Aircraft

Horizon starts flight-testing its split-wing Cavorite X5 eVTOL

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Horizon begins flight tests with its Cavorite X5 eVTOL
Horizon Aircraft
Horizon begins flight tests with its Cavorite X5 eVTOL
Horizon Aircraft
Initial tethered hover testing is now complete, with cruise transition testing to begin soon at the ACE climactic wind tunnel near Toronto
Horizon Aircraft
Horizon Aircraft's Brandon Robinson with the 50% scale prototype Cavorite X5 eVTOL
Horizon Aircraft
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The Cavorite X5 is a fascinating eVTOL air taxi design, capable of splitting its wing covers apart to reveal its vertical lift fans, or closing them for high-speed, long-range cruise flight. Horizon has now started flight testing its prototype.

Thanks to its low-drag design and covered lift fans, the full-scale Cavorite X5 promises to carry four passengers and a pilot at a remarkable 280 mph (450 km/h) – making it one of the fastest air taxi designs we've seen. Its hybrid gas/electric powertrain ensures impressive range figures too, up to 310 miles (500 km) with emergency reserves intact.

Its 10 ducted lift fans are fairly small in diameter, so they'll spin fast and chew a lot of power in a hover; this machine, like the Lilium jet, will shine in cruise mode, acting like an efficient hybrid-electric airplane. So it'll likely find its niche in longer-range trips rather than cross-town duties.

The prototype Horizon now has in the air is the 50% scale machine we wrote about in detail last year. Things are a little behind schedule; Horizon founder Brandon Robinson told us last July that the company planned to have the machine hovering untethered by the end of August, and flying through all phases including transition and cruise by December.

Horizon Aircraft's Brandon Robinson with the 50% scale prototype Cavorite X5 eVTOL
Horizon Aircraft

At this stage, though, the company has announced initial tethered hover tests are complete, and the X5 will soon begin testing its aerodynamically complex transition between hover and cruise modes at the ACE Climactic Wind Tunnel near Toronto.

"This aircraft has exceeded expectations during initial hover testing," says Robinson in a press release. "It is extremely stable, is capable of full hover at only 65% power, and has hovered with 20% of its fans purposely disabled in order to test system redundancy. This [prototype] is a large-scale aircraft, with a 22-foot [6.7-m] wingspan, over 15 feet [4.6 m] in length, and capable of speeds over 175 mph [282 km/h]. It continues to yield valuable data that is constantly improving our full-scale design."

Initial tethered hover testing is now complete, with cruise transition testing to begin soon at the ACE climactic wind tunnel near Toronto
Horizon Aircraft

As testing continues, Horizon will need to raise a fair whack of cash to get a full-scale version of this jaw-dropping machine built and into the grueling FAA certification process. Robinson told us last year he's open to the idea of selling a (presumably single-seat) private version, which could be registered as an experimental aircraft – or developing it for military use while waiting for certification.

Source: Horizon Aircraft

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6 comments
jerryd
Hovering without payload, full battery, is very different than real life.
Jinpa
Only four passengers means expensive tickets. And deadheading if return passengers can't be scheduled. It would be interesting to see the business plan for how any buyer of these vehicles could amortize the cost, much less make a profit. So, too, for the developers: sell how many to break even, how many more to make profit?
joe46
one thing these e-VTOL designers seem to fail to understand is that small rotors are less efficient than large rotors, any entry level engineer can tell you that, this is why the traditional helicopter design has worked so well for this long, most (if not all) of these e-VTOL designs are largely gimmicks,
drzarkov99
I could see the oil and gas industry as a customer, making trips to and from ocean drilling platforms faster. A military customer would be interested in the speed, but might want a larger capacity. It remains to be seen if the desire for hybrid platforms outweighs the more efficient capability of conventional transport.
Jezzafool
Blimey, you lot are a cynical bunch! Not to mention keyboard engineers/physicists etc........
Just maybe they know more than you?
Anyway, it's a great looking aircraft.
Kpar
Jezzafool, you're onto something. This is a remarkable design with great potential. Low drag means just about everything in this context. A very clever idea, and one that will influence MANY aircraft designs in the near future.