Can it be armed with air to surface missiles and an m61 20 mm cannon?

If so I'd like it for home defense.

18 rotors AND a pusher motor? Well that's different.

Also, from their website:

The aim for the VC200 is a two-seater volocopter with the following aircraft
performance:

• a speed of over 54 kn (100 km/h)

• a minimum flight altitude of 6500 ft

• a take-off weight of 450 kg

• more than one hour flight time

I wonder if you can autorotate it in the event of a failure.

tried watching one of the videos from that site... ye godz that woman is TERRIBLE

PanicMan: 18 rotors AND a pusher motor? Well that's different.

Also, from their website:

The aim for the VC200 is a two-seater volocopter with the following aircraft
performance:

• a speed of over 54 kn (100 km/h)

• a minimum flight altitude of 6500 ft

• a take-off weight of 450 kg

• more than one hour flight time

Is it supposed to be a "flying car" type of thing or a "look at my new toy" kind of thing? 100km/hr is fine for my current 15 minute drive to work (would be about 3 minutes without traffic lights and stop signs) but it seems awfully slow for anything longer like hitting up my friends house 4 hours a way by car (flight time would ~equal drive time)

boondoggle?
noflyem?
lookedgoodonpaperbutnowthatweareactuallytryingtobuilditthisjustisn'tg o ingtoworkandhowdoweavoidgettingsuedbytheinvesters?

syrynxx: Neueweissaussiemlichdeutchesueberlichtfluegzeugdingemitachtdrehfluegel er of Ulm

Brought to you by H.P. Lovecraft

/ornothopter

Old_Chief_Scott: Electric? Really, Does it have a five mile range or something?

It uses regenerative braking.

lewismarktwo: I wonder if you can autorotate it in the event of a failure.

Don't think so. It appears to have the glide performance of a rounded brick.

According to their site, safety is addressed by redundant electrical systems - and a parachute.

Chupathingy?

Fizpez: Is it supposed to be a "flying car" type of thing or a "look at my new toy" kind of thing? 100km/hr is fine for my current 15 minute drive to work (would be about 3 minutes without traffic lights and stop signs) but it seems awfully slow for anything longer like hitting up my friends house 4 hours a way by car (flight time would ~equal drive time)

I don't know but those aren't demonstrated numbers they're just design specs. It's possible they won't even meet those.

Oh goodie. Because 8 engines on the B-52 just weren't enough, let's go with 18!

KingsleyZisou: syrynxx: Neueweissaussiemlichdeutchesueberlichtfluegzeugdingemitachtdrehfluegel er of Ulm

Brought to you by H.P. Lovecraft

/ornothopter

Then it should be named Ph'ngluimglw'nafhcthulhur'lyehwgah'naglfhtagn

Kinda catchy.

'Tis like an ornithopter, but with whirling wings!

Behold: We have created some useless shiat.

- e-volvo

What really surprises me is that there's actually a design team who spent real man-hours working on this... and got paid to produce this abomination.

Old_Chief_Scott:
I still don't see how they are going to get enough electrical power to lift the farking thing though.

If lithium batteries have enough oopmf to start a 787's engines, they can lift this bird. If they design it right, they might even get a bit of extra thrust, however fleeting, when the damn things catch fire.

RatOmeter: lewismarktwo: I wonder if you can autorotate it in the event of a failure.

Don't think so. It appears to have the glide performance of a rounded brick.

According to their site, safety is addressed by redundant electrical systems - and a parachute.

Auto-rotation doesn't do much for multi-rotors with rigid blades.
Electric motors are pretty reliable, more so if you've quadrupled up on them.

/I'd have thought a quad rotor rig would be plenty.
/But I would have swapped out the battery for a gas generator.

Flying chandelier.

Velocicoptor

Old_Chief_Scott: Actually, it makes a lot of sense to use individual motors for each rotor. It reduces the amount of complex shafting and transmissions found on a typical helicopter, and it would appear that directional and pitch control would simply be a matter of speed contol of individual rotors.

Not to mention redundancy.

PanicMan: 18 rotors AND a pusher motor? Well that's different.

Also, from their website:

The aim for the VC200 is a two-seater volocopter with the following aircraft
performance:

• a speed of over 54 kn (100 km/h)

• a minimum flight altitude of 6500 ft

• a take-off weight of 450 kg

• more than one hour flight time

I guess that's OK if you live in Vail or the Andes maybe, but what about us near sea level folks?

Chevello: PanicMan: 18 rotors AND a pusher motor? Well that's different.

Also, from their website:

The aim for the VC200 is a two-seater volocopter with the following aircraft
performance:

• a speed of over 54 kn (100 km/h)

• a minimum flight altitude of 6500 ft

• a take-off weight of 450 kg

• more than one hour flight time

I guess that's OK if you live in Vail or the Andes maybe, but what about us near sea level folks?

You'll have a few extra seconds before impact.

Terrible idea.
Terrible engineering exercise.

This "team" should be ashamed of themselves. At least Moller made his prototypes somewhat cool and feasible-looking.

Hmmm...wonder what investment capital he's chugging cack for these days.

Ohsh*tmobile?

way south: /I'd have thought a quad rotor rig would be plenty.
/But I would have swapped out the battery for a gas generator.

so, basicaly, an electric transmission?
The perfect transmission, exept for the weight... that's why it is oly used on ships, submarine, locomotives and the like. Too heavy for tanks.

On-Off: way south: /I'd have thought a quad rotor rig would be plenty.
/But I would have swapped out the battery for a gas generator.

so, basicaly, an electric transmission?
The perfect transmission, exept for the weight... that's why it is oly used on ships, submarine, locomotives and the like. Too heavy for tanks.

Hence why I'm not a millionaire flying-car inventor.
But the issue is reliability when using rotors as your only source of lift, and a mechanical transmission is problematic.
Electric motors are compact and reliable, you just need a better power source.
There isn't anything wrong with the German idea except the limitation of their battery.

/Mollers idea was to make compact gas motors and carry a dozen of them hooked up directly to fans.
/he had viable idea, but failed business model.

way south: There isn't anything wrong with the German idea except the limitation of their battery.

a lot of small fast spinning rotors have a far inferior efficiency compared to one big rotor with anticouple or two big rotor. This thing will always be far behind conventional helicopters no matter what progress in electric engines or battery are made.
Now, helicopters are the most demanding when it come to power/weight ratio of the power-source, and electric power is still far behind piston-engines...
Maybe a very expensive and dangerous toy to hop around your lawn, not much

Triebflugel II?