Aircraft

Intercontinental hybrid VTOL could fly halfway around the world

Intercontinental hybrid VTOL could fly halfway around the world
The Ranger folds its wings in like Darth Vader's shuttle for heliport operations
The Ranger folds its wings in like Darth Vader's shuttle for heliport operations
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The Ranger folds its wings in like Darth Vader's shuttle for heliport operations
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The Ranger folds its wings in like Darth Vader's shuttle for heliport operations
Twin turbojet engines at the back power ultra-long range cruise flight
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Twin turbojet engines at the back power ultra-long range cruise flight
Eight largeish props handle vertical takeoff and landing thrust
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Eight largeish props handle vertical takeoff and landing thrust
The props stow away inside small pontoon cylinders for low-drag cruise flight
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The props stow away inside small pontoon cylinders for low-drag cruise flight
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Aura Aerospace has proposed a crazy new take on advanced air mobility. The five-seat Ranger looks like Darth Vader's shuttle when it's folded up, but it promises to fly further than any normal airliner, with roof-to-roof vertical takeoff and landing.

Exactly how Aura proposes to do this is fairly simple. Vertical takeoff and landing is achieved using a coaxial octacopter system, with eight 70-inch (178-cm) two-blade props hanging fore and aft of the large main wing. This system gets you on and off the vertipad, and once you're airborne and the wing has folded out to its full 23-meter (75-ft) width, a pair of turbofan jet engines kick in to provide forward thrust.

Once in cruise flight and fully supported by the wings, the propellers slow to a halt and line themselves up with their support strut, and little retractable pontoons come out to cover them over for minimal drag. With the props thus stowed, the Ranger is free to accelerate to its monster 820 km/h (510 mph / Mach 0.66) cruise speed, a little slower than most airliners since it cruises in the thicker air at 10,000 ft (3,050 m) instead of 30,000 ft (9,150 m).

Eight largeish props handle vertical takeoff and landing thrust
Eight largeish props handle vertical takeoff and landing thrust

With full tanks of sustainable aviation fuel, Aura says the Ranger is capable of an 18,000-km (11,185-mile) range, or a brutal 22 hours of non-stop flight. For reference, a typical Airbus A380 flies a maximum of around 14,800 km (~9,200 miles) full of passengers. The Ranger promises to take you from the top of a building in New York City all the way to the middle of Adelaide, Australia, with juice to spare. And if juice does run out, the thing will still glide, Aura claims, and can happily land or take off on a runway where it suits.

Thankfully, the five-seat cabin will have a small galley and toilet to serve both ends of the hollow tubes of humanity it plans to transport for such long distances. It will presumably also have a means of ingress and egress, although exactly where on the airframe is unclear from these very early-stage renders.

The Ranger uses eVTOL technology, but it's otherwise much closer to an ultra-long range business jet in conception than an air taxi. And in that context, well, maybe it makes sense. Five seats is probably enough for a lot of business trips, and the ultra-rich might be happy to pay for a Darth Vader shuttle to take them on a private, intercontinental rooftop-to-rooftop hop. It'd certainly keep them well clear of the hoi polloi, even if the time saved commuting to the airport and back might get gobbled up by the Ranger's slightly slower speed.

The props stow away inside small pontoon cylinders for low-drag cruise flight
The props stow away inside small pontoon cylinders for low-drag cruise flight

This is not the first left-field aviation idea we've seen from Aura. In early 2021, we wrote about its pitch to swap out eVTOL battery packs for blast-chargeable ultracapacitors. In the meantime, it's been working on a single-seat Guardian G1 eVTOL it was planning to sell for US$185,000, as shown below in what has to be the most exciting video I've seen yet of an eVTOL not flying.

Guardian G1 Debut

The Ranger is an interesting idea, and it might bring a certain degree of extra convenience to the lives of a very few very wealthy people. But its reliance on aviation fuel, sustainable or otherwise, means its days are numbered before it's lowered a wing, and there's a torturously long and hellishly expensive path between these renders and FAA-certified commercial manufacturing. We'd love to see one fly at full scale, but we don't like our chances.

Editor's note: as reader "nzairforce" points out in the comments below, it appears the G1 Guardian program might be on hold after a fire caused by an electrical component failure during manned testing. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

Source: Aura Aerospace

View gallery - 4 images
16 comments
16 comments
PhilippeHolthuizen
Hahahahaaaa! Peak vaporware!
KenThomas
Way too complicated, way too many moving parts, way to fragile - this is a non-starter...
David F
Ditch the props and use vectored thrust, then maybe it'll work.
Rustgecko
You have to have doubts about a technology when the video which is supposed to show off a flying machine, shows a small drone flying around the craft very well, but the actual craft can't get off the ground.
paul314
What's fascinating is that investors are apparently willing to throw money at this kind of thing. Did no one ever go broke overestimating the appetite of the super-rich for expensive toys?
pbethel
What "sustainable" aviation fuel can be produced in quantities large enough to be more than a gimmick?
MikeofLA
Finally! We can get our own TIE fighter... and die just as readily as the Empires pilots.
nzairforce
Looked familiar... :(

https://dronexl.co/2022/07/28/passenger-drone-evtol-catches-fire/

Brian M
Barring the financial viability, technically it's a possible flyer, certainly the idea of using sustainable synthetic aviation fuel or hydrogen is going to be the way forwards anyway for all aviation.

Lithium electric type power might be in vogue at the moment, but for serious aviation it just isn't going to have the energy density required, its dubious enough anyway for land-based vehicles as it is, barring of course a breakthrough in battery technology which is not Lithium/rare element based.
ljaques
What a totally obnoxious video that was. A loud and nonsensical attack on the ears, complete with vertigo-inducing spins of the 12-year old controlled drone, and ZERO airtime. Is the entire Aura Aerospace company under seventeen?
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