Australian-Built Hoverbike Prepares For Takeoff

Zothecula writes "Adventurous motorcyclists might be familiar with the thrill of getting airborne at the top of a rise, but the Hoverbike is set to take catching some air to a whole new level. With a 1170 cc 4-stroke engine delivering 80 kW driving two ducted propellers, the inventor of the Hoverbike, Chris Malloy, says with its high thrust to weight ratio, the Hoverbike should be able to reach an estimated height of more than 10,000 feet and reach an indicated airspeed of 150 knots (278 km/h or 173 mph). At the moment these are only theoretical figures as the Hoverbike hasn't been put through its paces yet, but Malloy has constructed a prototype Hoverbike and plans to conduct real world flight tests in a couple of months."

Comments

to clarify

[nimbius]

# Airspeed Vne - 150 KIAS (untested)
# Hover (out of ground effect) - >10,000ft (estimated)

seriously slashdot, theres a difference between actual news and pure backyard bullshit.
anyone with even the most remote fucking grasp of physics and flight
should be comfortable debunking his claims as a complete lie.
most commercial helicopters stall out at anything greater than 8000ft; most of the ones flying around my city stick to around 600-800 ft ceilings..
The CH-47 Chinook twin rotor helicopter is used by the USAF to rescue climbers
on Mount Denali (McKinley) in AK. It can reach an altitude in excess of 19000 to land at an elevation of around 18000.
The biggest problem at that point is restarting the engines,
so a special storage device directs pure oxygen into the engine inlet to restart.

the highest altitude helicopter currently in existence is the AS350. A pilot named Didier Delsalle of France landed it on the summit of Mount
Everest (8,850 meters) in 2005...and the record is entirely speculative/disputed.

finally, A blackhawk military helicopter with a 1700 horsepower engine still only goes ~190 kias.

Re:to clarify

[blair1q]

Is your average helicopter ducted? No? Then its aerodynamics are not the aerodynamic comparison you're looking for.

This thing is a lot lighter than your average helo, and the ducting makes it more efficient in generating downforce.

Which isn't to say its claim of 10 Kft isn't an unsupportable guess. Just that your arguments are not sufficient to refute it.

Re:to clarify

[modecx]

Because a UH-60 with a max takeoff weight of over 20,000lbs, and a sectional area of a school bus is at all comparable to a single-seater with a max takeoff weight of 600lbs.

In other news, scientists say a 600cc sportbike is faster than an unladen Freightliner tractor powered by a 600 horse Detroit Diesel. Who could have guessed.

Lack of backup

[bragr]

Airplanes have to ability to glide to an extent, helicopters can auto-rotate. I seriously doubt that the rotors on this are big enough to auto-rotate, or that the designer made the calculations necessarily in order to design something that can auto-rotate.

You could use a parachute but parachutes take time to deploy and slow your decent so while effective at higher altitudes, at lower altitudes, like say the altitude at which you would be herding cattle, an engine failure would leave you heading towards the ground without enough time to deploy the chute.

I'd fly this is there were 2 engines such that one engine could power both fans, and 1 engine had enough power to at least hover and make a safe decent. Even then, I'd still probably bring a parachute.