Manned multirotors

Last week, ALI Technologies briefly took to the skies above the Fuji Speedway racetrack for the launch of the slick-looking Xturismo Limited Edition hoverbike, which is now up for order with deliveries expected to follow in the first half of 2022.

Last month, we reported on astonishing first flight footage from the Copterpack, an Australian electric personal flight device. Now, eagle-eyed pixel peepers have scrutinized the video and presented evidence that a tether wire has been edited out.

Rotor X plans to break into the air taxi market with an aircraft that's "dramatically more efficient and less expensive than all other eVTOL concepts being proposed or developed today" – and it's also one of the few eVTOLs capable of autorotation.

Montreal's Alexandru Duru first flew his electric multirotor hoverboard back in 2015, and quickly set a Guinness World Record for distance. Now this levitating madman is working to commercialize it for sale, while performing stunt shows on the side.

A green alternative to the humble kerosene-burning jetpack? Video shows an Australian man rising high off the ground using a two-rotor electric personal flight device he calls the Copterpack. It's bulky, but looks surprisingly stable and controllable.

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.