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Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

(techcrunch.com)
171 points BrooklynRage | 1 comments | 03 Oct 19 17:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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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.

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badrabbit ◴[06 Oct 19 01:04 UTC] No.21169094[source]▶
I don't know much about this aircraft but this appears to be a winged aircraft which unlike quadcopters and helicopters,losing an engine or rotor does not translate to a crash(?) because it had n number of rotors on each side,if one is lost,you lose altitude maybe and turn off matching rotors on the other side,which naively appears safer than a helicopter.
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mannykannot ◴[06 Oct 19 03:08 UTC] No.21169575[source]▶
Wings don't help if you are below the stall speed.
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UIZealot ◴[06 Oct 19 06:52 UTC] No.21170285[source]▶
Isn't that true for all winged aircrafts?

By all means let's hold the Heaviside to the same high safety standard as other aircrafts, but not higher.

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1. mannykannot ◴[06 Oct 19 13:31 UTC] No.21171893[source]▶
> Isn't that true for all winged aircrafts?

Indeed it is, and my comment should be read in the context of the post I am replying to. Having wings gives Heaviside an advantage over purely multi-rotor aircraft most of the time, but during VTOL operations, there is a stage where the wings do not help.

Helicopters have an advantage over all other VTOL aircraft in that they can autorotate, though this is especially tricky in lightweight helicopters, on account of a lack of rotor inertia.