Manned multirotors

Following a Kickstarter in 2017 to gauge interest in an electric flying car racing series, and an international public debut in 2019, Alauda Aeronautics has now unveiled a full-sized, fully functioning electric flying racing car – the Airspeeder Mk3.

A feasibility study modeled on the VoloCity multirotor electric air taxi has concluded that electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft would benefit emergency air rescue services. Now the project is looking to begin operational testing in 2023.

Larry Page and Sebastian Thrun's personal flying carpet project has been grounded, as the Kitty Hawk company turns its attention to a larger, faster, longer range aircraft with better commercial potential in the emerging eVTOL air taxi market.

A pilot somehow managed to escape injury as his multirotor hoverbike suffered a barometer failure at a 100-foot altitude over concrete in a Dubai test. Bucking like a mechanical bull, the machine crashed to Earth and flipped over its rider.

Something about this just looks so wrong. The Atlas is a manned multicopter design, in which all four of its ducted rotors are inline along a single wing. Targeted for sale in 2021 at around US$150k, this tailsitter might have some advantages.

Japan's SkyDrive has completed four months of manned eVTOL flights and, with a new CTO on board, says it's on track for an eVTOL product launch in 2023.

The final fly-off in Boeing's US$2 million-dollar GoFly personal flight contest was postponed yesterday due to high winds, but one Japanese team still went home with a substantial check to put towards further research and development.

This racy-looking 12-rotor coaxial multicopter has been filmed in Croatia pulling extreme rolls and loops, and carrying a human on board. Not at the same time, mind you, but still, to see a drone of this size pulling stunts like this is astonishing.

With the ability to carry up to 250 kg of payload at speeds up to 80 km/h, the 12-rotor Seraph is Britain's leading electric VTOL air taxi candidate. Vertical Aerospace has released video of this chunky bird in flight.

Japanese electronics giant NEC has been working with a company called Cartivator to design, build and test VTOL air taxi concepts. Now the two companies have demonstrated a multi-seat manned multicopter, a step toward a flying car future Japan believes will arrive around 2030.

A grid full of 10 giant coaxial octocopters, each with a pilot on board, racing each other head-to-head through the air at speeds up to 200 km/h (120 mph)? That's exactly what the Airspeeder racing series is set to introduce in 2020 with the aim of being a kind of Formula One for flying cars.

A new electric VTOL air taxi company came out of stealth mode today, using a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain that neatly sidesteps the energy density issue that's holding back battery-powered aircraft. Alaka'i Technologies' Skai machine has a range of up to 4 hr/400 mi and a five-passenger capacity.