VTOL Concepts

Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation

by Paris Marx · 4 Jul 2022 · 295pp · 81,861 words

take on the flying car is, in truth, not a flying car at all. The vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, also known as a VTOL or an eVTOL for the electric version, is more akin to a helicopter, but instead of the large rotor on top, it typically has several smaller rotors

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much newer ones like Volocopter in Germany and EHang in China that were founded specifically to stake a claim in the VTOL market. While some of these companies certainly hoped VTOLs would become a mass-market product, such a vision was popularized not by either category of aircraft maker, but rather unsurprisingly

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to Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing. The company needed a new distraction from the growing issues with its core business, and it turned to eVTOLs. In October of that year, its Uber Elevate division released a white paper laying out its vision of the future of on-demand urban air

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impossible to believe without being brainwashed by the company’s slick marketing operation. A smarter, better, more efficient transportation system would not look to unproven eVTOL technology to become a new form of mass mobility when the streets below are already clogged with low-capacity vehicles, especially when the very company

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that can drive around on roads that were built and maintained with public funds and pull to the side to pick up a passenger, an eVTOL service would require a whole new infrastructure of landing pads and storage facilities. Beyond that, it would require an entirely new air traffic control system

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to ensure the eVTOLs buzzing around future cities do not crash into one another or some other object in the sky, such as a commercial, consumer, or police drone

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of the larger vision of the urban system within which it would exist.20 It followed a woman as she left work and boarded a VTOL to get home, and it had three features that stood out. First, the woman was not traveling from one part of a dense urban area

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her from the landing area to her single-family home. The urban form imagined in Uber’s future remained largely dependent on automobiles. Second, the VTOL itself only held the woman, three other passengers, and the pilot. For a mass transportation system, there would need to be a lot of them

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nowhere. Uber saw the urban air service as a partnership between itself and a number of other firms that could, for example, design Skyports, produce VTOLs, and manage the air traffic service. But ultimately, it was setting the terms and shaping the vision. The concept art and videos it released suggest

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limited its ability to solve any real problems, but unlike with its ride-hailing service, the company had a harder time fooling people with its VTOL plans. In 2019, Uber announced a service called Uber Copter that would ferry passengers between Manhattan and John F. Kennedy International Airport. While it used

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a helicopter instead of a VTOL, the company positioned it as the first step in its plan for urban air mobility. Yet it immediately showed the problems inherent in the company

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a mass transportation option, and it certainly will never make any difference to traffic congestion on city streets. In 2017, Musk made a dig at VTOLs while defending his tunnels as the superior form of “three dimensional” transportation. In a TED interview, he said, “if there are a whole bunch of

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the electronically tolled EZ-Pass ‘fast lane’ in the USA,” but the same could be said for visions of Boring Company tunnels or on-demand VTOL services.26 These new infrastructures promoted by Musk and Uber executives use egalitarian language to gain public support for a vision of mobility where the

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three-dimensional vs. two-dimensional, 145 train system, 218–9, 220 tunnels for, 144–51, 154–5, 158–9, 189 vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (VTOL/eVTOL), 152–5, 157, 158 walking as primary means of, 12 Trudeau, Justin, 79–80, 228 Trump, Donald, 78 Tsukuba Mechanical, 119 tunnels, for transportation, 144

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Act, 102 VaMoRs, 119 Vansintjan, Aaron, 222 Vasquez, Rafaela, 132, 135 Vélib’ bikeshare system, 210 venture capitalists, 186–7, 199 vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (VTOL/eVTOL), 152–5, 157, 158 Very Far Away from Anywhere Else (Le Guin), 202 Vietnam War, 39, 40, 43, 49 VoiceOver, 175 Volkswagen, 77, 78, 129

The Long History of the Future: Why Tomorrow's Technology Still Isn't Here

by Nicole Kobie · 3 Jul 2024 · 348pp · 119,358 words

apologies, this includes me too), desperately trying to avoid the dull confusing acronym favoured in the aerospace industry. Those in the field call such vehicles ‘VTOLs’, which stands for Vertical Take-Off and Landing, as that’s exactly what these vehicles do. Like a helicopter, they don’t need a runway

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, some also have wings for more efficient flight, hence the designs that look like the offspring between a chopper and a turbo-prop plane. But eVTOLs – the electric version, as batteries have spurred the recent boom in development – are just one design in a long line of so-called flying cars

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seem, is impossible – and he continued working, refining the design and creating a stabilisation system. In 1989, he flight-tested a two-seater, saucer-shaped VTOL with a circle of engines along the bottom. Videos of two test flights show it slowly rising off the ground, the grass beneath him ruffled

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by the engines, the aircraft wobbling in the air in an unreal manner. Moller flew the VTOL himself, well aware that technical difficulties – in particular, a known risk with the blades separating from the fans – could kill him. ‘I don’t think

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the Skycar M400, its four engines point at the ground for take-off before rotating into position to fly – a design that’s seen on eVTOLs today. Bright red and sporty, it certainly fits the sci-fi aesthetic, looking like a space plane for superheroes. The aim is for it to

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-era controls with digital components that are much easier to use, lighter and cheaper. Such technological leaps forward have made life easier for anyone developing VTOL-style personal flying machines now, as it’s like not having to invent the wheel to make cars. But Moller isn’t convinced by the

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current crop of eVTOLs – not even those developed by Joby Aviation, a company founded by his former employee JoeBen Bevirt – in particular, because he has doubts about battery-powered

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believed in the flying car dream, though have lacked the funding to get as far as Moller. In 1994, Ken Wernicke’s AirCar combined a VTOL with a roadworthy car, though it looked more like a retro space plane, and it never progressed beyond the model stage. In 1997, Steven Crow

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wings are in two parts, with the back half jointed and moveable, the wavy white chassis concealing dozens of engines. This is the magic of eVTOL: those engines point at the ground for take-off, pushing the jet into the air. To move forward, the engines transition in line with the

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-flying. Of course, we’re not in a city…the only thing that’s high density here is the groves of olive trees. And though eVTOLs like Lucy are slowly marching their way towards regulatory approval, ensuring urban dwellers and city authorities are happy with the electric whirring over their heads

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the latter. The aircraft themselves are nothing short of remarkable, pairing well-established flight principles with new technologies such as electric drivetrains and autonomy. A VTOL’s journey has two modes: take-off/landing and flight. Take-off is similar to a helicopter, where the spin of the rotors creates lift

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, the best of both worlds. No wonder the idea has appeal – and it does. The Centre for Future Transport and Cities at Coventry University tracks eVTOL aircraft concepts in a database. As of 2022, more than 500 concepts had been unveiled, though fewer than a third had yet to actually fly

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. Most of the designs Coventry tracks for urban air mobility (UAM – sorry, the industry loves these acronyms) are VTOLs that are electric- or hybrid-powered, seat fewer than 10 passengers and have a take-off mass of less than 3,175kg (700lb). But there

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the company’s test videos in February 2018 show the CEO taking a ride and living to tell the tale.8 The other category of eVTOL aircraft have wings, like the Lilium Jet, so can cruise like a plane – but only once they’re in the air. To get up there

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that provide forward propulsion also provide the lift, tilting at cruising altitude to change roles. This is what Lilium’s Jet and Joby Aviation’s eVTOL do. With independent thrust, there are two separate systems: one does the lifting, one does the forward flying – this is the system used by Wisk

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intercity flights or as airport-to-airport shuttles. But that’s a really loose rule of thumb. Undoubtedly, the reason behind the sudden surge in VTOL development is the addition of that ‘e’ for ‘electric’, though some of the companies are looking at hydrogen or hybrid designs. The development of electric

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drivetrains and significant improvements in battery technology made eVTOLs possible, while the impact of burning jet fuel on climate change is extra motivation to shift to more sustainable flight. When entirely electric, there are

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(540lb) of CO2 per passenger, while the same journey via train is about 22kg (50lb).10 A study in Nature suggested that not only could eVTOL be better for the environment than internal combustion cars, but also an improvement on electric cars, producing 52 per cent less emissions than the former

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and 6 per cent less than the latter. There are a few caveats, notably that for these calculations to hold true the eVTOLs need to fly at near-full capacity, while the benefits are only significant for trips above 35km (22 miles) with most car journeys seeing benefits

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at 480kg (1,060lb), but the Lilium craft’s total weight is 440kg (970lb). This is the reason why electric propulsion is being used for eVTOLs and not passenger planes – with today’s technology, the battery required for that would be massive and unwieldy. Lilium’s Wiegand believes that will change

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, but they’re not insurmountable. When the battery issue is solved, longer flights will be possible. While batteries may well be the challenge that grounds eVTOLs in the immediate future – no one wants to take a four-minute flight, after all – the non-technical hurdles, as ever, may prove the toughest

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to overcome. Before eVTOLs are offering passenger flights, they need to sort out regulation and certification, safety and perception, and build the necessary infrastructure, including air traffic control. Let

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safe. It wasn’t, and the ensuing two crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people. All new designs, which includes the vast majority of eVTOLs, need to be certified, and that comes after a multi-year process which allows regulators to examine every aspect from production to maintenance, including a

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if nothing goes wrong and everything runs perfectly. Delays aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but a sign of complexity. On the flip side, an eVTOL may be described as having regulatory approval, but that means different things: it could simply indicate that a company has won permission to test, to

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need approval to take to the sky: US startup ASKA also had to seek permission for its roadable aircraft to drive on public roads. * * * As eVTOLs are slowly flying towards certification, companies are popping up to build places for them to land, often referred to as ‘vertiports’. Uber’s app means

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urbanisation it’s easy to imagine such a setup becoming more commonplace. While helicopters – and some wingless eVTOL designs – can land in any relatively flat and clear space, that’s not true of all eVTOLs. As Hommet notes, the Lilium Jet can’t just plonk down in a field, as the jet

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in Coventry, England, a company called Urban-Air Port set up a trial vertiport next to the city’s railway station, letting visitors cosplay as eVTOL passengers, walking through security, waiting in the lounge and boarding a flight – all for aircraft that don’t really exist yet. Renders often show vertiports

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require structural strengthening since as they’re not designed for heavy loads, and will require access for passengers, perhaps requiring a dedicated lift. Indeed, as eVTOLs can take off much more vertically than a helicopter, they can in theory use much lower, more accessible launchpads, perhaps a multistorey parking garage or

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’t want to live by a noisy motorway or alongside rumbling train tracks. That said, eVTOLs should be quieter than a helicopter, in particular if they’re fully electric and use smaller rotors. Uber wants VTOLs to be half as loud as a medium-sized truck driving past your house. Lilium’s

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standard for much of the world, but not inside cities, nor between closely located cities. That’s largely because of cost. There’s little doubt eVTOLs will be cheaper than a personal private jet, but that’s not saying much, given those are hired by billionaires. There are two main visions

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business jet, or put differently, a flying corporate minibus. Lilium already has a partnership with private jet supplier NetJets for regional flights, so the early eVTOL customers may well be rich dudes getting from Miami airport to their favourite golf course. Wiegand is relaxed about that. ‘In the first two years

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one of these through the Grand Canyon, along the Cliffs of Moher or across the Manhattan skyline. Another company aimed to build a personal, roadable VTOL for anyone to use: Kitty Hawk. Founded by Sebastian Thrun, whom we met making driverless cars, with funding from Google co-founder Larry Page, this

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secretive startup built more than 100 different aircraft. They included the Flyer, a single-person eVTOL that was classified as an ultralight, so didn’t require a pilot’s licence to drive. In 2020 Kitty Hawk shelved Flyer in favour of

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and subsequent work schedule have led to him giving up his pilot’s licence as he lacks the time to fly. Realistically, in the beginning, eVTOLs won’t be for most of us. If the wealthy are taking to the skies to dodge traffic, where does that leave the rest of

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to the city pad for work if we can all do it, as then the roads would be clear to drive. But the technology powering eVTOLs could offer other benefits in the longer term. Even if never truly autonomous, handing over some of the controls to computers could make piloting much

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easier, while eVTOLs themselves will be much cheaper than helicopters – not to mention quieter. Consider air ambulances. Right now, those helicopters are expensive to buy, noisy to operate

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technology had to be invented from scratch, and it had been difficult to predict costs and to streamline the production,’ Günel writes. Just like hyperloops, eVTOLs and other new forms of transport, if you’re building now, you need mass transit systems that exist now. So, the PRT was cancelled, but

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, minimise harms and not be fooled by Silicon Valley lobbying or marketing – and voters literate enough to hold them accountable if they sell out. If eVTOLs aren’t safe or suitable for urban environments, they shouldn’t be allowed to hover over cities. If AI is harming people in the here

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-Demand Urban Air Transportation.’ Uber Elevate paper, October 27, 2016. https://biturl.top/IJbmM3 Ugwueze, Ostia; Statheros, Thomas; Bromfield, Michael A.; Horri, Nadjim. ‘Trends in eVTOL Aircraft Development: The Concepts, Enablers and Challenges.’ AIAA 2023–2096 Session: Advanced Air Mobility and Distributed Electric Propulsion II. Jan 19, 2023. https://doi.org

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– Starcar 4 here Theodore Hall and the ConvAirCar here, here Trajan Vuia – aeroplane-automobile (1902) here Vladimir Tatrinov – Aeromobile (1909) here Volocity – Volocopter here VTOLs and eVTOLs here, here, here Waldo Waterman inventions here Forbes Nash Jr, John here Ford, Henry here, here, here Ford Motor Company here, here, here Forest City

Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War

by Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff · 8 Jul 2024 · 272pp · 103,638 words

in a remote hippie community in Last Chance, California: a flying car. In techno-language, it’s called a battery-powered vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The cool factor was off the charts. Taylor and DIU offered to help Bevirt’s Joby Aviation by obtaining permission for the company to

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, the air taxi service that Uber had originated. In 2023, Joby Aviation introduced its first production vehicle, and announced a $131 million contract to provide eVTOL aircraft to the air force—making the U.S. military Joby’s first paying customer. Joby delivered its first aircraft in late 2023, and they

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small autonomous aircraft that could enable same-day shipping to every person on the planet. Merrill designed an electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL) called the Chaparral that can operate on its own, without a pilot, and carry up to three hundred pounds of cargo with a three-hundred

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-government-kickstart-air-mobility-revolution/. “We took an old remote site”: JoeBen Bevirt, interview with authors, June 28, 2023. $131 million contract to provide eVTOL aircraft: “Joby Delivers First eVTOL Aircraft to Edwards Air Force Base Ahead of Schedule,” Joby Aviation, September 25, 2023, https://www.jobyaviation.com/news/joby-delivers-first

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-evtol-edwards/. To see how bureaucratized technology development by the primes has become when compared with historical benchmarks, including the development of the SR-71 and

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provide five hundred units: “Elroy Air Unveils Its Chaparral, a First-of-Its-kind, Autonomous, Hybrid-Electric VTOL Cargo Aircraft,” Elroy Air, January 26, 2022, https://elroyair.com/company/news/press-releases/chaparral-autonomous-vtol-unveil/. Raj and Philip recognized that technology: Raj M. Shah, “Testimony of Mr. Raj M. Shah, Future

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–84 End of History and the Last Man, The (Fukuyama), 218, 237 ESL company, 84, 85 Esper, Mark, 154 EUCOM, 205 Evolv Technology, 117–18 eVTOL (electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing aircraft), ix, 3, 114–16, 181–84 aerial cargo options, 182–83 air taxi, 115 “dual-use” product, 115

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, 228–29 contract with Elroy Air, 183 counter-UAS systems lacking, 238 defense contractors and, 59–60 DIUx’s tanker refueling project, 54–59, 60 eVTOL aircraft, 116 Goldfein as chief of staff, x, 59–60 innovation and, 242 Kessel Run team, with Northrop Grumman, 67–70, 102, 132 Office of

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives

by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler · 28 Jan 2020 · 501pp · 114,888 words

per mile. Uber’s main interest is in “electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles”—or eVTOLs for short. eVTOLs are being developed by a plethora of companies, but Uber has very particular needs. For an eVTOL to qualify for their aerial ridesharing program, it must be able to carry one pilot and

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you to leap from northern San Diego to southern San Francisco in a single bound. Uber already has five partners who have committed to delivering eVTOLs that meet these specs, with another five or ten still to come. But the vehicles alone won’t make car ownership irrational. Uber has also

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more manageable lens, returning to our initial question about flying cars: Why now? To answer that, let’s examine the three basic requirements any Uber eVTOL will have to meet: safety, noise, and price. Helicopters, which are the closest model anyone has for a flying car, have been around for nearly

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equation, we’ve solved safety and noise, but price still requires a few more innovations. There’s also the not small issue of manufacturing enough eVTOLs for Uber’s program. To be able to meet Uber’s outsized demand at an affordable price would require suppliers to produce aircraft faster than

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internal feasibility study. See: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/will-you-be-able-to-afford-uberairs-flying-car-service/. For its 2020 launch: Ibid. eVTOLs are being developed: Ibid. They’ve also teamed up with: For a full breakdown of Uber’s partners, see: https://www.uber.com/us/en

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Start-Up, Might Be About to Change the Aviation World,” Drive, January 11, 2019, https://www.thedrive.com/tech/25914/beta-technologies-a-vermont-e-vtol-air-taxi-start-up-might-be-about-to-change-the-aviation-world. (Author note: Peter’s VC firm is an investor.) Turning Sick Care into

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, 203 Estonia, e-governance in, 234–35 Ethereum, 187 Etherisc, 187 Ethiopia, Negroponte’s self-teaching experiment in, 144–46 evolution, trajectory of, 258–59 eVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles), 6, 9–10, 11 see also flying cars Exceptional People (Goldin and Cameron), 237–38 existential risks, 230

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TripSense (Snapshot), 188 Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin, 249, 253 20th Century Fox, 137–38 Uber, 14, 19, 195–96, 234 autonomous car program of, 4 Uber Air: eVTOL requirements of, 6, 9–10, 11 long-term goals of, 5–6 Uber Eats, 196 Uber Elevate, flying car conference of, 3–4, 5 Ubimo

The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey

by Richard Whittle · 26 Apr 2010 · 616pp · 189,609 words

, counting the helicopter, there were sixteen categories of what experts by then were no longer calling convertiplanes but instead “VTOLs,” an acronym for Vertical Take Off and Landing, pronounced “VEE-talls.” A VTOL aircraft’s type depended on what method of propulsion was paired with what means of converting from vertical to

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tried to convert it. The U.S. and other militaries financed, and aircraft companies produced, dozens of other VTOL prototypes. Thousands more were designed but never built. In the 1990s, aerospace engineer and VTOL historian Michael J. Hirschberg refined a graphic of the various attempts that someone at the old McDonnell aircraft

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in the 1960s. The graphic, which can be found on the Internet, took the form of a “Wheel of Misfortune.” The wheel represented only those VTOLs actually built. There were forty-five, not including three dozen exotic helicopters Hirschberg later wished he’d included. When Hirschberg published his version of the

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wheel, only one of the VTOLs on it was still flying, and only two had ever gone into full production and service. One was the Soviet Yak-38 “Forger,” withdrawn from

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far removed from the passenger machines the true believers in the convertiplane had envisioned, and by the mid-1970s, engineers had concluded that building a VTOL passenger jet was impractical. For one thing, jet engines create thrust by accelerating a relatively small stream of air to high speeds, which requires burning

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, and fuel equal to the weight of the machine itself. As Bell engineer Ken Wernicke saw it, that ratio was the problem that stumped most VTOL aircraft designers. “A lot of these things have been able to lift themselves off the ground but they were so heavy they couldn’t carry

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landing ship and doing almost 200 knots as it flew like an airplane. Miller and his staff were intrigued. Miller was already a believer in VTOL aircraft, as people were calling convertiplanes by now. Back in 1968, when he was still a colonel working for General McCutcheon, Miller had been the

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single type of “VSTOL” aircraft. (The acronym VSTOL, pronounced “VEE-stall,” came into vogue with the Harrier jump jet as a more precise variation of VTOL. It means “vertical or short take off and landing.”) The Navy and Air Force both wanted new combat search-and-rescue aircraft. The Air Force

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Against that backdrop, the U.S. military: John P. Campbell, Vertical Takeoff & Landing Aircraft (New York: Macmillan, 1962). 34 In the 1990s, aerospace engineer and VTOL: Michael Hirschberg, interview; also www.vstol.org/wheel/wheel.htm. 36 The first had been destroyed: Martin D. Maisel, Demo J. Giulianetti, and Daniel C

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Applications: A Research Study,” Summary Final Report, (NASA CR 177452), Contract NAS2–12393, July 1987. 160 The FAA and the U.S. Department of Transportation: “VTOL Intercity Feasibility Study, June 1987, for The Port Authority of NY & NJ,” by Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, Inc., in association with J.A Nammack Associates, Inc

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XV-15 tiltrotor new aircraft desired by, 73, 89, 97, 103, 141 projected V-22 purchases of, 98, 138, 141–42, 161 size of, 53 VTOL designs funded by, 33–34 Army Department, U.S., 90, 102, 103, 137–42 Army Rangers, U.S., 60, 61, 64, 67 391 Aspin, Les

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conversion, methods of, 33, 35 Convertaplane, 20, 24, 25 convertiplanes, 10, 11–13, 16, 18, 20, 24–25, 31–38, 56–59, 107–8 as VTOL aircraft, 59 XV-3, 36–38, 48, 74, 116, 117 Conway, James, 373–74, 376 Copeland, Virginia, 50–51 Council for a Livable World, 312

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, 259, 274, 286, 313 size of, 53 Truman and, 55, 56 2001 target date of, 244, 248, 250, 258 vertical envelopment tactic of, 55, 56 VTOL aircraft desired by, 56–59 see also Iran hostage rescue mission; MOTT Marine Corps Birthday Balls, 52–53, 136 Mark, Hans, 144–45, 160 Marsh

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projected V-22 purchases of, 98, 159, 161, 245, 369, 394 600—ship, 84–85, 97 size of, 53 VSTOL aircraft desired by, 89–90 VTOL designs funded by, 33 Navy Annex, 71, 75 Navy Department, U.S., 15, 17, 54, 55, 71, 73, 83–85, 86–87, 90, 99, 138

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, 334, 336–39, 340, 342, 350, 351, 352–53, 356–59, 394 VSTOL (vertical or short take off and landing), 88–106 see also JVX VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) aircraft, 7–25, 31, 33–36, 56–59 aviation pioneers’ quest for, 8–25 capabilities of, 7–8, 9–10

The Great American Jet Pack: The Quest for the Ultimate Individual Lift Device

by Steve Lehto · 30 Apr 2013 · 283pp · 82,700 words

, it could be done, and it was. A vehicle that takes off vertically, like a helicopter, is described as vertical take-off and landing, or VTOL. The personal flight devices covered in this work are, for the most part, vertical take-off and landing devices. This attribute separates them from small

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airplanes and gliders, and makes them closer to the notion that one could simply step outside and take flight. VTOL vehicles do not require landing strips or airports. They just need a place to land and a view of the sky. To the average person

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permit him to fly.”12 In its 1959 report, Thiokol had proposed a variety of individual lift devices, each of which was “a man-mounted VTOL device.”13 There were three very different but related devices. The simplest, and the one for which the company would become known, was simply a

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interested in his invention and they agreed to buy one from him if he built it. The Ludion was a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) device like the rocket belts of Bell, but it had one major difference. Instead of being powered by hydrogen peroxide, it used isopropyl nitrate. Isopropyl

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, place the engine on the back of the unit, and provide it with a shock-absorbing skid.3 At this point, the unit shared the VTOL characteristics of the Bell Rocket Belt and little else. Although the Ludion would be powered by a chemical reaction, the fuel was vastly different from

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detailed description of the vehicle appeared in Flight in 1968. “In the same category as the Bell rocket-belt, the Ludion is a rocket-powered VTOL vehicle to lift a single man and his equipment, plus a payload of about 66 lb., over 600 yards at a height of 500-650

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design. In the advertising literature published by Martin, the jet pack was variously called “The World’s Easiest to Fly Helicopter,” “The World’s Safest VTOL Aircraft,” and “The easiest to fly Jetpack.”18 One of the obstacles to selling a ducted-fan lifting device was the matter of how they

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long as he can be dropped from an altitude to get going. He could launch it from level ground but it would not be a VTOL aircraft—the Jet-Cat engines he uses are not powerful enough to provide vertical liftoff.. He would need a runway and would have to use

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C., and Stuart, Joseph, III. “Vertical Take-Off Flying Platform.” US Patent 2,953,321. Filed February 27, 1956; issued September 20, 1960. Rogers, Mike. VTOL Military Research Aircraft. New York: Orion Books, 1989. Rossy, Yves. Correspondence with the author, April, August 2012. Rynin, N. A. Interplanetary Flight and Communication. Vol

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the engine’s rating as 44 horsepower. “Army Tests One-Man Helicopter,” U.S Army photo via AP Wirephoto December 29, 1955. 29. Mike Rogers, VTOL Military Research Aircraft (New York: Orion Books, 1989), 75. 30. “Army Tests One-Man Helicopter,” U.S Army photo via AP Wirephoto, December 29, 1955

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Trademark Office, 92, 131, 133, 160 US Transportation Security Administration (TSA), 143 V-1 Buzz bomb, 181 Verne, Jules, 1 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles, 2, 27, 63, 64, 162 Vertical Take-Off Flying Platform, 14–15 Von Braun, Werner, 19 Voss, Mark, 105–107

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VTOL. See vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles Vuono, Carl, 104 VZ-1 Flying Platform, 11–13 VZ-1E Flying Platform, 13–14 Walker, Texas Ranger (tv show), 141 Walker, Tommy

Tesla: Man Out of Time

by Margaret Cheney · 1 Jan 1981 · 478pp · 131,657 words

stove—in today’s technical literature the descendants of this craft (not to be confused with simple helicopters) are called vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (VTOL)—would not be filed until 1921 and 1927 and finally granted in 1928.7 This is believed to be the only invention patented by Tesla

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be ignored. Following the intriguing tests of the Convair and Lockheed machines, the international aerospace industry entered into a full-scale pursuit of the ideal VTOL design. Numerous ideas were tried, but by the beginning of the 1980s the favored design was of an aircraft which did not itself change attitude

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the Russian Yakovlev Yak-36—employ this principle. Plainly Tesla’s flivver-cum-flying stove was a far cry from today’s sophisticated, massively powerful VTOL’s. Indeed, conceived as it was decades before the advent of the jet engine, the flying stove could hardly have been otherwise. But as the

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Convair and Lockheed experiments of the 1950s suggest, the Teslian concept was an almost inevitable first step in true VTOL research. That Tesla should have hit upon this idea at a time when the enterprise of aviation was in its infancy is astonishing enough, but

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if we can credit the Yugoslav magazine Review, Tesla’s VTOL concept may even have anticipated the advent of powered flight. According to this generally respected publication, there is information in the Tesla papers in Belgrade

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indicating that Tesla’s first VTOL drawings, along with plans for rocket motors, were destroyed in the laboratory fire of 1895!8 The Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade contains, in addition

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, 13–14, 112, 205 Veragua, Duke and Duchess of, 100 Vibrations, 23–24, 152 See also Oscillators Viereck, George Sylvester, 299–300, 301 Voltaire, 39 VTOL aircraft, 251–53 Wait, James R., 177, 221–22, 349 Walker, James J., 275 Wall, T. F., 290 Wallace, Henry A., 319, 326, 332 Walter

Pump Six and Other Stories

by Paolo Bacigalupi · 15 Sep 2010 · 339pp · 100,075 words

what the Tibetan said. He had nothing in his pockets. He had a ratted wool blanket hidden in a Stone-Ailixin cardboard box, a broken VTOL Micro-Machine, and a moldering yellow woolen school hat. He had come from the green-terraced hills of the countryside with less than that. Already

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, a mud-brick home. More clearly, he remembered terrace-sculpted hills and running along those terraces. Playing in warm summer mud with a Micro-Machine VTOL in his hands while his parents labored in brown water around their ankles and green rice shoots sprouted up out of the muck. Later, he

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and unharvested, as he made his way out of his silent village. Under the cold instant-concrete shadows of the skyscrapers, he stroked his toy VTOL. The wings which folded up and down had broken off and were lost. He turned it over, looking at its die-cast steel frame. He

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, and then the door exploded inward. Splinters of wood flew about and shafts of light illuminated the dim room. Outside there was a whine of VTOLs and then there were bright lights lancing through the door, followed by the rapid thud of heavy boots. Wang Jun ducked instinctively as something seemed

…

rose as forms out of the mist, became distinct and individual under the street lamps and then disappeared back into shadows. He had seen the VTOLs rise from a distance, their running lights illuminating their forms in the darkness. He had watched their wings lower and lock above the wet tile

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and he followed her out of the doorway and into the rain. She led him through the wet streets. In his mind, the images of VTOLs and exploding monitors and Three-Fingers's blossoming red mortality made him wary as they crossed intersections and bore along the old streets of Chengdu

Judas Unchained

by Peter F. Hamilton · 1 Jan 2006 · 1,386pp · 379,115 words

you worry yourself about that. Hell would have to freeze over for a long time before some Halgarth stooge outsmarts me.’ * The little Boeing 44044 VTOL plane landed on the Observatory pad amid a swirl of air from its electric jets, which stirred up quite a storm of sandy ochre soil

…

, a simple act which made her even more out of breath. She couldn’t think how she was going to get back out to the VTOL again; the others might have to carry her. ‘Doesn’t this altitude bother you?’ she asked Phil Mandia. ‘Takes a while to adjust,’ he admitted

…

called as witnesses at the trial.’ ‘You’re taking him with you?’ ‘I certainly am.’ * Somehow, Renne managed to hobble her way back to the VTOL plane, without being too obvious as she leaned up against Phil Mandia. Two navy officers escorted Dan Cufflin onto the plane behind her. He was

…

need to know a lot more, and the only people who can fill in some gaps are the other two girls.’ A Boeing 22022 supersonic VTOL plane was waiting for them at the town’s airfield. It was a short flight to the heavily wooded Kolda Valley where Trisha’s branch

…

, but you have been helpful.’ The girl simply nodded, not looking up. Renne regarded her with a touch of concern before walking back to the VTOL. ‘So who was the reporter?’ Warren asked as the hatch shut behind them. Renne settled herself into the deep leather cushioning of the chair. ‘It

Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton · 26 Sep 2012 · 1,266pp · 344,635 words

again. The car had pulled into a small compound somewhere near the Thames, with the HDA signs prominent on the fence. A crystal-white executive VTOL jet was sitting on the pad. It didn’t register, because such a thing didn’t apply to her. So she sat passively in the

…

bioil futures market, and he didn’t want to be outsmarted by a rogue deal. Angela and Shasta had timed their departures so their hypersonic VTOL executive jets touched down on the mansion’s landing field at the same time, mid afternoon of the first day. That way they could share

…

was scared shitless like any real, sane human being. When he looked up at the constellations, he saw silhouettes of three black Mil US-22 VTOL fan aircraft on the rooftop pads of the main building. Squads of HDA’s interdiction troopers were embarking through the broad side doors while the

…

switched back to the gateway shoal. Another of the smaller teardrop spaceships was drifting upward. News copters played chicken with the squadron of HDA’s VTOL gunships following it as it began to fly north, a couple of hundred meters above the city. “It’s come over the river,” Will said

…

dissolved. A North stepped out, wearing a green shirt open at the neck and blue jeans; he grinned at Sid as the news copters and VTOL gunships circled overhead. Zara pressed into Sid’s side, moving slowly behind him as the North walked up to their front gate. “Hello, Sid,” the