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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 14 2020, @03:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the flappy-burred dept.

New Atlas:

What's wrong with the prop-powered, drone-style VTOL flying car designs we're seeing all over the place? Ignoring the energy density issues that are holding the entire electric aviation industry back, multirotors are quite noisy, and they have basically no adequate safety systems in place if the power systems fail.

A somewhat mysterious startup called Volerian claims to have a solution for both these points, and it uses a very odd propulsion system we've never run across before.

The system places a large number of flapping wings inside a series of precisely shaped ducts. The wings are driven by cams on a rotating shaft, such that they flap back and forth quickly between the walls of these ducts, much like the tails of fish. A second fixed "stator" wing is mounted further down the ducts "to further increase efficiency," presumably by messing with the swirling pressure vortices created by the flapping wings.

The company claims its furious flappers not only make less noise than a comparable multirotor setup, but that the system is safer as well. In the event of power loss, the wings can be released to flutter against the airstream coming up through the bottom of the vents as the aircraft falls, acting a bit like a parachute. Not to mention, there's no rotating decapitators in the system to worry about.

New Atlas's current issue highlights half a dozen startups that are hoping to make air taxis a reality.


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  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2020, @08:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 14 2020, @08:57PM (#982771)

    barbara hudson and yes it is obviously you I am replying to, are you saying it's ok for you to impersonate apk as you clearly did since he destroyed you completely in that 2nd link APK posted before your reply I replied to now, where quoted proof from you stalking and harassing apk is cited and where he totally crushed you on C vs. Pascal and hosts files? I would do the same. You had that kind of public humiliation coming and the forums owners here can't stop apk from doing it which is even funnier. No way for you to live it down barbara hudson. You had this kind of exposure of the real you coming. You only created that for yourself.

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