The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Your Next Vehicle Or, perhaps, your grandchild's Ken Holmes

Homan beans are a clever lot! What will they come up with next? The May 29 edition of "New Scientist" revealed the current state of development of the Skycar by Moller International (MI). Paul Moller, formerly Professor of Aero. and Mech. Engineering at UC Davis, has been active for 30 years in the development of small vertical fan type vehicles, some man-carrying and some camera-carrying robots for military or intelligence purposes or for engineering inspection of inaccessible areas such as the undersides of bridges. He is now well on the way to producing a vehicle which could supplement the car and helicopter for private (affluent) commuting. Much more information is available at http://www.moller.com/skycar/ .This is the best way into the site as it gives immediate access to a presentation by Prof Moller outlining the credible economic prospects and issues of safety, deployment and operational control.

I will mention some of the more general features here as an excuse to present some raytracings, based on the information available, using our old friend Ray Tracing, aka POVRay (POVWIN3.EXE - 3.67MB download) or at http://www.povray.org. The advent of the Wankel rotary engine, with its high power/weight ratio, fuel economy and low pollution attributes, has made possible this project and MI has acquired the licensing rights to the Wankel previously held by Outboard Marine Corp. The basic power cell is a pod containing two separate engines driving contra-rotating fans, with louvred vanes at the rear to direct the air aft for forward flight up to 300 mph or to direct it downwards for vertical take-off and landing. Figure 2 is rough schematic of the general arrangement with no claims to accuracy. The Wankel engine is a short cylinder but it will need a fuel system, inlet manifold and exhaust muffler; the fans could have any number of blades and the louvres can doubtless change shape and orientation for efficient aerodynamics. A single-seater with two pods has achieved about 180 flights loosely tethered to, but not supported by a crane to catch it if it Aft went out of control and to prevent it bothering the neighbours. This has proven the triplicated electronic autopilot and the duplicated fly-by-wire controls in the most critical flight regime, hovering. Less difficult forward flight is confidently predictable from wind tunnel testing.

Figure 1 is a busy scene of a Skycarpark in the future. A four-seater prototype is due to fly this year and could well have done so before publication of this. Two-seater and four-seater versions will be much more stable in fore and aft, or pitch, as they have four pods - and eight engines. They are a bit short of aerodynamic lifting area at the front, so I imagine that the front thrust jets would still be deflected slightly downwards even in horizontal flight; this is confirmed by the fact that a horizontal jet would partly infringe on the aft engine intakes. Small down-wards deflections produce considerable upthrust for a small penalty on forward thrust component, and this might well be useful even with the rear pods. If an engine fails, forward flight is still possible and if vertical landing is too hazardous, safer areas away from the rest of us could be chosen. A high speed
parachute and a large slow speed parachute could bring it to a vigorous sanding, but external and internal airbags could prevent serious damage to both craft and occupants.

GPS will be a standard fitting and, with local references at landing sites, can be accurate to within a foot allowing 'parking' irrespective of visibility. Air Traffic Control is envisaged with 100 ft vertical and perhaps half mile horizontal separations. Pilot control is minimal, virtually right/left and up/ down in current versions, but ultimately pilot input will not be necessary as all craft would constantly report GPS positions and ATC would institute corrective actions to safely direct all to their destinations, coordinating smooth altitude and directional transition between 'flighways' criss-crossing the country as well as managing the automated landing.

MI holds 100 reservations for the first production models, at something like a megabuck, but in mass production it is estimated that the price could move to more like a hecta-kilobuck, akin to a luxury car. So it might pay to not place your order just yet.

Reprinted from the February 2000 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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