Slashdot Mirror
Roadable, Vertical-Takeoff Aircraft Is Eager To Hit the Battlefield
Zothecula writes "When someone mentions flying cars, it conjures up images of a sporty little number that takes to the air like something out of the Jetsons. But what about one that's a cross between a 4x4, an octocopter, and a blackhawk helicopter? That's what Advanced Tactics of El Segundo, California is seeing with its ambitions to produce a roadable VTOL aircraft capable of unmanned autonomous operations as a more flexible way to recover casualties, move supplies, and support special forces."
Your flying minivan isn't going to Afghanistan, sorry kid.
Quick impressions:
first of all it's so butt ugly that nobody is going to keep a crosshair on it for long: good.
I also notice that the rear wheels denote a higher load than the front wheels, either it's the engine department, or, more likely, a young official have invited another of the opposite sex there, eager to test "some aspects of the seating".
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Looks like it was put together by a bunch of grad students.
Our enemies may claim disdain for death, but — with our technology — we can beat them to pulp despite being soft-bellied wussies. And some of us aren't quite so soft-bellied either...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Why not take an existing - proven - helicopter platform and attach features that would make the aircraft "roadable"?
Most helicopters already have wheels & a steering mechanism. All they're missing is a small engine to drive the aircraft, upgraded suspension and a few other standard features that can probably be borrowed from an existing truck design.
Keeping eight engines up to spec per vehicle, sounds like one big headache
This is the first roadable aircraft that looks like it could work. No fancy linkages to have one motor run it all, or spiffy folding wings or anything that hasn't been created yet. This actually has demonstrated technologies behind it and looks like it's much further along that a pretty 3D rendering. Even if the UAV portion doesn't work, this application could be useful in more than just the battlefield. This could be used for civilian medivac or other urgent situation where a suitable landing location is easily accessible.
All the speed, agility and quite of a large, fully-laden truck combined with speed, agility and quiet of a large, fully-laden helio...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
and 3D print it in my living room with a Makerbot? It's the future.
Change this to use dual, counter-rotating ducted fans around the perimeter, aerodynamicize the shape, and you've got the Moller Air-Car!
Well, except that this one appears to be something that could actually become airborne in the foreseeable future.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
..its a drone on PEDs!
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
I stopped reading not too far in when I encountered this little gem of stupidity; The trouble is, helicopters can only land in nice, big open areas that can be miles from where they're needed..
Um, not quite. Military helicopter pilots are trained to land in spaces much smaller than you might think possible. Military helicopters are also equipped with winches - they don't need to land.
This is an extreme example - but it should give you the general idea. Sadly, the video is missing the most interesting part - the helicopter flying blind and *backwards* out of the narrow part of the canyon.
If you need to drop off your kids in a hurry.
From the article:
The trouble is, helicopters can only land in nice, big open areas that can be miles from where they're needed.
Helicopters can land in quite small spaces, not to mention that for many medivac scenarios they don't have to land at all but can hoist the injured with a winch instead. is the landing area argument really valid?
If the priority is evacuating injured soldiers from the front line, I would be concerned about this vehicle's ability to navigate narrow roads. We have a lot of warfare taking place in urban environments and your evacuation technology is only as good as its ability to get out of a given situation.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
El Segundo? I once found a wallet there!
For the life of me I can't imagine any situation where a VTOL would need to be roadable. Maybe for Taco Bell?
I'm thinking mauve. Definitely mauve. All leather interiors too. Because, freedom!
These mish-mash flying cars always offer nothing but the worst of both worlds. This thing, like other similar concepts in the past, is not robust enough to make a proper ground vehicle. This is worse because it's intended to go off-road and needs to be armored. But it's inescapable that those two aspects will be compromised to ensure it can get airborne. And the compromises go in both directions, because as an aircraft it will be slow and clumsy.
What does purpose does this thing even serve that isn't already better filled by a helicopter? If a ground vehicle is necessary for a mission there are already numerous ways to deliver and retrieve them using a variety of aircraft. I also recall reading that someone is working on a sort of airframe that mates up to an armored vehicle for transport and separates upon delivery. That seems like a far smarter idea than this.
And since when is "roadable" a word? It always comes off as a pathetic attempt to legitimize a concept; the idea that something is so new and so awesome they had to make up a new term.
... please stop making words up... AMERICANS...
Leverage is not a verb either.
Hey, I think I've probably as much experience behind the stick as the article's author. Therefore, I can speak on this subject with internet levels of authority. In my experience, if you don't have a big, open area to land, you've just got to tell your crew to bail out and then do so yourself. The helo generally has enough momentum to avoid landing on you and all you need to do is deploy your parachute and you'll land safely.
At that point, you've destroyed your ride but a new one will spawn at base. The important thing is that you've gotten your guys to the objective safely, which is stupid hard to do if you try to land any aircraft. As a matter of fact, flying anything should be avoided. Given this fact, it's easy to see why an aircraft you can drive would be useful.
Matching a naturally slowing moving, low agile ground system (it's a large brick) to a naturally unstable, lots of moving parts flight system.
I'm in!
(There's a reason by single bladed copters are still the best choice... they are naturally stable).
It's NOT more flexible, except in hairball wacko scenarios that never happen in reality.
A UH-60 or a OH-6 have better range, better speed, much better maneuverability, and either higher cargo capacity or radically more nimble. And saying these things could be used as a UAV is completely brain-dead - they're so slow and vulnerable that they'd never survive in a hostile environment. At least helicopters have the speed and maneuverability for quick insert and retrieval missions.
And if you think helicopters have high maintenance requirements, and are vulnerable to ground fire, that's nothing compared to what this beast will need/be vulnerable to. All they are is a SUV-sized target.
Every scenario I can possibly think of (including those listed) is more effectively performed at a lower overall price (because you have to factor in losses) by existing helicopters, UAVs, and ground transport.
This is the modern version of steampunk - looks cool, completely practically worthless.
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
OK it's not April 1st, so....
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I see 8 turbines on a vehicle about the size of a large pickup truck. I'm guessing its range might be length of a football field...
A child of the V-22 Osprey with horrible birth defects.
away the stench of a dying republic.
This is pretty much the future of where helicopter technology is going to go, I think. Eight small propellers are way cheaper and simpler than one huge complex rotor system. The main downside is no autorotation in the case of engine failure (maybe a back-up parachute will be the solution).
Also the eight engines will probably be replaced by a single or pair of turbines driving generators and then eight small motors will used to drive the propellers/rotors. That reduces complexity and allows the rotors to be controlled electrically/electronically for precise control.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
And people say that the military industrial complex wastes money..
Fuck war, fuck the people that start wars.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.