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Old May 4th 18, 04:42 PM posted to rec.aviation.piloting
Larry Dighera
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Posts: 3,953
Default Surefly passenger drone performs first manned flight


https://newatlas.com/surefly-manned-flight/54487/

Surefly passenger drone performs first manned flight

Video: https://youtu.be/5yFZAPdYCck

Web: http://workhorse.com/surefly
70 mph top speed

Nick Lavars
12 hours ago
8 PICTURES

The flying taxi scene is now a bustling place, but some are moving
faster than others. Where some startups have taken years to move past
the prototype stage, others are launching right into things. Workhorse
first unveiled its Surefly flying car at the Paris Air Show in June
last year, and has now sent it into the air with a person inside for
the first time.

The Surefly passenger drone is designed to use a mix of diesel and
electricity to cover...

The flying taxi scene is now a bustling place, but some are moving
faster than others.

Workhorse first unveiled its Surefly flying car at the Paris Air Show
in June last year,...

Workhorse has a number of electric vehicles under development,
including electric pickup trucks and delivery vans that launch drones
from the roof to cover the last leg. The Surefly has to be the most
ambitious, however, designed to use a mix of diesel and electricity to
power eight contra-rotating propellors and carry up to 400 lb (180 kg)
over a range of approximately 70 mi ( 112 km).

Back in January, it received an Experimental Airworthiness Certificate
https://newatlas.com/workhorse-passe...one-ces/52815/ from the
Federal Aviation Administration, which enabled it to carry out
controlled test flights in the US. The company had expected to carry
out its first ever manned flights as part of a demonstration at CES
that month, but those plans were foiled by some mild drizzle that
posed a threat to the prototype aircraft's electrical systems.

There were no such obstacles as the Surefly lifted off outside of
Cincinnati recently, with Chief Operating Officer John Graber at the
controls. The video, it has to be said, is a little underwhelming,
with the aircraft only hovering a foot or so above the ground. But in
the field of aviation a first manned flight is certainly a noteworthy
milestone. Check it out below.
Electric Driven Props: 2 props per arm, contra rotating. Eight motors,
each driving a single propeller

-----
Piloted Vehicle designed to carry pilot and passenger or pilot and
cargo

Curb Weight: 1100lbs. Max Takeoff Weight: 1500lbs

Gasoline Piston Engine drives dual generators to provide power to prop
motors

Dual Lithium Battery Packs: 7.5kWh each, used for emergency landing
power (5 minutes) in the event the gasoline generator fails

Full computer and electrical system redundancy

Ballistic Parachute

Fuselage and props are carbon fiber for durability and light weight

70 mph top speed

One hour of flight time available per tank of gasoline

Flight ceiling of 4000 feet.

Fixed Prop Pitch and no transitional parts (No wings, tail, tilt rotor
or tilt wings) for simplicity and safety
--------------------------------------------------------------------

https://newatlas.com/dubai-police-hoverbikes/51767/

Dubai police to fly multirotor hoverbikes: What could possibly go
wrong?

Loz Blain
October 15th, 2017
4 PICTURES

Dubai Police are making plans for a drone division that will use
manned and unmanned airframes...

Dubai Police are making plans for a drone division that will use
manned and unmanned airframes for a variety of policing
purposes(Credit: Alexander Atamanov/Facebook)

VIEW GALLERY - 4 IMAGES

The magical kingdom of Dubai continues to cement its dual reputations
as both the world's most future-forward city, and the most desperate
for attention, with the announcement that it plans to add
quadcopter-style hoverbikes to its police fleet.

The police hoverbike was announced at GITEX, the biggest technology
expo in the gulf region. Under electric power, it can fly a pilot at
up to 70 km/h (43 mph) with a programmed maximum height of 5 meters
(16 ft). It'll also fly unmanned with a top speed closer to 100 km/h.
Range is in the 20-25 minute area, with recharge times around 3 hours
– but batteries are swappable to keep these things in the air if
necessary.

Let's make no bones about this; this is 100 percent a publicity stunt,
and probably quite a dangerous one. The hoverbikes in question are a
Russian design that we've covered before, the Hoversurf Scorpion 3.

Dubai Police are set to test prototype hoverbikes
You can read our full opinion on this airframe here
https://newatlas.com/hoversurf-scorp...tirotor/48019/
.. Suffice to say, at the time, we recommended the Scorpion mainly for
"aspiring amputees" due to the close proximity between spinning blades
and fleshy legs, but that's far from the biggest safety issue here.
There's a big difference between being risk-taking aviation pioneers
like the Hoversurf team, and deploying a barely-stable early prototype
into uncontrolled, public, urban airspace.

In most countries, it's currently illegal to fly sub-2kg consumer
grade camera drones like the DJI Mavic over a crowd, because the fact
is they sometimes drop out of the sky, and 2 kilograms with fast
spinning blades is already a huge liability if it lands on somebody's
head from any kind of height.

The idea of flying these hoverbikes, in the embryonic state this tech
is in, with their max flight load of 300 kilograms and two-foot
spinning propellers, over traffic or anywhere near people for fast
response crime fighting … It's so vastly irresponsible that it's hard
to believe a police force would have anything to do with it.

In an interview at GITEX with Gulf News
http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/governm...bike-1.2103894
, a Dubai Police representative pointed out that the initial deal is
for prototype hoverbikes for further testing, with the department
making plans for a drone division that will use manned and unmanned
airframes for a variety of policing purposes.

I suspect we'll see some more very public demo flights around Dubai,
over roped-off areas, and then these things will go in the same dusty
shed as the firefighting jetpacks we've heard so little about since
their launch back in January. Then the people that take these kinds of
vehicles seriously can get on with the job of developing them into
safe, reliable and realistic transport options, while Dubai pounces
upon the next piece of ostentatious, out-there tech to flash about way
before it's ready.

Here's some video of the Hoversurf Scorpion in flight, in its Dubai
Police livery. https://youtu.be/aivvwBM5h_Y