Slashdot Mirror
The End of Solotrek
bobetov writes "For those of us fed up with gravity and gridlock, the Solotrek XFV personal VTOL aircraft has been the real IT. A Segway is a nice scooter and all, but this thing can fly. But it all comes down to dollars in the end, and, with a recent test-flight accident and a missed milestone, Trek Aerospace is calling it quits."
Why does it always seem like it's the most worthwhile projects that are forced to come to an end by lack of funding? Who decides that these endeavors aren't important enough? Humanity in general is held back by large corporations that edge out the smaller and perhaps more innovative smaller companies (after all, you have to start somewhere, so new ideas are destined to start small). Sure would have been nice to have one of those...
It all comes down to math and physics. Anyone who doesn't think so will get killed by those who know it.
Yeah, solotrek was pretty crappy.
However the flying cars are coming along nicely, thanks. You should be able to buy one in about 4 years. That is if you aren't connected to the military or something so you don't have to worry about FAA paperwork - in that case possibly only a few months.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Can I see your invention?
Oh I'm sorry you dont have one?, I mistook your ranting for 'Don't give your money to things that might work but we wont know unless they're given money'.
Besides, how would you feel if you cut a project that was technologically advanced but your short-sightedness thought that it could never work and gave it to another country who then had a technological advantage? America is reknowned for doing such things.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
>What benefit would a personal flying machine have?
Umm, ariel urban combat perhaps?
>Are we trying to increase the death rate?
Only of the enemy.
>how the hell could you fire a weapon etc. with no hands?
HUD with a weapons system control on one of the sticks. This is like asking how a pilot can use the stick and fire a weapon at the same time.
Nitpicking aside, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the strap-on helicopter concept, but just because SoloTrek can't do it doesn't mean its necessarily a bad idea.
Apparently you've never flown a twin-prop puddle-jumper. Sure there's a window between you and the propeller ... but should one of those things unleash ... 10mm of plastic isn't going to do much for you.
... I agree that this thing would be deadly if it had ever gone into mass production.
On the other hand
I'm confussed, are you anti-american or anti-american tax money going to research?
This reads like one of the many trolls here, and I'll hand it to ya, it's so well written even I'm responding. Let me go through point by point, this I'm sure we'll both enjoy.
1) $5,100,000 is chump change for R&D. When you get out into the real world you will be amazed how much money is getting thrown around to study the amount of time it takes for Ketchup to be poured out of a bottle. (I'm not making this up, there really was a federal grant provided to a research project like this.)
2) This is just insane. If you hate americans, why don't you want us killing ourselves with our personal aircrafts? You know I bet the % of american auto acidents in personal vechicles vs commercial/public transportation is about 90% to. Doesn't mean we're not going to drive to work tommarow. You give us personal helicopters and we'll be flying them drunk, I assure you. We got places to go people to see and your % doesn't mean a good goddamn to the impressive profit you'd see selling a personal aircraft like this.
But wait, I know... that's just the evil american capitalist in me. Argh I am such a friggen infadel! Would someone blow me up already?
3) This is also insane, wtf was I thinking when I called this well written. Nevermind, I must have been looking at something else entirely. This 3rd argument makes it pretty obvious you didn't even read the story and are making shit up as you go.
Pick your favorite, Steven King/Hawking Dead at 55, or the ever present "Fucking Americans all you care about is __________ when there are people starving in the world!". Personally I like the trolls that argue over which one Steven should be trolled about being dead.(common trolls where's your solidarity?)
"the civilian consumer pricing for SoloTrek XFV should be similar to that of a very high-end sports car."
Are we talking British/Italian high-end? As in very very six figure? Judging from the looks of the thing, I would appraise it at maybe $25,000, and that's only because I work in the car business and know how cheap a $25000 car really is.
vs. the Moller Skycar starting at half a mil (price of a Mclaren F1) and dropping over years to ~60k (price of a Cadillac Escalade).
So the two "vehicles" are about the same price, while one seems to vie for Segway marketshare- and looks flimsier- while the other looks like it came out of Star Wars and seeks to obsolete the Interstates. Given the difference in function and appearance, I think its obvious why one lost funding.
That and who wants to do any sustained flying in an unenclosed vehicle flying too low for a parachute to be effective?
If they could use them in some of the current roles of expensive to operate police or search helicopters, 5 million would be chump change.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I am a student pilot and I know the time and commitment that it takes to learn how to fly.
The "powered lift" products like this and the mollar sky car use computer control to vastly simplify flying. Controls dont really need to be much more complex than "go up, go down, turn left, turn right" if the computer controls the power as well as control surfaces.
Today small aircrafts are just now starting to adopt "FADEC" to reduce three knobs on the dashboard just to control power, to only one. Big deal. FADEC systems are similar to the engine computer that your 10 year old car has.
Due to the threat of product liability lawsuits, it is very hard to get investment dollars for any type of new aircraft or flight critical system, let alone something as radical as this.
In Aviation, change happens slowly, oh so slowly. Personal VTOL will happen, but maybe not during my lifetime.
The development of the tank was plagued with setbacks and the original inventors were brushed off by the american war office, only to be adopted by the brits.
Even then, the program really didn't get started until after a lot of patriotic young men were were killed on the fields of the first world war.
If we believe the website (especially the third link in the slashdot article) then the solotrek flew, there are two prototypes capable of controlled hover (one of which is slightly damaged in a test flight accident due to a problem with the test rig and not the vehicle) and all of it is available for cash.
If there is a real need for a single occupant exosuit flyer (for instance, making insertions into urban areas and avoiding the whole black hawk down kinda scenario) then somebody will fund it.
Whether its the EU, some asian power who has engineers who work for nothing or Somebody Else.
If the next developer waits until after the solotrek team scatters, then the resulting machine will not be a solotrek. But then again a Panzer is not the tank envisiged by the engineers at the Holt Company USA either.