In under a year, the team of flight enthusiasts at Bay Zoltan Nonprofit Ltd., a state-owned applied research institute in Hungary, has taken the concept of a personal flight tricopter from the drawing board to its first manned flight at Miskolc Airfield in northeast Hungary on March 7.
On the manned flight, the Flike (think fly-bike) concept demonstrator had a takeoff weight of 210 kg (463 lb) and only made it off the ground for a few seconds, but took off and landed safely. In a subsequent manned test flight, the Flike fly meters off the ground, and was able to demonstrate hovering and maneuvering capabilities while compensating for wind in a controlled flight lasting one and a half minutes.
Source: Gizmag
Comments
if i had money... i ll make it X8 cofiguration easiest and more safest ..really interest but nothing difficult
Scary prototype. Weight optimization does not means risking a life for maiden flights.... By including prop guards I would be by your side (even if the efficiency of Y6 is not as good as other frame types).
Please secure the operator...
I think motors position should have been above the operator for better maneuverability. Gravity center seems too high.
Actually, it is probably going to be a lot more practical to make an electric one man helicopter to get enough efficiency to permit something more than a minute and a half light.
The large diameter of the helis rotor is just way - way more efficient than a bunch of smaller props.
There are also likely inherent instability problems with fixed pitch props large enough for man carrying multicopters.
These are interesting exercises in what can be done and the people brave (or foolish) enough to pilot them, but for bigger stuff a heli is a much better design in pretty much all ways.
Even though the helis rotor stores a lot of inertia and can be devastating if you get into it, the energy stored in a large multis motor / props is enormous and can do an even better job of turning you into hamburger.
If anybody is going to make a serious practical manned multicopter work it will likely be our own Brad Hughey (or he will end up telling us why it wont work.)
Best regards,
Gary
I would strongly disagree that shrouds would work very well on a large quad. It's not a small plastic toy that bumps into things and it bounces off. A life sized quad with that much mass bumping into something, even at 10 mph, would damage any shroud easily and cause a failure. Shrouds on this large of a system would be nothing more than a nice gimmick, not to mention they reduce efficiency even further.
What I mean in terms of safety features is the ability to auto rotate in case of a motor/engine failure or a plane being able to glide down. If a multi rotor looses power the only way to not crash into the earth at full speed is a parachute. Which, is additional weight.
And again, not sure what way it is superior other than more compact. It is much less efficient and if you use a CP multi rotor it is much much more mechanically complex than a single rotor design.
A non CP multirotor is very difficult to scale up, although, bravo to these guys for implementing it successfully, but, as the blades get larger, the mass increases and the ability to change direction for stabilization is much more difficult. And using more power systems with smaller blades to carry equal weight just makes it even less efficient.
I don't see it being the future of VTOL for anything other than sUAS or some rare hobbiest/fun projects like this.
What is the safety advantage?
I think that's my point. It is much less safe as, unless you have a parachute on your back at all times, there is no way to save it in case of a failure.
I don't understand the desire to use a multirotor for manned aviation, or anything larger then sUAS.
It's extremely dangerous, ie. Multiple props spinning close to the user, no method of safely returning to the ground in case of a failure (IE, no auto rotation or gliding capabilities), the least efficient form of flight inherently, and completely dependent on electronic controls.
Good work on building a large Y6, but, i just personally don't see a point. Maybe I am wrong and the future of personal aviation is multi-rotors, but, we will see.
Need some prop guards, please. Can someone 3d print them?
@jiro
I've done human carrying 400lbs autonomous offroad wheelchairs with Arduinos, APM, BBBs, moving from 2mph to 10mph. Also moved a 3000lb autonomous boat with an APM and LEA-6T with 6+ waypoints. It's all doable if you use the right motor controllers, power distribution and safety subsystems (our boat motor controllers were much more advanced than your normal ESCs) and we bypassed normal pwm logic... actually adapted an analog setup,,, and used the APM as the nav computer.
Basically it's great for prototyping, but I wouldn't recommend it for production unless the system has more than a few hundred hours of flight testing and the safety is vetted by a 3rd party. It is afterall a human transportation vehicle. Now just using the ublox is ok, but I'd step up to a better/faster IMU and compass next for moving in more degrees of freedom.
About time someone finally made a manned copter that really looked like a speeder bike, with a saddle seat instead of a standing pilot about to fall over & get chopped up. Could imagine someone riding it in ground effect.
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