, a managing director of the electric drive system and its related components, said, “Most technology needed to build the Wulcopeter is already available.
Like the Sankel, Kahn also has little to -term expectations despite repeated emphasis on the standard of technology involved. “I guess evilo will have a (prototype) aircraft in three years that can work-that it will take one or two people from one point to another.”
The biggest quick boundaries appear to be regulatory. For example, European aviation regulators consider any power system more than 60 volts as high voltage and such a system is more aggressive. As a result, the Vulcopter will work under this doorstep. According to the Sankel, this craft will also need to weigh more than 450kg to stay in the ultra -light category, which is similar to the less government aviation regulations.
The Landburg Foundation’s Wolf says the organization’s judges found that e -valve was “more than 50 percent of success, or they did not give them the Innovation Award.” Asked if she would be in line to fly someday, she says, “I believe it seems very compelled me.”
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