🚀 Is this the future of aviation?
Watch the incredible Vertical Aerospace VA-1X prototype take to the skies at the Farnborough Airshow, showcasing the capabilities of this futuristic electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft!
In this flying demonstration, witness the VA-1X in action as it showcases its innovative design, electric propulsion technology and impressive flight capabilities.
Designed to revolutionise urban air mobility, Vertical Aerospace’s electric aircraft represents an exciting step towards a new generation of quieter, cleaner and more sustainable air travel.
This is a very cool technology, note these look silly because electric motors allow you to exploit aerodynamics better with more smaller engines without slamming into the maintenance nightmare you get if you try that with combustion engines. This makes many of these highly efficient electric VTOL/STOL aircraft with tons of little propellers look cartoonish when there is actually a genuine argument for it when designed well.
The principle with any kind of serious engineering is to rely on as little moving parts as possible/safe, the reason these designs don’t violate that basic design wisdom is that electric motors are radically simpler in fundamental design than combustion engines so you can go crazy with lots of smaller electric engines that add additional capability or increase lift through the blown flap effect.
Another reason these look cartoonish as well as quadcopter and multicoptor drones in general is that before modern high speed electronic controller chips creating a stable platform by just increasing or decreasing rotor speed with no helicopter like articulation was not practically possible, so this is a manifestation along scientific advancement in terms of control systems too.