turboplanner

4 minutes ago, onetrack said:

You wouldn't find 45° slopes all that often in Australia, and why would you want to follow the ground contours precisely?

I was giving you a simple example so it's easy to visualise. The one at the show I mentioned was trying to climb from memory a grade around 5%. 

If you don't need to follow ground contours, no problem, just climb vertically then go over the top of the hill. 

5 minutes ago, onetrack said:

https://www.airev.aero/

No horizontal thrust. Nothing wrong with that design in still air but if a wind comes up it will go with the wind like all the others. 

A drone climbs by increasing speed of motors; let's say you want to fly up a long slope in the mountains, say a 45 degree slope;  if you tilt the nose up like you do with an aircraft, your directional thrust moves you backwards out into space; if you tilt the nose down the optimum climb is at 45 degrees with your nose pointing to the ground. There's a video on this site of a pilot at a show not prepared to do that and even at full throttle was sliding backwards.

1 minute ago, facthunter said:

That would give the Passengers a thrill.  120 RPM? It won't rotate about it's own centre of gravity either. They are a contraption using non tilting thrust fans.   Nev

In fact it still might be a problem when they slow the flip enough for the g forces to suit humans, but the programming is already there if it' knocked upside down to flip it and lower the drone to earth.

6 hours ago, facthunter said:

IF one ever inverts I don't know what it will do.  Nev

They have the programming to do a 360 degree flip in about half a second, that’s not a problem, they just don’t have 100% forward thrust.

20 minutes ago, onetrack said:

So ...... what's happened? We're into the second month of 2024 and I don't see these VTOL machines appearing everywhere as they claimed they would, in 2022 and 2023?

 

Once again, the marketing hype exceeds the ability to deliver something that works. I'll wager they've all stalled at regulatory and safety hurdles.

The ones I've seen have stalled at the findamentals; a little like the disappearance of the hovercraft we used to see travelling around on trailers and the drying up of dialogue about drones.

They can get off the ground and some even have motor redundancy to retain balance if one or two motors fail, but they can't handle winds.

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

You are a bit lucky then, aren't you? I saw one break in two that did that. They are a bit unforgiving if given the chance . Nev

Luckily had a good CFI, but biggest G forces I've experienced.

It was the Nhill Aero Club's de Havilland Chipmunk that I dropped from a great height doing a 90 degree turn.