London-based startup AltoVolo is aiming high with its entry in the developing eVTOL space. It plans to offer a powerful personal hybrid-electric aircraft that will seat three people, deliver 510 miles (821 km) of range, and hit cruise speeds up of to 220 mph (354 km/h) – all while making 80% less noise than a helicopter.
Any aircraft that can’t glide or autorotate is an aircraft I don’t ever want to step into
With that ducted fan layout, would it even be controllable with an engine out? Seems difficult/impossible to keep the CG inside the triangle of the engines.
AltoVolo says it’s done with prototype flight testing, and is gearing up to build a full-scale demonstrator next.
Why don’t they show those instead of the renders?
Because we’ve been building “flying cars” for 70 years with nothing to show for it other than prototypes. Or in this instance not even that - a render.
The idea is too sweet and the investor money from the gullible too ready to flow so we rehash it every decade or so, ignoring physics and logic.
They’re just helicopters. That’s what the flying car design converges to, at least if you need a pilot. And I think those will be required for a while longer.
Yes - but here the words “flying car” do a lot of heavy lifting.
They feed people some expectations about an techno utopia as well as operating costs, availability, complexity, range, noise, maintenance none of which match reality.
It’s a hybrid electric?
I think hydrogen fuel cell
