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Kitty Hawk's 'Heaviside' is an ultra-quiet electric flying machine
As the field of players in "urban air mobility" (read: flying cars) get more crowded every day, the Larry Page-backed effort Kitty Hawk is trying a different approach with its latest vehicle: it's very quiet. Dubbed Project Heaviside, it's all-electric, flies like a plane but is capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) like a helicopter, while being as much as 100 times quieter than a helicopter.
It's also tiny, as you can make out in a picture with a person crouching next to the aircraft with seating for one. TechCrunch got up close and personal with Heaviside, noting that at the moment the cockpit seats its passenger on bare carbon fiber.
Kitty Hawk CEO Sebastian Thrun told TechCrunch "The calculus here is that this has to be socially acceptable for people," while demonstrating Heaviside's capability to fly overhead without being any louder than an office air conditioner. It's also intended to support both manual and autonomous flight, although regulatory approval could be quite a way off.
From TechCrunch we get the following:
HVSD, which is named after renowned physicist and electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside, is Kitty Hawk's third act.
The first is Flyer, a single-seater, all-electric, vertical take-off and landing vehicle powered by 10 independent lift fans that operates between three to 10 feet off the water. Then there's Cora, a two-person, autonomous taxi that Kitty Hawk unveiled in 2018. Kitty Hawk, which is backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, recently formed a strategic partnership with Boeing to collaborate on urban air mobility, particularly around safety and how autonomous and piloted vehicles will co-exist. The partnership will focus on Cora.
HVSD is an electric aircraft designed to go anywhere and land anywhere fast and quietly, Vander Lind says.
"If you build an aircraft that can land anywhere and then say 'actually, oh wait it can't just land anywhere, no I need a big helipad and I need to build a bunch of structure and all that' — you miss the point," said Vander Lind.
And indeed, HVSD isn't parked on a large runway or giant helipad. The aircraft, which weighs about one-third of a Cessna, is on a section of asphalt not much bigger than its wingspan. Just beyond this man-made parking spot are acres of grassland and the occasional tree. There is no runway to be found.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 09 2019, @06:29PM (10 children)
Yeah well, outside it's a cacophony of buzz-saws.
The motors may have progressed, but propeller design hasn't changed since 1903...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @06:35PM (3 children)
[citation needed]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 09 2019, @06:44PM (1 child)
Would love to! But all the videos have that horrible music covering up the noise. But listen to the bigger drones, then you will get the idea that moving a lot of air really fast makes a lot of noise.
If you want a "citation", hang out at a small airport. Damn near all of the noise you hear is the prop, even with the combustion engines.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @06:50PM
Yup, that's exactly why I quick checked the claims about noise levels.
(Score: 4, Funny) by SpockLogic on Wednesday October 09 2019, @10:48PM
You don't need a Citation. Maybe you just want a Citation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Citation_family/ [wikipedia.org]
Too noisy?
Oh, wrong citation ....
Never mind.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:09PM (5 children)
Not true, there have been many improvements to propeller design since 1903.
http://hartzellprop.com/5-innovations-in-propeller-design/ [hartzellprop.com]
https://www.mro-network.com/engineering-design/propeller-manufacturers-aim-technology-improvements [mro-network.com]
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19810012499.pdf [nasa.gov]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1270963803000464 [sciencedirect.com]
If your meaning was that they are still loud, then yes, they are, but there have been improvements even there.
Personally, since this would require specialized landing pads, it's just another VTOL aircraft that would require specialized storage and quite a bit of real estate to store and land. Not practical for an urban environment and definitely not suitable for a suburban environment. Noise and debris will regulate it to airports for storage (ain't gonna fit in your two car garage!) and specialized rooftop landing zones which would have to be much larger than standard heli-pads not to mention storage if these are intended to be used in numbers.
With all those exposed blades it could be useful for a psychopath to put in Vertical mode and land on a crowd of people they disagreed with, and of course could be used against zombies. Splatter like no ones ever seen before!
Manual flight? Maybe by a certified pilot. The insinuation is that Joe Sixpack will eventually be able to fly it. I can see it now. The new meme, not licking ice cream in stores or eating toxic soap pods, nope. It'll be called the Buzzcut. Flying inches above unsuspecting pedestrians in parks and on city streets. While drunk sending a live feed to Faceplant, err, Facefuck, shit, I mean Facebook.
Damn, did that ever get out of control, I was just going to post a few links.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:24PM
Even a quiet small commercial drone hits 60dB(a) noise levels [dji.com] and they weigh under 2lbs.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 09 2019, @07:36PM (3 children)
The airport sounds the same to me. Props may be more efficient. But noise is the same as ever. Fast moving air implies noise. All we can do is change the tone to make it more pleasant to the ear. To fly quietly is going to require something more bizarre and completely different.
Also, imagine the leaf and dust storm when everybody lifts off for work every Monday morning.
Selling these things as quiet is fraudulent. With today's primitive propulsion tech it's just not possible. And manual flight has to be out of the question. We can't even walk without crashing into something.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday October 09 2019, @08:52PM
Yeah, I took you a bit too literally, and then all the things wrong with their stated concept began to creep in......
I do find our local airport quieter overall than the international one, but it's still uncomfortably loud.
Good day to ya!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday October 10 2019, @06:42AM (1 child)
Birds are not bizarre! :P
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 10 2019, @07:04AM
And not very quiet either...You should hear those Buzzards fighting over a piece week old road kill.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..