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Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside
- whamlastxmas 7y agoIt'll be cool if we can get electric aircraft like this as cheap as some of the somewhat homemade ultralights people make today. Battery and motor prices have a long way to go though
- wpdev_63 7y agoI can't imagine it would have more batteries than the model 3. It would be too heavy.
- zaroth 7y agoInterestingly, when you look up the N-Number it says the engine type is “Electric”. Maybe that means something else? https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=N221HV https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?N...
- bdcravens 7y agoI did some contract work (2002-2003, at the tail end of their bankruptcy I think) for a Kitty Hawk that went out of business (after a second round of bankruptcy), and for a minute I thought this was an old article or something.
- baybal2 7y agoI protest, totally protest. Under no circumstances let people with dotcom webdev mentality run anything really serious in aeronautics. I myself had a rather similar talk to what that the panelist had with Kitty Hawk people with a very well moneyed, but also very naive CEO of a drone delivery startup. Some sarcasm added, but it went along these lines: Me: your best bet is to make a helicopter. Men much brighter than you were banging their heads against the wall non-stop for 60 years trying to solve this exact problem. Startup CEO: But I hired most brilliant engineers from Amazon and Waymo for that. I'm paying them near 200k each. Me: If this, this, and this thing breaks, your drone drops dead upon an urban area. And if you get into negative gees over ridgelines, your motor don't have enough torque to keep COM behind the centre of aerodynamic forces to prevent inversion. You can't change the law of gravity. And he was like "can't we really do anything about that, can't we?" These people are so used to the culture of "easy solutions" that it's scary. A convertoplane this big will be extremely unstable in wind gusts
- tiredyam 7y agoIsn’t this why they partnered with boeing? To navigate regulation and bring in more aviation expertise
- dwighttk 7y agoThe challenges of the Osprey with oversight from the minds that brought us the 737 MAX!
- gonesilent 7y agoIs Boeing who you would want to navigate regulatory paper work? Might be bad timing...
- gundmc 7y agoThere is precedence for a fixed-wing rotor-based VTOL aircraft with the Osprey, at least aerodynamically. Operationally, the Osprey was a bit of a disaster. But I agree that flight (and ESPECIALLY manned flight) needs extensive experience in aerospace engineering.
- baybal2 7y agoOsprey is more of a true biaxial helicopter first, and a convertoplane second. V22 have 2 lateral DOF in which it can move without moving COM relative to point of aerodynamic force, and without changing its aerodynamic cross-section, so you don't get positive feedback to change of orientation in wind gusts. This thing cannot do that as far as a glancing look can tell. I am not an aeronautic engineer, just a motoglider pilot wannabe. If it looks borderline silly to even a man like me, it's scary to imagine what wool they must have pulled over for their mentors and industry advisers to go with that.
- zaroth 7y agoThey built the thing, and fly it around 600ft in the sky. It’s not vaporware. From what I can tell from the picture, it has 8 props, two wings, and a N-number of N221HV. Anything beyond that would be pure speculation.
- dchichkov 7y agoIt would be a good idea to use better baselines for noise pollution than helicopters and airplanes of today. Perhaps like this - Life in the Spanish City that banned cars. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life-spanish-city-banned-cars-pontevedra https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/18/paradise-life... This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create. What you should be able to hear in the street are "the tweeting of birds in the camellias, the tinkle of coffee spoons and the sound of human voices".
- zizee 7y ago> This is about how much noise your aircraft are allowed to create. Sounds good. The same rules should apply to lawn mowers, motor bikes, construction, bars, stereos, drones, public transport, bands, dogs, children...
- Atheros 7y agoConstruction is temporary. Stereos and bands are played to bring enjoyment; the sound produced is the point, not a byproduct of some other motivation so those should get more of a pass. Many cities already enforce laws against persistently barking dogs and those laws can work just fine. I'm with you regarding motor bikes and public transport but the same rules should not apply to the others. They can have their own rules.
- zizee 7y agoMy comment was deliberately extreme as I believed the parent comment to be. The activities/devices I mentioned can be appropriate in certain locales, and inappropriate in others. To suggest this new vehicle has to operate at a level to not drown out birds before it can fit into society is silly. It's reasonable to place restictions on their use, e.g. you shouldn't be able to takeoff and land in quiet residential neighborhoods, instead limit them to landing on the tops of very tall buildings or transport hubs. Also, if people are allowed to use lawnmowers and loud exhausts on motorbikes, and have been doing so for years, suggesting a new technology has to be subject to more stringent restrictions is a little unfair.
- ZeroGravitas 7y agoThe last time these kind of vehicles came up, someone linked to an Uber conference on the topic. From what I gathered, this kind of noise level is a standard feature of the new electric air taxis.
- dmix 7y ago> The Mountain View, California-based company calls it Heaviside, after noted physicist and electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside, who advanced a variety of theories and innovations in mathematics, electronics, and communications in the early 20th century. I like this idea of naming things after people who've contributed to the field. Mount Everest's name came from a British surveyor and geographer George Everest. Brand names quickly take on meaning, it doesn't have to be <NounVerb>. I also can't imagine someone starting an aircraft company without having safety being drilled down their throat a million times before they produce anything that get's off the ground.
- darawk 7y agoI'm also guessing that the name 'heaviside' is a reference to the Heaviside step function. Which of course, looks like a vertical takeoff, and implies that this project is a "step function" in flying transportation, etc..It's a pretty great name.
- rrss 7y agoI'm psyched they named it after Heaviside. For the caliber, scope, and importance of his contributions, he is extremely under appreciated. Most of the people who have heard the name only know of the step function, but much of how electrical engineering is done (and named) is due to him. Some things that could reasonably have his name attached (intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive): Maxwell-Heaviside equations Heaviside-Gibbs Vector calculus Heaviside transmission line equations Poynting-Heaviside vector Heaviside loading coil Heaviside-Cherenkov radiation Heaviside-Lorentz force Heaviside s-plane
- dmix 7y agoWhen a VTOL vehicle switches directions of the blades in the air, is there any sort of drop in altitude as it moves into the forward direction? Or is it a gradual type of thing as it starts angling forward? I could see any drop before it kicks in being startling for customers, especially if the motors are less powerful than a helicopter or jet. I noticed the video makes a cut from flying to the landing part, without showing the transition of the blades downwards from forward flight. I'd imagine this also takes some careful timing to line up properly with the ground target.
- mysterydip 7y agoMay not be exactly the same, but I don't believe there's an appreciable drop on a tiltrotor like the V-22.
- dmix 7y agoI thought about that (and watched a few examples) but these would have a much less powerful motor, so I was curious how it handles it.
- Tossrock 7y agoThere isn't - the V-22 rotors tilt continuously from vertical to horizontal rather slowly as it builds up enough speed to transition to forward flight. Same thing with Quantum's VTOL UAVs.
- UIZealot 7y agoAnd since the Heaviside has many pairs of small rotors, it has another option which is to switch the rotors gradually pair by pair, but switching each pair quickly.
- mortenjorck 7y agoWhen they led with “100x quieter than a helicopter,” my first reaction was a skeptical “well sure, decibels are logarithmic!” But 40dB from 600ft away is impressive, and within the range of what I would consider acceptable for residential flyover (though not takeoff and landing) in a medium-density area.
- lostdog 7y agoIt is pretty quiet and very impressive. I wonder how many flyovers I would be ok with. 4 per hour sounds ok, but what if they route a highway above my house?
- mannykannot 7y ago40dB at 600ft is impressive, especially if it is carrying a payload equal to that of a passenger, and is maintaining altitude. That 100x quote, however, has a whiff of an intent to deceive people who are not familiar with the technicalities of loudness measurement.
- ISL 7y ago100x quieter than a helicopter, with a few thousand people using them, is louder than a helicopter. A glance at any urban interstate would suggest that mass adoption would be loud...
- acollins1331 7y agoOh sure because the air roads are going to be packed as densely as the ground roads with planes flying tail to tail in multiple lanes. /S
- platz 7y ago> On the helicopter, there’s a little bolt on top, and if you unscrew that, you take the cotter pin out, we all die.” I imagine that's hard to do while in operation. Meanwhile, a heli has autorotation, which is quite convenient in various failure modes.
- starpilot 7y agoYour quote refers to the "jesus nut": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_nut, which doesn't apply to newer helicopters.
- e12e 7y agoI'm curious - surely there's still some single point that would let the rotor fly away? What does it mean that newer helicopters "doesn't have" this? I mean the rotor is attached? It's a single axel? There are scenarios where the rotor falls off?
- mannykannot 7y agoConventional airplanes also have single points of failure, such as the main spar or the empennage. Granted, they are not moving parts.
- maxden 7y agoThere has been at least two cases recently of the main rotor blades as a whole detaching in flight. Gearbox failure caused the second crash [1] On the older 'teetering head' designs like the Huey, you can bump the mast (rotor shaft) in aggressive nose overs or low g conditions which would also separate the rotors from the aircraft. [0] https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=213384 https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=213384 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHC_Helikopter_Service_Flight_241 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHC_Helikopter_Service_Flight_...
- heyflyguy 7y agoEvery time I see a multirotor carrying people, I think of the many times while building them at the beginning of the drone renaissance that I saw 4/6/8 bladed multirotors have an AP failure, a blade break, a speed controller overheat, etc etc and it fell out of the sky, literally. These do not have a glideslope! Sure, a ballistic chute might prevent an onboard tragedy but I continue to wonder about what the flying car gets parachuted onto. What fires get started? Who gets crushed? Super cool tech. Huge accomplishment for the engineers involved. I want to know how this makes a safe unpowered descent.
- badrabbit 7y agoI don't know much about this aircraft but this appears to be a winged aircraft which unlike quadcopters and helicopters,losing an engine or rotor does not translate to a crash(?) because it had n number of rotors on each side,if one is lost,you lose altitude maybe and turn off matching rotors on the other side,which naively appears safer than a helicopter.
- heyflyguy 7y agoCould be, I hope so. I really want to ride in one if they are indeed safe. With all of those motors and props in the air, that's a whole bunch of parasitic drag if it is able to glide.
- badrabbit 7y agoFor public transport or work commute,they don't need to fly that high. Maybe worst case they will be allowed at low altitude over water ways or low enough to where pre-emptive air-bag deployment would make it safe. In many ways hover craft is safer than cars I think,mostly because of the space available and lack of breaks (they say most car fatalities happen when people hit the break out of panic).
- mannykannot 7y agoWings don't help if you are below the stall speed.
- paulcole 7y agoTo beat the rest of you to it: ReAdS LiKe A pR puFf PIeCE
- duaoebg 7y agoThis thing must be crazy light. I wonder how much of the advertised quietness will dissapear once it gets speced for range and passengers. If they've solved a fundamental problem of noisy props I would be very impressed.
- mannykannot 7y agoI see that, in horizontal flight, the propellers are behind the wing, and therefore in its wake. On the Piaggio Avanti, this arrangement creates quite noticable additional noise.
- lmetro 7y ago[I've been an engineer working on this vehicle for the past 2 years.] Hi HN! It's great to see lots of interest. One big reason we went public with the project is to help with recruiting, as we're starting to scale up our hiring for lots of positions, including testing, manufacturing, and every sort of engineering that you can think of. The team is super strong technically, and is full of people with interesting backgrounds, from former Tesla execs to competition wingsuit jumpers (Seriously: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk1ChndsN8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk1ChndsN8Y). The whole "flying car" industry has a high hype-to-substance ratio, but I think we're the real deal. The jobs page is here: https://kittyhawk.aero/heaviside/ https://kittyhawk.aero/heaviside/ I'd love to talk technical details on here, but we're still keeping pretty quiet about specifics. All I can say is that our test video is real footage, and not a render ;).
- mysterydip 7y agoLove what you're doing and hope it's a success! That being said, how do you answer skeptics with questions similar to "What makes you believe your version will be different from the myriad of vaporware or lab-demo-only competitors?"
- watfly 7y agoMind linking us to a some of the myriad of vapourware please? Just haven't seen that many EVTOL aircrafts successfully fly, like the heaviside shows, but maybe I have not been paying attention.
- grizzles 7y agoI guess this is the video he means: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7mc3C19kE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7mc3C19kE4 I hope we see a vid with a 100kg test dummy in the chair soon.
- mannykannot 7y agoI look forward to electric airplanes, this looks like an impressive contender, and I would like to know more about it. For one thing, I see this is being flown without an occupant. Is it carrying ballast equal in weight to a person, or is it merely carrying sufficient ballast, mounted well-forward, to put the CofG within limits? And is it carrying sufficient batteries to give the quoted 100-mile range? What is its operational ceiling?
- brownbat 7y agoThe wing design reminded me of this Real Engineering video on the pros and cons of backward swept wings, including a look at the Grumman X-29: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN6vGxyMcVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN6vGxyMcVU This definitely isn't shooting for mach 1.8, so the X-29 isn't an analogue, but there are interesting points about aerodynamics in that video nonetheless.
- jonplackett 7y agoWhy does it look like a toy when it flies? There’s something about he way it moves when it changes direction or lands that makes it not look as big as it should.
- _Microft 7y agoDo you know Lilium and their electric VTOL aircraft? It also looks unreal during some flight manoeuvers, see here: https://youtu.be/RLqzatnVAfA?t=62 https://youtu.be/RLqzatnVAfA?t=62 That was a video of a sub-scale prototype, they have newer videos of a larger one at http://www.lilium.com http://www.lilium.com
- watfly 7y agoI thought it was a scaled prototype first time I saw the video. The flight jerkiness probably comes from the flight controller not being super polished, and also the aircraft being piloted remotely by a drone pilot, so the pilot doesn't have the same feedback an onboard pilot would have.
- gimmeThaBeet 7y agoI'll just say, VTOLs are just so stupidly cool. Seeing a plane just sort of pick up and climb into the air like this will never cease to just be 'woah' inducing. I frequently wonder about the things we're waiting for batteries to grow into, this is one of those things that makes me think the future has a decent shot at being insane.
- Animats 7y agoSort of like the Ehang 216, but with a transition to horizontal flight.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf3BGnzXSG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf3BGnzXSG4
- blendo 7y agoI'm encouraged to see proper wings and empennage, glad you're not making an octocopter. Bonus points for conventional (tailwheel) landing gear. But questions: How fast can it fly and for how long? Article says "weighs about one-third of a Cessna". So less than 1000 lbs empty? And, importantly, with those wings, does it "stall" normally, at 40 mph or so? Asking as a former J-3 Cub pilot who'll assuredly never afford this.
- twic 7y agoProper but forward-swept wings, which mean you won't be able to fly this without substantial computer assistance.
- sjg007 7y agoThe solution is remote work, not flying cars.
- inventtheday 7y agoboth
- watfly 7y agoOur cities continue to grow, we need a way to increase our travel speed.
- sjg007 7y agoI think less cars and more public transport is the answer here.
- ChuckMcM 7y agoThis looks a lot more credible than the Moeller flying car :-). I'm never sure if I should be excited or not about flying cars in that I am already paranoid about someone running a red light, I'd hate to be tootling down the freeway and suddenly have a carplane appear on the road in front of me! That said, make it a four passenger version and have them streaming across the Bay to off load the bridge infrastructure? That would be pretty cool. Would need a really good load/unload infrastructure though. I could see it making living in the Sierra foothills more realistic though.
- walrus01 7y agoA ten year old child scribbling with crayons on grid paper is more credible at this point than the Moller skycar. There's a number of companies that have flown (sans humans) small air taxi sized octocopters in the past 8 years, none of them Moller. Just off the top of my head, there's the Germans with their thing that has 16+ rotors, there is ehang, there's the Airbus vaihana project, there's this company, and several big names like Bell are working on tilt rotor small electric vtols.