That'll be a pretty dismal future until battery/fuel-cell technology improves by a couple of orders of magnitude. Give it 30 years and just maybe.

Maiden flight of the e-volo project:

Revolutionary green helicopter makes maiden flight | Vertical Magazine - The Pulse of the Helicopter Industry


skadi

Looks like things have progressed - first manned flight!!
 

The first manned flight of the Volocopter has just taken place. D-MYVC can be seen in this video piloted by the CEO of Volocopter:




Fascinating - will be interested to read the views of all the aero engineers out there as to the future prospects of this. Good video.:D
2Sticks

Impressive lift off......can't wait to see it Auto ��

An interesting video. However, I think it still only has a 20 minute endurance and a 55 kt cruise speed so there's a long way to go before it has much commercial use as a manned vehicle concept.

The company states that it will still fly in the event that a number of rotors fail, but the number isn't stated, although they do also say that it's fitted with a parachute.

Reminds me of another 'distributed lift' project from a few years back, which had some interesting potential (and which could have sent tinfoil prices skyrocketing). Never saw a single mention of it in the press, but a conceptual image does exist on the web:

http://www.ernstgamper.ch/images/dma_2.jpg

I/C

It looks like a single sidestick to control 4 axes - pitch, roll, yaw and vertical (collective).

Be interesting to see if the average joe can get a pure yaw or vertical movement without the natural movement of the hand and wrist bringing in some cross-coupling, with unwanted roll/pitch/whatever.

But this fella seems to do OK and even lets the stick go.

The use of Tethered uav and drones is being explored and results so far are encouraging. Power goes up the wire so fewer batteries needed.

I see a can of regulatory worms labeled manned, powered, tethered flight:)

Another can of worms, do regs cover a commercial, fare paying passenger flight, which is controlled via tether by pilot on the ground?

Enormous redundancy can be built in at a minimal penalty...

Mickjoebill

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Arthur Young was doing this stuff in the 1930's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur...r_M._Young.jpg

That is actually pretty impressive really. What is the power source, batteries I know, but how many, type, endurance etc?

He looked pretty relaxed stooging around at lethal levels on the first flight in an experimental aircraft.

Well done.

Ever since the idea of electrical power for cars became a serious proposition rather than speculation one thing keeps occurring to me and I think it may be relevant to the discussion here. Interchangeable modular batteries. The practicality of recharging associated with cars has always looked like a show-stopper to me. It's difficult enough to find anywhere to park, let alone with a recharging socket conveniently available. However the infrastructure for refuelling with petrol is ubiquitous. It's obviously a gross simplification but modular rechargable batteries which can be rapidly swapped would eliminate the problem to some extent. Of course getting agreement amongst manufacturers - whether of car or aircraft - for a common modular battery format is likely to be all but impossible.

skridlov: The idea exists since exactly 120 years now and was in service between 1910 and 1924 called GeVeCo. The biggest modern battery-swapping project Better Place went bankrupt in 2013. They erected 21 robotic swapping stations in Israel and 17 in Denmark.
Apparently Tesla Model S is also capable of battery swapping but only one swapping station was built and Tesla seems to have abandoned the project due to low demand and high costs compared to regular fast-charging.

For helicopters I think with today's battery technology, the way to go is gas turbine generated electricity. Buffer battery for peak loads / takeoff power. 5 minutes purely electric flying ability for emergency landing in case of engine failure. :ok:

DARPA just gave Aurora Flight Sciences $89 million to build a flight demonstrator of their Lightning Strike hybrid gas turbine/electric VTOL aircraft. The stated performance goals are 10,000-12,000 lbs GVW and 300-400 kts max speed. It uses a single 5600 shp AE1107C turboshaft engine (similar to the V-22's engine) to drive three generators.

A few years ago EADS was touting eCO2avia, a diesel-electric solution with two OPOC diesels charging two batteries via electric generators, and with electric motors driving the rotors. The concept, which was previously mentioned in the 'Electric Sikorsky' thread, had the potential to free designers from the traditional layout constraints of mechanical transmission helicopters:
The concept went 'quiet' shortly after its unveiling, though interestingly Airbus and Siemens just signed an agreement to cooperate on the field of hybrid electric propulsion systems.

I/C

Just make sure nobody/nothing cuts that wire bundle. :)

IFO
 

?New? Ideas about electric helicopters:

Identified-Flying-Object

Cheers SLB

Love the dreamer's pic of the Identified Flying Object "Landing in the streets" - no cars visible anywhere, the Object floating down between palm-lined footpaths, and hasn't yet deployed the landing struts at 10'agl.

That Object also needs special ground steps and boards to allow people to access the cabin - where will they be kept? Nice little cgi bit of mental m@stur... well, you get the idea.

A. Charlie: it appears to need two or three parking spots as compared to, say, a Fiat 500.

But you wouldn't park your Bambino on a pedestrian crossing, beside a "no parking" yellow line. But it's OK, no cop cars in sight.

That parachute might reduce their terminal velocity from 120kt to maybe 115.

Electrical powered helicopters - such as R44
 

What's the likely hood of electrically powered helicopters becoming a reality for GA and Commercial operations?
I see from this article that 'Tier 1 Engineering' is making some inroads https://www.tier1engineering.com/news/093016