Lift Hexa

[loftus]

Well it does fly. I saw the demonstration of the Lift Hexa at Sun n' Fun yesterday. Definitely some cool technology, though the demo was pretty much restricted to some low and slow flying and hovering. Limited to only 15 minutes of flight, so still a toy at this point.. Classified as an ultralight. If you have $250 dollars for a 15 minute flight, one is coming to someplace near you, or so they say.

AIRCRAFT | LIFT Aircraft

Introducing Hexa from LIFT Aircraft - an electric, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft anyone can fly.

www.liftaircraft.com

 

[Doug Riley]

The electric part is new. The notion of a bunch of little props instead of one big one is old, old, old.

The disadvantages of it are familiar also: inefficiencies arising from Reynolds number and tip-loss issues, plus no ability to autorotate. Some of these schemes have used changes in prop RPM for control; this introduces a lot of control lag.

 

[WaspAir]

I might get more total flight time and altitude out of a trampoline, at lesser cost and greater safety.

 

[Aerofoam]

I don't think they can maintain traction with the idea that the batteries are "Floats" and don't count as weight......

 

[Doug Riley]

One of the first PRA mags I received when I joined (at age 13) had a feature article about the Aerotechnik. It was a German man-carrying quad-copter. It appeared to be powered by a BMW motorcycle engine. It had four teeny rotors on outriggers. Same issues as this one, but 55 years ago.

In the early 1970's, the infamous Paul Moller circulated photos of a "flying saucer" craft lifted by 6 or 8 vertical ducted props, each powered by a separate go-kart engine. Control, he said, was by differentially and collectively changing throttle settings on each engine. Bit of lag there.

As Chuck Beaty once said, it's a shame there isn't more literature about things that don't work.

 

[MikeBoyette]

Dr. Bensen tried this as well. I’m not sure of the particulars. I do know it was powered by a bunch of Mac chainsaw engines.

 

[Doug Riley]

Yup, Mike -- and he also tried two Mac 72's with their props pulling upward. The "pilot" sat astride a simple beam, with an engine at each end. The "pilot" was right in the kill zone if one of those props exploded (see discussion of this elsewhere on the Forum).

 

[loftus]

I think the most attractive part of the multicopter design is the simplicity of control with the electronic control unit doing all the work. The effectiveness of this approach is quite apparent for small drones that have transformed many aerial jobs like photography, search and rescue etc; unfortunately the concept just does not scale up as a people mover yet with battery technology still the limiting factor