Half car, half helo
 

Well, it's interesting. Could it have a market, and will this half-helo and half-car thing ever fly in the UK?


https://bepegasus.com/

There’s little point to this machine, other than as a design exercise. It would not comply with type approval regulations for road use so having flown an underperforming helicopter to a suitable landing site, a separate car would still be needed to complete the journey. Just like with every other helicopter already in use.

How fast can you go on the ground, before the front blade folds up?
I thought helicopters hate traveling by road, all those bumps and vibration from the road damages the mast bearings in static mode.

With the state of the roads in the UK at the moment it wouldn't last two minutes!

Like most of these ‘flash in the pan’ creations, whilst claiming to be both, it’s actually neither Arthur nor Martha.

Most of these vehicles seem to be neither car nor aircraft. And they need a licenced pilot, not just a car driver, to be flown. This excludes most of the huge car driver population. Flight operations in many countries are legally limited to airports or airfields where you could rent both a proper aircraft or car whenever the need arises. Just revving up the rotor to escape your traffic jam like in your dreams doesn't seem to work in real life.

https://www.designboom.com/technolog...ve-06-16-2017/

I've seen those on the road and in the air, so why not a helicopter? But it's not a real car, maybe a scooter with a roof would describe it more accurately.

Once on the road it will need an overhanging load warning sign fixed to the rotor - and I can just imagine it turning a street corner in a town centre and sticking the rotor through a shop window.

Already existing:

https://www.pal-v.com/en

It looks like it's no longer than the average transit van, so cornering shouldn't be an issue. As for certification and licensing for use in the air, would it, or need it, be any different to an autogyro? Certification for road use could be more problematic and, I imagine that getting joint certification would result in normal civil service rivalry and therefore never happen.

I am thinking of emergency services. An 80kg pilot gives a payload of 21kg, a defib unit, various drugs, and bits and pieces for use in remote areas that a normal ambulance would struggle to get to and would arrive before an air ambulance can attend. Again, this depends on costs but maybe based at small remote clinics.

I've said this about 'flying cars' - but it applies equally to 'helo cars'.
The needs of a good car and something that flies are dramatically different and fundamentally incompatible. You can build a good car, or you can build a good airplane/helo. But as soon as you try to combine them, you're going to end up with something that is so horribly compromised that it's going to suck at both being a car and an aircraft - and something costs as much as a good car and good aircraft combined...

Transit with a very long ladder on the roof -

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d42812afdd.jpg

Top ground speed of 25 mph? Just use the prop! As to certification, here in the US of A three wheels is a motorcycle, which is WAY easier to certify, as all the bumper height, impact, etc. do not apply. Will this ever be a thing? Nope.

I saw this thing on the ground at the Avalon Airshow and it looked impressive and stuff, but for a long time I have had this 'vision' that any kind of 'compact' air / road vehicle able to be used to 'commute' or used around population centres and around people often would have some kind of ducted powerplant to dramatically increase safety but I understand such systems are very inefficient compared to open-air rotors / props. The Lithium design seems to be a good approach but it has those big wings.

I imagine an airframe-mounted parachute or some kind of pop-out airbag balloon could provide a degree of safety in the case of an engine failure but would increase the weight too much. (In the movie Blade Runner 2049 the Spinner had some kind of burst of air to cushion the touchdown at the last moment which was interesting.)

The other thing is flying it... I've thought by this time we could implement a flight control system which is essentially an autopilot, or dare I say some kind of AI, which keeps the aircraft stable at all times for you, and simply does for you what you command it to do.

Imagine the peak/rush hour with hundreds of these things buzzing around all trying to get there first! What a clusterfvk that would be. Throw in some bad weather or the darkness of night and it will get real messy real quickly.

You only have to look at the road toll or the newly qualified private pilot toll to realise that this will never happen on a large scale and very few people that would buy these vehicles would be bothered to get a commercial licence or do any sort of training.

I remember as a kid, 60+ years ago, there was talk then about flying cars to relieve road congestion. Ha! It ain't happened yet.

Cheers,
BH.

Tagline from the website; ".... VOTL Flying Car ....." (sic).

Hope they are more successful getting their components in the right order, than their acronyms.