This year there has been a marked increase in interest flying automotive transport and air taxis.
The reason is the existence of an announced series of legislative provisions for transport of this nature, put forward by a group of entrepreneurs, including prominent financiers, along with accelerated development in the electromotive and alternative energy fields, with advances in capacity of batteries and efficiency in electric motors.
This means taking into account the fact that light aviation – 89% of all civil aviation aerial trials 87% of all flights are carried out by light aviation, with flying automotive transport and air taxis falling into this category. Only the USA has an annual volume of tax reduction in this field amounting to $4 bn, with a yearly turnover of $50 bn steady growth. This involves a substantial, though somewhat conservative market, which has naturally provided a fresh look at reinvention in aircraft.
The Flyka company has developed a secure civil air taxi through structural adaptation, enabling the aircraft to withstand a host of successive breakdowns, maintaining profitability for the air transport facility. In this article I am attempting to explain precisely how such structure has been developed in terms of the future financing of our company and how a significant part of contemporary projects in this field involve the already existing aircraft and helicopters.
Market
To begin with, the optimum development inevitably raises two questions:
a) On what market area are you focusing?
b) How do you apply your existing solutions?
The issue is that the matter of transporting passengers long distance by air. There are light helicopters, as well as middle-weight and heavy ones, along with light aircraft and airliners. The matter of transporting passengers over the desired distance by air must be resolved directly by the means at hand. So what is the problem which that entails?
The issue is that of cost and security. The air taxi in New York costs you $500-2000. In Russia the price will be likewise determined according to how the pilot’s pay Is assessed along with the cost of import duties on helicopters and spare parts (in our country they are not produced on a large scale for light helicopters). Given such costs, the service will not be considerable.
Why do we need to work out a new approach to aircraft?
Because it is impossible to make air transport by helicopter any cheaper.
All modern aviation is moving towards the raising of standards in updating equipment, concomitant with improvement of flight security, not to speak of the cost of the vehicles. Through determined time intervals, aviation technology sets the servicing as required. For example, for the MI-171, the anticipated requirements for every 25, 50, 100 etc. flight hours. Depending on the details of what is required for maintenance, servicing must be worked out on the basis of outside inspection of the vehicles considering the potential extent of dismantlement and reparation.
Reparation must be performed on technical equipment by specially trained experts from licensed companies. Such experts take annual courses to upgrade their qualifications and, together with their companies, renew their licenses. Furthermore, manufacturers’ representatives get involved in extending resources and participating in the deployment of technology.
There is the matter of those who issue licenses and those to whom they are issued. This is a huge anthill of thousands of people who each have to be paid and organizations to make a profit. This money is rated according to the cost of flight hours. If one wants to minimize the servicing, one need only reduce the flight hours.
The second element in the assessment is the pilot. Such a one must be given proper preparation, be paid accordingly, and naturally have the flying license kept renewed.
The third element is the control tower service, which must coordinate the pilot’s operation within a crowded urban space.
Why a multi-rotor?
Multi-rotor structuring requires an answer to the question of why there is a preference to provide your solution, notably for security of flight.
The issue is that a damaged airplane must land in a fixed pattern, while a helicopter does so with autorotation. However, in a major city there is no place for such a landing. For ejection by parachute one must at the very least stabilize a plunging aircraft. If the aircraft goes into a spin, for example, due to a one-time breakdown in operation, an opened parachute may be hidden from foreign eyes. However, if the aircraft is stabilized, with the parachute having time to be exposed while not fully opened, where might it fall in a big city? On a superhighway or a children’s playground or a parking lot, or in a river? Indeed, the passengers are not likely to be content.
Automatic operation systems are far cheaper than human mechanics. Combat fighters have already for many years been built on shaky aerodynamic schemas, while airliners are guided most of the time on autopilot, further automatically backed up by the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS).
Improvement of security in aircraft may in the course of as many as three journeys increase the necessity for single parts, while lessening the quantity of key parts in facilitating the system of distribution of repeatedly needed reserves of a given part. The multirotor directly appropriate for all journeys. The lack of mechanical operating parts original to a given helicopter (each of which is precisely applied to a given potential breakdown) increases the need thereof, while simplifying the servicing, indeed, the integration of the autopilot in the system (there being no need to install additional servo-drives in any given case to deal with the causes of breakdowns).
As for the simplicity of a mechanical part, the problem of increase of need of parts is converted into electronic devices which cost less and are easier to store. Storage is ideally assigned according to the structure to which it is applied, since the basic part, the operating mechanism, has already been distributed. The important item has been stored. In an accident the quadrocopter falls via the preferred operating mechanism, where too many propellers have impeded the efficiency of the system. The optimum amount of operating mechanisms are not difficult to calculate, mathematically determined by the required need and the nature of the breakdown of the given rotor.
Why the autopilot?
The autopilot serves to facilitate the system of the pilot and the air traffic controller.
Actually, a certain amount of buffeting is predictable and can be generally taken into account. There is absolutely no necessity to keep a qualified pilot on board for the sake of a mere 15-minute flight.
Air traffic control and the diversity of aircraft in the air are to a considerable degree effectively taken care of by automated operating systems. No artificial intelligence or mechanical visual apparatus or blocking device is needed at all. A mobile connection, provided by the coordinates and speed, as well as a single server trajectory analyzer, conduct the aircraft along stages of algebraic vectors. In case of immediate utilization of certain mobile operators and systems of travel orientation (stored on site), the possibility of non-mechanical connection remains minimal. Than again, operation in infernal war conditions risking the breakdown of all communications systems for urban air taxis is not at issue. The simplest TCAS requirement can be facilitated by an up-to-date base without extra expense.
Why electricity?
With respect to buffeting, the question of delivery and storage of fuel acutely arises.
Storage of tons of inflammable lubrication materials on an open roof exposed to lightning and static electricity rashly on a roof simply to expedite fuel delivery to be carried in barrels on elevators Is hardly recommendable, since this is forbidden by regulations governing the misuse of elevators. One must create a separate approach to flying tankers and the service of refueling, adding to the transportation cost. Then one must not forget the ecological factors in cities, involving a host of leading questions concerning air taxis, with awareness of the colossal damage caused by damaged tankers potentially falling from the skies.
At the same time, electrical operation is sufficient for intra-urban flights where the flight time allowing for charging of allocated (and thus, efficiently cooling) energy systems is estimated in minutes, while having the power needed to pass safely over buildings. Electrical operating devices are simpler to build with minimum possible construction of allocated systems, than internal combustion engines, given the increase in cost and the difficulty of servicing.
If one fixes the cruising speed for the movement of urban air taxis in the air and, while determining the system of change of pace of the rotor, the whole installation of the operating system of the aircraft will hang on the wearing out of a single bearing.
It is clear that up to the middle of the 20th century the market radio-guided apparatus, especially aviation, has been extremely niche-oriented. In order to fly for a mere 10 minutes by plane one has had to refill the tank with toxic and substandard, unregulated fuel, to heat up the sparkplugs, to start the engine by hand-operated electric starter or with one’s fingers (with the risk of losing them). In case of accidents, reparation of the instrument takes time and is expensive.
With the appearance of accessible lithium batteries and electrically driven engines the market has experienced a great leap. The cost of vehicles has decreased, and diversity has regularly increased. They have filled shop counters, such that hereto unimaginable multicopters have appeared. The transition to electricity and the lessening of problems in ownership have led to such a result.
Ask yourself if you were to buy a helicopter for a selfie, which you would fill up with methanol and drive it with your fingers?
Why no convert plan?
Many of the proposed campaign development projects are based on a convert plan scheme.
To understand the problems posed by such a scheme, let’s turn our attention to the concept of developing efficient aerial propellers. Efficiency should be achieved as much as possible with respect to the diameter of the prop and the lowest speed of its rotation. Thus, helicopters are precisely this. Payment according to [I could find not definition of КПД; possibly ‘kilometers per ….?] accords with the limitation of maximum speed of the helicopter, put out of operation by cutting off of the flow with the slowing down of the blades, the driving force reversing the movement of the helicopter, where the air pressure from its speed and the lifting force virtually approaches zero.
Nevertheless, helicopters have props of a small diameter and high revolution. This means sacrificing speed, where lockdown (or so-called ‘wave crisis’) arises with the fast-revolving prop at high speed.
Now let us take a look at the convert plan, for example, with respect to the well-known Bell V-22 Osprey (though the Russian YK-38 may be considered in terms of the convert plan, as well). Obviously, its props appear to be a compromise between a helicopter propeller (in providing acceptable traction and kilometers per -?- while hovering) and an airplane (in providing acceptable speed in horizontal flight).
So let us turn to the concept of energy equipment, in relation to the power of engine installation in the greatest number of aircraft. It may be measured in terms of watts per kilogram or in per unit of traction. Aircraft of vertical takeoff and landing must go higher than 1 (exceeding that of most aircraft), while fixed wing planes may reach 0.3.
The following table shows three types of aircraft, involving takeoff equipment around 22-x tons each:
1) Fixed wing plane AH-140,
2) The convert plan Bell V-22, and
3) The Boeing CH-47.
It is clear from the table that for access to the parameters of AH-140, convert plan V-22 must significantly have a considerable amount of energy equipment which specifically differs from the capacity of the not-so optimal aerodynamics of the convert plan. The majority of cases of engine installation and auxiliary systems rob internal capacity for accommodating passengers.
To launch the convert plan, one must ensure greater traction for its weight, while in horizontal flight, when a heavy burden is placed on the wings, the engines may be shunted into reserve mode, where overloading becomes ‘dead weight’, which it has to carry on its own.
Maximum efficiency of the convert plan specifically applies to horizontal flight, that is, ‘by fixed-wing airplane’. For this reason, it is not efficient for short distances. Over long distances it is inevitably restricted to aircraft of limited velocity, possessing large, slow blades.
Thus, the convert plan is technically much more complex than that of a helicopter or a fixed-wing plane, where both cost and technology are increased, along with the content thereof. At the same time, the likelihood of breakdown in flight is all the greater for the key parts.
The low number of accidents for the Bell V-22 is well said to be evidence of the reliability of this approach to means of transportation. In this case, then, what is the need for the convert plan?
For this kind of aircraft there is but a narrow niche, when there must be active transportation with vertical takeoff and landing (or hovering), although at high speed, as much as the helicopter can achieve.
It is important for descent operations, where the acceleration speed is according to the development of anti-aircraft defense against an enemy, where value is more important than with the issue of flight hours. In the civil sector the convert plan may be adapted to inter-city communication from rooftop to rooftop over distances of 300 kilometers or more, where the advantage speed in the helicopter is significant. However, within the city the plan becomes cheaper in efficiency with the helicopter.
Non-conclusion
Unfortunately, construction of a large quadrocopter, with the notion of its very name, is unlikely.
Suitable construction cannot answer the question of why you and not ‘Robinson’ should be addressed. What is worse is that most entrepreneurs play to Robison in the aggregate of parameters.
On the other hand, to build an urban air taxi according to classical specifications focused on energy efficiency is also not possible.
The basic criteria for urban air taxis must involve security..
Disregarding the fact that the energy efficiency of multi-rotor aircraft is inevitably lower than that of a single-rotor helicopter, under conditions of legal projections, such aircraft are capable of achieving 60% security in flight. Keeping down the cost of it, at the same or lower rate, for the light helicopter, simplifying and cheapening the servicing, elimination of blockage may militate toward the hiring of underqualified personnel, affecting automatic diagnostic performance, as expected with up-to-date motor vehicles.
Shifting of function from mechanical to electric for a given part of the aircraft simplifies the realization of self-diagnosis, lessening the demand for service personnel, while providing for storage of spare parts at overall less expense.
The less energy-consuming efficiency of the multi-rotor helicopter leads to rise in cost as much as $400 [only $4 is written here but this must be an error] per flight hour, given the economics of technological improvement, in comparison to the cost with light helicopters which could be as much as $700.
Any number of single propellers, at first glance, will have lower efficiency than, for example, four dual propellers. However, if one mathematically lowers this, the break will not be so great, indeed, where the quadrocopter must attain no less than 30%, while greater than 50% spare power for each engine (of a pair) and its system obtains, making up for what is lost.
This excess amount will be carried as dead weight for each flight. For the aircraft with a large number of blades, this necessary spare constitutes 3-7%, and efficiency in the use of available power is increased. With application of the coefficient of performance efficiency, physical processes come into play, producing pressures in the field directly from the position of the blades.
The experience of test flights by Flyka shows that the coefficient of performance efficiency of a multi-copter is not up to the standard Quadro, though it does regularly give it precision in operation and reliability.
Multi-rotor structure ensures greater comfort in flight, since engine noise and vibration are compensated for to a significant degree, and a uniform field of pressures in created clusters gives the aircraft greater stability in flight (whereby it puts a lower inertial factor in each prop into play). High stability in the hover mode, together with insulated engines, gives the aircraft facilitates servicing on the other end of the flight with, for example, the dismissal of repair personnel.
A problem must not be solved on the level at which it arises. Technological developments regularly upset the status of forces, so that what was complicated or unprofitable at the beginning of the 20th century has turned out to be simpler and cheaper at the beginning of the 21st.
The Flyka project
It would not be right to fail to bring up what the Flyka team has managed to achieve and what stage the project has reached.
From the very beginning we have provided support for the development of onboard systems. We have never considered entertaining a view of advances in aircraft that did not prove that multi-copters in a single takeoff can fly off lifting 100 kilotons. This was already proven with the e-volo model in the latter part of 2012.
We went deep into our accounts, in order to develop the optimum design and structure of onboard distributive networks, involving the optimum algorithms for autopilots.
Through the results of this work came the development of an autonomous autopilot with a stabilizing algorithm. Flight experiences with an anti-virus code disconnecting the engine in accident mode without knowledge of the ‘brains’ of the system to demonstrate the capability of support up to as many as seven breakdowns or more (with loss of height but continuance of operation). https://youtu.be/34bVME10JzU
A parallel advance is the concomitantly developed engine connected thereto in cooperation with the Motokhrom Company. Through the result of this work came about the brilliantly designed Thrush-2 engine. https://youtu.be/V-HZ0qTHvBw
The development took two years, requiring the construction of a full-fledged trial stand with certification of measuring-gauge channels with Rostest forecasting. Otherwise, an up-to-standard 200-parameter motor would be impossible. On the video below one may see the resource race of the earlier version of the Thrush over the course of 26 minutes (actually 40 minutes, but the camera battery ran down) for 100% of the time under actual conditions.
https://youtu.be/jYIYfPUXn10 This answers the question, “What will happen when it rains or snows?” “Nothng worse will happen.”
At the same timewe have learned from the work of co-creating the propeller in its framework with respect to the Barton [not ‘Bartin’] effect. https://youtu.be/DoO3ugU6EbI
Of course, the effective working of the motion regulator in the distribution network, operation of the co-created engine, and, in this context, not weighing down the vehicle would not affect the sale or the potential development of it.
https://youtu.be/NFE_2_vtD5s
In terms of construction, the project has been developed from the attempt to mark out engines front and back (patent №2603302 from 20.08.2015), realizing the full distribution as a routine, more up-to-date configuration (patent №2627220 от 4.08.2017).
Drawing of patent №2603302
Our project is continuously developing with the fullest scientific rigor. Any idea or model proceeds from the beginning and onward consistent according to the dictates of both mathematics and physics. Only when these are fulfilled can the project be concluded. Passenger safety is the priority above all.