Industry
A Battery! A Battery! Our Kingdoms for a Battery.
Monty Python famously sought the Holy Grail (a vessel from Arthurian legend thought to provide eternal youth or happiness). Shakespeare’s Richard III would have traded his crown and kingdom if someone would just give him a horse to win the battle at Bosworth Field. And today’s VTOL manufacturers, well, who’s to say what they would…
Israel’s Urban Aeronautics
If Moses had a fleet of CityHawks or FalconXPs from Israeli flying car developer and manufacturer, Urban Aeronautics roughly 4,000 years ago, his conversation with the Pharoah might’ve been completely different. Instead of, “Let my people go,” it might’ve been, “We’re going. Goodbye!” Urban Aeronautics, Israel’s entry into the flying car industry, has taken a…
Japan’s Timeline for Flying Cars
Japan is looking to commercialize flying vehicles in the 2020s. Cartivator, a Japanese nonprofit, plans to kick things off by lighting the torch at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games with SkyDrive, its road/air quadrotor craft that uses drone technology. In pursuit of its ambitious goal, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry recently recruited 21…
‘Take Off Here’ Dallas Tells VTOLs
There’s the old saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” To be sure, the people running the City of Dallas are no fools. They are quick learners, in fact. “Look at electric scooters. They’re here. They’re everywhere,” says Dallas Director of Transportation, Michael Rogers. “We were still trying to…
So You Wanna Build a Flying Car
Orville and Wilbur should’ve been so lucky. The Wright Brothers, famous for being the first to put a sustainable ‘flying machine’ in the sky had but a few years of high school education. Now, as an extension of decades of college and university-based aviation-related engineering education, would-be flying car designers can avail themselves of a…
US Army Recruits VTOLs for the Frontline
When it comes to surprising your adversaries on the battlefield, silence is golden. As are the logistical advantages offered by an aircraft that requires no runway. Which is why the US Army Research Laboratory (US ARL) is working with Uber and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin to develop to develop silent rotor…