Dubai Police Get Hoverbikes (mashable.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Mashable: The Dubai police, which already has luxury patrol cars, self-driving pursuit drones, and a robot officer, just announced it will soon have officers buzzing around on hoverbikes, which look like an early version of the speeder bikes used by the scout troopers on Endor in Return of the Jedi. The force (see what I did there?) unveiled its new Hoversurf Scorpion craft at the Gitex Technology Week conference, according to UAE English language publication Gulf News. The police force will use the hoverbike for emergency response scenarios, giving officers the ability to zoom over congested traffic conditions by taking to the air... The Scorpion can also fly autonomously for almost four miles at a time for other emergencies.
The fully-electric hoverbike stays aloft for about 25 minutes per charge at a top speed around 43 mph.

Gulf News also reported that Dubai police "unveiled robotic vehicles which will be equipped with biometric software to scan for wanted criminals and undesirable elements."

Comments

Re:Can be taken out by EMP

[Mr D from 63]

A well timed and well placed EMP would probably be a very painful experience for whomever was riding the hoverbike at the time.

As would contact with one of those open blades.

The video is long on fluff and short on any actual flying. Clearly, a long way from practical use.

Must be a joke

[markdavis]

>"giving officers the ability to zoom over congested traffic conditions by taking to the air...

Insanely unsafe to have that thing go OVER cars and people. 4 unprotected rotors? One operator error or equipment malfunction and it can chop people or things to bits or just fall out of the air like a 500 pound rock.

>"The fully-electric hoverbike stays aloft for about 25 minutes per charge"

And then you have to get back to the charger, so that is an outward range of what, 12.5 miles?? And it probably can only carry a single person with minimal equipment, right?

Is this a joke?

Let's put on my controls engineer hat

[RightwingNutjob]

This thing sucks. With the guy sitting up above the plane of the rotor (or hanging down below), the moment of inertia is about as high as it gets, meaning the control authority of the rotors is lower. At the same time, sitting up that high, the lever arm for the aerodynamic force from wind disturbances catching the rider are maximized. Side-to-side the baseline between the rotors is lower than front-to-back. That's why you see him wobble side-to-side when he flew down the parking lot.

These statements generally hold true for all aircraft, which is why larger aircraft are "safer" from a wind gust perspective than smaller aircraft. So what we've got here is something that's pretty bad from a stability perspective being pitched for an application where agility is necessary and the wind gust environment around them skyscrapers in the desert is potentially quite severe.

More money than brains.