←back to thread

Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

(techcrunch.com)
171 points BrooklynRage | 1 comments | 03 Oct 19 17:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.225s | source
Show context
heyflyguy ◴[06 Oct 19 00:52 UTC] No.21169039[source]▶
Every time I see a multirotor carrying people, I think of the many times while building them at the beginning of the drone renaissance that I saw 4/6/8 bladed multirotors have an AP failure, a blade break, a speed controller overheat, etc etc and it fell out of the sky, literally.

These do not have a glideslope!

Sure, a ballistic chute might prevent an onboard tragedy but I continue to wonder about what the flying car gets parachuted onto. What fires get started? Who gets crushed?

Super cool tech. Huge accomplishment for the engineers involved.

I want to know how this makes a safe unpowered descent.

replies(6): >>21169094 #>>21169271 #>>21169725 #>>21169810 #>>21170304 #>>21173136 #
1. trhway ◴[06 Oct 19 03:51 UTC] No.21169725[source]▶
>I want to know how this makes a safe unpowered descent.

the wings seems to be enough for reasonable unpowered gliding. The canard design naturally helps prevent stall. And i'd be surprised if the engines on production models aren't split into 2 completely independent groups (given their number - 3 per/wing - on that prototype i think they aren't split) with completely separate power, controllers, etc, so even relatively serious failure would still leave you with half the engines - that would allow while uncomfortable, yet still controlled even vertical landing from lower hover which i'd suppose would be the worst situation to lose engines.