Ultralight Donation Plan B 35
Pat & Dennis Bender Experimental-Aircraft Development Fund
J. Dennis Bender
Office, Home & Cell Phone: 859-391-5226
5726 La Jolla Blvd. – Suite 311
La Jolla, CA 92037-7345
&
Office - 100 Riverside Pl. - Suite 303
Covington, KY 41011-5711
We support experimental-aircraft development and applications for EMS, under-served-rural-communities, native-Americans, border-patrol, forestry-management, etc. (After initially incorporating in KY to form a single 501(c)(3), we dissolved that entity for a simplified form creating an entirely self-financed, private-philanthropy. A Vanguard National Trust account has been setup for making annual-grants for specific experimental-aviation-related projects in conjunction with the Experimental Aircraft Assoc. Foundation [EAA] in Oshkosh, WI.) and similar organizations.
www.JDBender.com – Pat & Dennis Bender eVTOL Experimental Aviation Fund (Vanguard National Trust)
www.JDBender.org – Pat & Dennis Bender Dementia Diagnosis Fund (Vanguard National Trust)
January 16, 2024
Our 2023 Winter Solstice gathering at Ft. Ancient, OH on Dec. 21st prior to my trip over to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH to discuss these ideas further with Michael Brimmer & Jennifer Hess. It’s a new day dawning!
“My Objective - Growing youth, general interest and participation in aviation activities.”
Purpose: The purpose of this never-ending set of my project notes is to provide continual updates on my ever evolving thinking and charitable activities as reported on at www.JDBender.com website that is dedicated to this project area. As such, it has now become a very-long collection of many updated notes and will remain so until I come to a conclusion as to exactly what the next major step will be.
Here is my current revised and updated ‘Plan-B’ now that my first-step with the S.D. Air & Space Museum is finally taken place with the purchase of an experimental-eVTOL for younger folks to work on as an experimental-EVTOL-ultralight project and for them to ultimately fly, similar to a project previously undertaken in San Francisco by their Flight Club Aerospace group.
Objective: Given today’s critical shortage of aviation-related personnel and the aging-out of we old-timers in the EAA and ultralight communities, I am working on this revised plan for meeting this project’s objectives. My mission is to inspire youth and others with a potential aviation interest and/or interested in a possible career in aviation and/or interest in experimental-aviation, especially eVTOLs.
Just as high-school-students were doing with the S.F.’s Flight Club Aerospace group back in 2020, I am trying to do something similar with this initial eVTOL project in San Diego at their Air & Space Museum Annex. I purchased a partially-completed, experimental-ultralight-eVTOL project and it has now been delivered to the Museum’s annex at Gillespie Field. My objective is just what NASA, EAA Foundation and the AOPA are also attempting to do, “growing participation in aviation,” such as with their virtual-reality-flight-simulator at the EAA Oshkosh-2023 Youth Welcome Center, NASA STEM Zone, NEXTGEN Aviators, and at the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio with their flight-simulators and various programs.
I had previously been investigating electrified traditional ultralights, before switching to this newer eVTOL-form-factor instead. What I want to add to early aviation experiences is the visceral-feel of actually flying – not just a stationary, video-game-simulation, no matter how good it can be with the newest video-goggles or even an advanced commercial-flight-simulator, such as the one at the Air Force’s Museum in Dayton, OH that I recently revisited to discuss these ideas. Simulators, no matter how realistic, are nothing like actually flying something! (See: www.JDBender.com- SF Electric Ultralight Student Project)
EAA Museum – Education Programs & Innovations Gallery:
https://www.eaa.org/eaa-museum/education-programs/education-programs-and-groups & https://www.eaa.org/eaa-museum/museum-exhibits/aviation-innovations-gallery
Remembering chatting with Molt Taylor about his 1949 Taylor Aerocar (N4994P) and my then interest in ‘flying-cars’ and attending the annual 3-hr. technical sessions devoted to this topic at the annual EAA Oshkosh convention that I attended 48 times, prior to switching to the eVTOL interest group, now meeting the weekend before, for the past couple of years. Today, you can actually purchase a flying-car, but my own interest has now shifted to eVTOLs and youth-education programs.
Revised Idea: My current idea revolves around going beyond just giving young-folks an EAA demo-flight, as we do regularly at Lunken Field in Cincy, Brown Field in San Diego, at EAA-Chapter-147, nearby Sporty’s at the Clermont County Airport (Sporty’s Airport, 2001 Sporty's Dr., Batavia, OH 45103,) and at all the other EAA Chapters across the U.S., as well as nearby at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH.
My current plan is to offer those with an interest in aviation-related activities and/or careers ground-school followed by hands-on experience with programming an experimental-eVTOL, currently located at Gillespie Field in S.D., followed by actual multiple-flights. First to be in a tethered flight experience at the S.D. Air & Space Museum annex, if we can eventually get their insurance company to agree to at least doing that much, and then on to either a true untethered ultralight-eVTOL flight out at Gillespie Field in a geofenced-area with the Ryse-Recon that I’ve now ordered and hope to soon complete the purchase of, or flying it out of the Springfield-Beckley Airport, here in SW Ohio. My on-order Ryse-Recon is estimated to be delivered around September 2024 by which time I will have returned to my offices in Covington, KY from my home in La Jolla.
For now, I only need to add a trailer-hitch to my C8-Corvette-HTC to be able to tow it up to the Springfield-Beckley Airport and back-and-forth to La Jolla. Longer-term, I have also ordered a Tesla-Cyberbeast for transporting it up to the Springfield-Beckley Airport or out into the desert outside San Diego to Jacumba, where our S.D. EAA-114 ultralight club is planning on eventually relocating. I’ve also ordered the extended-battery-option, plus a portable-solar-generator to charge both, while camping out there under the Cyberbeast’s addon tent-shelter, also on order. See: My Cyberbest doc for all the details of that combo and its advantages, especially when there are not any nearby recharging-stations.)
This idea is acceptable to Gillespie Field’s airport administration, with whom I have been discussing the idea with Louise Dragman-Renz, Assistant Airport Manager, and with the local San Diego FAA District Office over the prior year. It is a concept with which they both seem interested and were enthusiastic regarding working with me to further develop it. Adding this newly-ordered Ryse-Recon to this mix adds a needed next-step, in addition to establishing a youth group to work on the experimental-eVTOL project that I’ve already donated to the S.D. Air & Space Museum that is now located at their Gillespie Field Annex.
The Ryse-Recon ultralight-eVTOL I’ve selected is one of a half-dozen competing designs, discussed below, that I describe here in detail and with which I have been involved with for the past many years.
It all started with the Blackfly’s introduction at EAA Oshkosh, nearly a decade-ago, and now most-recently with my ordering the Ryse-Recon from here in Mason, OH, which appears to be a viable start-up company and a good candidate for this next project step. A likely better ultimate configuration being a hybrid having a much-longer 2-hour duration by utilizing aviation-fuel in addition to just battery-power, such as the Zapata AirScooter or similar (See: “Zapata AirScooter” doc and below.) Their hybrid-design ultralight is now being developed in CA. I still very-much also like the old Blackfly design that was my first foray into this topic, nearly a decade-ago, at the EAA Oshkosh annual convention that I’ve attended annually for the past 48-weeklong sessions, prior to switching to the eVTOL group that meets the weekend before, for the past couple of years.
I have designated a Vanguard Charitable allocation of a $200,000 budget for this specific project, beginning with $10,000 for purchasing that eVTOL prototype-project, plus $175,000 for purchasing the Ryse-Recon, now on order with its currently September 2024 forecasted delivery-date. A later-stage of this project will have potential additional funding available for something like the hybrid-Zapata-AirScooter, just as soon as they have started actual volume-production and have units in end-user-hands to gain more-experience with their safety-profile and utility, assuming that they are eventually able to convince insurers of the safety of such aircraft so as to be able to obtain the standard $1M-liability insurance currently available from the Ultralight Assoc.’s O2 insurance company for conventional ultralights.
We still need to address this key liability-insurance-issue that has remained a major stumbling-block to getting this project finally started with the S.D. Air & Space Museum, but at least we have now moved forward with this first-step purchase of an experimental-prototype eVTOL, its delivery to the S.D. Air & Space Museum’s Annex at Gillespie Field and the ordering of the Ryse-Recon.
eVTOL Safety Issues: In theory, ultralight-eVTOLs should be much-safer, but this apparently needs to be actually demonstrated to the aviation insurance industry. I’m currently discussing this matter with the US Ultralight Assoc. USUA (https://www.usua.org/) and their liability-insurer O2. There seems to be some debate regarding its ability to cover the Ryse-Recon. There never has been any prior problem when I fly traditional ultralights, and I do not see this as being much different. However, the problem is that these ultralight-eVTOLs are still new and unproven, versus the decades of experience insurers now have with traditional ultralights.
My contention is that eVTOLs will ultimately prove to be even safer than traditional ultralights, but I guess that has to be demonstrated to the aircraft-insurers with some actual history relating to their safety-profile. In the interim, our prototype, ultralight-eVTOL, tethered-flight-demonstrator-project is a first-step in that direction and extremely safe for under-age, as well as young, or not-so-young adults; such as myself, now at age-81, with still only my 2008 FAA Student Pilot Certificate, that now needs to be renewed.
Commercial eVTOLs I had always suspected that both Joby and Beta would locate facilities at or near the Springfield-Beckley Muny Airport [ https://springfieldohio.gov/springfield-beckley-municipal-airport/ ] as Joby has just done and where Beta also has an office in their vertiport. I have been visiting this airport regularly for the past few years and again visited on December 21st for another hour-long chat and to drop-off a copy of this ever-expanding file regarding my thoughts and experiences regarding where we stand today and future plans.
Updated Notes What follows are these evolving notes to myself that I keep adding to as this project progresses and evolves. There is no need to read this entire ever-expanding set of my personal project notes, but they are offered here for anyone wanting to dig more deeply into the subject matter and understand how I ended-up where we stand today with my current ordering of a Ryse-Recon and providing the experimental-eVTOl project to the S.D. Air & Space Museum, as described further here.
From this now book-length tome, you can see that this has been a decade-long project that is now finally taking shape with actual eVTOL purchases and trials, not just plans and discussions that took place over the past-decade. I continually add to these notes and try to update this evolving document from time-to-time, without summarizing it since it is an ongoing process, now finally slowly converging to some actual next-steps and an ultralight purchase.
The now Moog-owned project at Lunken Field in Cincinnati that I was previously involved with.
My calendar out planning for the forecast September 2024 delivery of my Ryse-Recon while having another great dinner at the Golden Lamb in Lebanon, OH.
Project Background All this has been one of the reasons, along with my previous work on a similar project with the now Moog-owned project that was located here at Lunken Airfield here in Cincinnati, that I continue to maintain my old condo offices in Covington, KY, instead of moving fulltime to my current Winter-Spring home in La Jolla. Joby has recently announced a major new production-facility in the Dayton area. I also continue visiting the new, now finally opened, eVTOL site at the nearby Springfield-Beckley Muny Airport. Once-again with dinner following each visit, as always, at the Golden Lamb in Lebanon, OH, that I highly recommend if you are in this area.
Both Beta & Joby have offices here under that eVTOL vertiport landing-pad pictured at their site located at the Springfield-Beckley Airport in SW Ohio. This facility is part of an Ohio air-corridor for testing autonomous-aircraft, such as new air-taxi prototypes and already has a Beta-Cube charging-station available, once they fix their original installation problem with it’s being too high.
Beta originally installed this version of their charging facility but ran afoul of the FAA’s restriction as to its height, so it has to be replaced with something lower than 6’ to be located this close to aircraft. I’ve seen pictures of their new 350-kW Charge-Cube design and it looks to be fine. Hope this old one will soon be replaced with that new design so I can recharge my Ryse-Recon ultralight here.
If it just had wings, my C8-Corvette-HTC would certainly fly! Now adding a trailer-hitch for towing my on-order Ryse-Recon eVTOL up here to this location for flying it, while here in the Cincinnati/Covington area, or out to the desert, while back home in La Jolla CA.
This new airport facility is now open and being occupied.
Electrified aircraft hanging in the new lobby, which was still locked-up, last time I checked in December 2023, preventing a visit to view it up close. This Springfield-Beckley, OH airport is one stop on Beta’s route from their headquarters in New England down to Arkansas and Florida. 13 sites have been completed and another 50 sites are in process, which will connect their two routes. [Vertiflite – Nov/Dec 2023]
Be sure to watch the following excellent introductory videos, beginning with Eric Bartsch’s, CEO of VerdeGo Aeronautics, outstanding presentation drawing the very-same conclusion I had come to 5+years-ago when I drove down to Austin, TX to try to meet with the LIFT Aircraft HEXA folks about then investing $250,000 (now they’re asking $500,000 https://evtol.news/lift-hexa/ ) with their then new venture as a first-step in this developmental effort that has dragged-on for 6+years now.
For each of the past 48-years, I annually spent an entire week at the U. of Wisc.-Oshkosh dorms to attend the EAA week-long annual convention so as to be able to listen to all of the technical seminars I could fit into my schedule, such as the excellent one above on YouTube with Eric Bartsch. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXdg5fJJ1vs&list=PLX4hjF2m8tu3yUGM-lDCdoQ3hyPkdzXBx&index=4&ab_channel=VerticalFlightSociety ]
For the last couple of years, I have only attended the eVTOL meeting held the weekend before the full EAA convention fly-in. A decade ago, I first met with the Blackfly folks at EAA Oshkosh and invited their entire team for dinner at the steakhouse nearby my UW dorm-room to discuss my interest in participating in its development. Unfortunately, they cancelled at the last minute, so we were never able to meet to discuss my funding offer to help with their project. I have currently budgeted $2M towards this eVTOL developmental effort from my now fully-funded $16M Vanguard Charitable trust fund.
All this looks like a very-promising development moving ahead in the right direction, and I am most-interested in pursuing it further. Little did I know it would turn out to take a decade to get to this point that we have now finally arrived at. Beginning with my donation of the experimental ultralight-eVTOL to the S.D. Air & Space Museum to encourage young folks and others with a similar interest to my own to get hands-on experience and the visceral experience of actually flying something! (See details of that following this.)
Blackfly [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSwfmrZDeeo&ab_channel=AOPAPilotVideo ]
Ultralight-eVTOL Options There are currently a half-dozen ultralight-eVTOL options that I’ve been evaluating constantly since then, including that initial effort with the Blackfly folks. Blackfly was the first and is now still an option, and perhaps the best performing of the lot, given its winged-area. They have only recently begun to finally actually sell a few of them. They delivered their first one to a customer, but the cost is said to be around $275,000. It seems rather ungainly at takeoff-and-landing and a bit over-priced, given one could buy my much-loved Robertson-R-44 helicopter, that I give folks 20-minute sightseeing rides in over downtown Cincinnati. It having about the same 20-minute flying time as the current crop of these ultralight-eVTOLs. Blackfly remains very-secretive about their operations and why it has seemingly taken them forever to finally get to this point of finally selling a few to select customers.
Gillespie Field in San Diego
Here is Gillespie Field. The S.D. Air & Space Museum Annex facility is at the far end of the runway at the left end.
I don’t want my efforts to end-up in-the-weeds at the Gillespie S.D. Air & Space Museum Annex property, as this old flying-car project did. Ryse-Recon, or Zapata’s-AirScooter are great current examples of what is possible. Morty’s experimental Flying-ATV, seemed well suited to this proposed application, so I purchased it from him for the S.D. Air & Space Museum’s use, but I’m still unsure about whether or not ultralights and batteries are the correct combination, long-term, for what we are focused on accomplishing. A certified-two-place, such as Moog or Zapata’s ultralight hybrid-design, might be the better long-term choice, but this is a useful first-step in that direction and hopefully a useful educational-aid to get younger-folks interested in aviation.
We all would love to have this sort of facility in our workshops that is currently located in the S.D. Air & Space Museum’s basement workshop! We might soon be able to replace this original Wright Brothers’ 1903 aircraft-engine with more-reliable, easier-to-maintain and repair, and much-less-expensive to operate electric-motors. That original 4-cylinder, gasoline-powered engine delivered 12-horsepower and weighed 170-pounds. The engine's only control was a fuel-valve, which was connected to a stick within easy reach of the pilot. Compare that with what is now available with an electrified-flight in a Ryse-Recon!
For a sample of this newer type of ultralight-eVTOL that I have been investigating for a decade now, you should watch an introductory overview of the many options that are finally hopefully about to enter the market, such as those seen at: TOP 12 Personal VTOL Aircraft | Best Ultralight Flying Vehicles - YouTube [Likely needs updating]
(Photo from my recent visit to the Rotor-X workshop with a secret-project covered-up next to it, likely a 2-place version, with a military-sponsored project secured in a locked-project-area behind these two on their open floor.)
As a kit, rather than an assembled airframe, the Rotor-X Dragon raises many additional issues that I investigated during my July 10-11th 2023 trip to Chandler, AZ to visit their facility and discuss this firsthand with them, (in 112-degree heat!) One can easily hire a designated, professional, west-coast contractor (‘builder-assist’) to help one assemble it for an estimated additional $12,000 if you don’t care to construct one of their well-put-together kits entirely by yourself.
I sent Ryse-Recon their requested $5,000 deposit with further funds to be transferred from my Vanguard Charitable account as they reach various pre-specified contract points. Having now met frequently with the Ryse Aero folks here in Cincinnati, as well as with a number of the others, I decided to go ahead with at least ordering that Ryse-Recon with its forecast delivery around September, 2024, likely to be somewhat later than that.
My current reading material.
In the meantime, the first-step was purchasing an ultralight-eVTOL project that I have now donated to the Air & Space Museum for creating at least a tethered-flight-simulator, or if that does not work out, possibly just a Remote Piloted Vehicle (RPV) for them to fly after obtaining the necessary FAA pilot-certification. (I’m reading that Remote Pilot training manual above to better understand what is involved in doing that. I note that the current Hughes manual I just received from the USUA ultralight organization I belong to has not changed any in the 3-decades since I last received it from them, save the deletion of just one sentence that has now been marked-out.)
After that and when folks such Zapata-AirScooter are actually in full-production and we have my own owner experience with an in-production eVTOL-ultralights or light sports aircraft, then I’ll purchase another one for another organization, such as the EAA Foundation in Oshkosh, the VTOL Society, the San Diego Ultralight Chapter-114, S.D. Air & Space Museum, USAF Museum in Dayton, OH or another interested organization willing to work with me on furthering this ongoing project. For now, it’s the Ryse-Recon that I now have on order and that is my next-step.
Ultralight Flying Location Problems in S.D. I’ve had monthly chats with our EAA Ultralight Chapter-114 there in San Diego over the past many months regarding their thoughts on this topic but found them primarily focused on setting up a new flying location in Jacumba Hot Springs that will be needed to replace our now 30+yearold setup at the Skydive San Diego (13531 Otay Lakes Rd., San Diego, CA) skydiving-facility. We are no longer permitted to fly our ultralights there, only to continue having our monthly EAA Ultralight Chapter-114 meetings there and the continuing use of our existing hangars, at least until we decide when we will be permanently moving on to a future new location, likely way out in the desert at Jacumba Hot Springs, a 90-minute drive from La Jolla.
I had strongly suggested that they instead consider Gillespie Field, that permits ultralight flights, as a better, closer, more-viable alternative, but they seem set on Jacumba Hot Springs, as described below, which I’ve found to be unfortunately ill-suited for my purposes after spending a good deal of time out there studying the feasibility of utilizing that windy, distant, proposed site for this ultralight-eVTOL project. However, with my now on-order Tesla-Cyberbeast setup, it could at least make it an enjoyable extended camping experience for flying out there.
eVTOL Donation to SD Air & Space Museum Morty Berger, a fellow EAA Ultralight Chapter 114 member, with similar interests to myself, had built his own version of an experimental ultralight-eVTOL prototype. Unfortunately, problems prevented him from continuing with his development work, but he was willing to sell it to me for a donation to the S.D. Air & Space Museum, which I have done. It is still only an experimental project, but it looks well suited as a first-step and is already at least flying by remote-control, with the next-step being to load it with a 200# sandbag in the pilot’s seat and further optimize the flight-controller-parameters. Here is his description of what I purchased from him and have donated to the S.D. Air & Space Museum.
My Flying-ATV
San Marcos, CA
858-395-3516
Welcome to My Flying-ATV
This is a prototype which has been under development for 2-years. It is constructed of aircraft-aluminum-T6 and has Lexicon plastic-covering the sides. We have been test-flying it unmanned. It has 8-co-axial-motors which each have a maximum-lift capacity of 36-kgs, [634-lbs. total, if I did that conversion calculation correctly.]
The components include: 8 ESC's, 4 sets of carbon-fiber-propellers 40"x13", 4-10,000 Mah 12s 30C Lipo batteries, 1 Holybro Durandhal Pixhawk 4 flight-controller, 1 MRO-transmitter, 1 Futaba-radio, and 1 HP laptop-computer with Qground control-software. The sale-price was $25,000 and there was only this single one available.
I contacted him and agreed to purchase his project for the Air & Space Museum’s as a, possibly-tethered, flight-simulator or for flying in a geo-fenced area restricted as to its permitted airspace. This being similar to flight-simulators currently used for military or commercial pilot-training and certification, such as I just looked at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, but on a much smaller-scale. I believe that this platform could be at least used for tethered-demo-flights of say 6-feet AGL, with large-springs attached to the undercarriage, to safely give the full visceral-experience of actually-flying, versus the stationary, video-game-simulators that air museums now offer. Hopefully, much more than that, after we resolve the current insurance problem with the S.D. Air & Space Museum.
One needs the visceral-experience of actually flying in a flight-simulator, before going on to start taking ultralight or private-pilot training, as I’ve done a number of times now myself, but still remain an aged-student-pilot having never found an aircraft of sufficient interest to finally complete my pilot-training, following both ultralight and private-pilot ground-schools. In 2008 I obtained my FAA Student Pilot Certificate. (I’ve now flown everything from powered-parachutes, to gliders, to gyrocopters, to light-sport-aircraft, such as Cessna 172s etc., up to a twin-engine Beech; but never found anything interesting enough to buy one and rent expensive hangar space to house it, at least until now with these interesting new eVTOLs.)
This would be a mission similar to our current EAA-14 Young Eagles program at Brown Field, but taking it a step further to include finishing the construction of my donated ultralight-eVTOL and then offering an hour of ground-school at the Gillespie facility, followed by actual time either tethered-flying or in a geo-fenced-flying area in an ultralight-airframe. possibly at the S.D. Air & Space Museum location, and finally out at our future S.D. EAA-Ultralight-114 club field location, wherever that finally ends-up being, flying in an ultralight-eVTOL, such as my future Ryse-Recon.
Speaking with Louise Dragman-Renz, Assistant Airport Manager at Gillespie Field on June 28, 2023 I find that there are already ultralight operations going on at their field and a number of ultralights are currently located in nearby hangars (near 1981 North Marshall Avenue.) There have already even been fire-fighting-drone operations at that airfield, with no problems whatsoever. It is just a matter of contacting the tower for prior clearance.
I was delighted to learn of all this having been initially pessimistic about their likely attitude toward ultralight operations. In fact, given their very-welcoming attitude, I think our EAA Ultralight Chap. 114 should be reconsidering relocating there, rather than way out in the boondocks at Jacumba Hot Springs, as they now plan to do. (See details below if you have an interest in visiting that intriguing historic location with its interesting history with Clark Gable and the Ratpack. (For those not old enough to even know who the Ratpack members were, it was Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford.)
Losing our longtime Otay Lakes home-base for EAA Ultralight Chapter 114 was just the first of a number of problems I keep running into in finding a home for this potential project. Flying in a small geofenced-area at Gillespie Field, such as at the S.D. Aerospace Museum’s location or over at the airport FBO location, was investigated as a couple of feasible alternatives.
Another option I researched was flying it as a tethered-flight-simulator at the Air & Space Museum’s facility in the grassy-open-area nearby the museum. The old Gillespie airport-terminal-area also was an alternative attractive location, with lots of open and still undeveloped space available all around it. (That area has been underutilized ever since Covid struck, with their extensive pilot-training-operations there initially cut by 2/3rds, but now finally recovering, with many international students.)
What we need for this project is a location more like our longtime Otay Lakes EAA ultralight club 114 location, but that group’s current decision is to move all the way out to Jacumba Hot Springs. That is a less-desirable location for this project, IMHO. It’s being a 90-minute drive out there from my home in La Jolla or anywhere else in the San Diego area and having generally fairly-windy conditions, great for sailplanes and soaring, but not so much for ultralights. However, ultralight-eVTOLs might be less susceptible to adverse wind conditions than traditional winged-ultralights. I need to check into that contention since my helicopter-pilot friends tell me that my favored Robinson-R44, that I frequently fly in and give rides to friends here at Lunken Airfield, “is tricky to handle in cross-winds and windy-conditions,” so I need to check into all this regarding how ultralight-eVTOLs fare in unsettled, windy conditions.
An eVTOL-ultralight, tethered or geo-fenced into a small-area seems a viable-option as an initial first-step to be followed by actual eVTOL-ultralight flights in a geofenced-area out at Gillespie Field, once we finally settle the sticky-wicket-issue of how insurance might be handled. I’m working further on that issue now that I’ve settled on this multi-step-project.
At least all of the $175,000 project-funding is now in place with Vanguard Charitable and only waiting for my direction to them as to when, where and to whom to direct those funds for this initial project. The only issue here is that it has to be done through a 501(c)3 charitable organization, such as the EAA Foundation, S.D. Air & Space Mus., USUA, the Vertical Flight Society, etc.
I’ve flown an ultralight a number of times at the Camarillo Airport, north of LA, but it is too time-consuming a drive up from my home in La Jolla to be a viable location for this project. (These folks have been down to chat with us at EAA-Ultralight-Chapter-114 a number of times now in San Diego and they have a great facility that I highly recommend if you are in the LA area.)
Insurance Issue I’ve flown ultralights frequently at Skyrider Ultralights (http://www.skyriderultralights.com/) located at Camarillo Airport Ultralight Field and elsewhere. (Let me tell you the story sometime about I and my wife’s abortive attempt to learn-to-fly ultralights in Richmond, Va. on one of our vacations trips there specifically intended to do just that. It is the way I ultimately learned to ride-horseback, English-style, but never learned to fly ultralights on that trip, nor fly light-sport aircraft in the years that followed after many false-starts with private-pilot flight training in conventional aircraft or an electrified Velis-Pipistrel trainer! (https://www.pipistrel-aircraft.com/products/velis-electro/)
They would have been an ideal potential partner with their existing, long-term, ultralight operation in conjunction with the Camarillo airport. Many similar operations already exist at other local airports that permit ultralight operations in conjunction with their normal aircraft operations, where feasible. One just contacts the tower for permission to use often a secondary-runway, such as available at Camarillo, or a parallel-runway to the main runways for normal take-off-and-landings, sometimes a grass-strip. Such an arrangement has worked perfectly for decades there and elsewhere so these eVTOL-ultralights should be able to be just as easily accommodated as these long-existing ultralight operations.
More Background Back to the specifics of this now many-times-revised proposal.
There is a perfect open-space currently at the rear of their property that would be perfect for flying a tethered eVTOL ultralight or it could be done from alongside their existing large hangar. An ultralight could also be flown from this same location, as some are already doing in that same area, if insurance coverage can be arranged.
San Diego Air & Space Museum
2001 Pan American Plaza
San Diego, CA 92101
https://sandiegoairandspace.org/museum/gillespie-field-annex
The specific eVTOL experimental project I chose was Morty Berger’s Flying-ATV that I have now donated to the San Diego Air & Space Museum to initiate this project. They received my full payment for Morty’s experimental-eVTOL project for either a static-display, a tethered-flight-simulator, and/or for flight in a geofenced-area, since their insurer refused to cover such an activity, as I had originally proposed it, until there is more experience with such ultralights. (Morty is a fellow member of our EAA Ultralight Chapter 114 in San Diego.) I’m now also discussing this whole concept with the EAA Foundation in Oshkosh, WI, with the Ultralight Assoc., with the Air Force Museum in Dayton, and with the Vertical Flight Society regarding my current purchase of a Ryse-Recon as a donation. We need to find some way to offer actual-flight-experiences with liability-insurance-coverage.
I have been regularly visiting the Ryse-Recon offices in Mason, OH to track their flying-prototype’s progress and the outfitting of their future production facility at that same general location. They have a great demo-flight-area in the rear portion of their offices. They have been giving journalists, with only 10-minutes of prior-instruction, demo-flights, as documented below. I’m scheduled for my own demo-flight as soon as I return there from La Jolla, after this winter’s weather is finally past.
Here are some lists, that likely need updating, with overviews of other current eVTOLs and ultralight versions, but that gives an adequate overview – just Google this topic for the most-current group: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QYUx1iZh4&ab_channel=AmericanFighter , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giZeEEdzQwM&ab_channel=TopBox, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfYgdsqjGkk&ab_channel=eVTOLinnovation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSV-JagfuP4&ab_channel=ElectricAviation ]
Such videos give a decent, if somewhat hooky, overview of what is currently available out there, some of which are now finally becoming a reality, while many of the others will just disappear into-the-sunset or crash, as one does in one of the videos above.
My first Blackfly meeting was at their introduction at EAA Oshkosh a decade-ago. I’ve met them and others during the 48 past weeks that I’ve attended the EAA’s annual Oshkosh convention gatherings. (I spent the last two years, virtually attending the eVTOL meeting the weekend before those week-long EAA Oshkosh annual conventions to avoid the problem of having to reserve dorm housing during that first weekend before the annual EAA meeting, now requiring a 13-month prior reservation! Previously I had always done so, but now I’m more-interested in just the eVTOL activities.)
All that got me started down this path leading to this current purchase of the Ryse-Recon ultralight-eVTOL-project for the S.D. Air & Space Museum as a tethered-flight-demonstrator at their Museum location and/or full-flight in a geofenced-area at their annex facility at Gillispie Field. I liked the Blackfly design’s performance with it’s winged-areas and they are now apparently finally beginning actual sales of at least a few units, but at a rather high price.
I had long-ago driven down to Austin, Texas to interview the LIFT-Hexa folks and to inspect their ultralight-eVTOL. They proved to be literally a ‘fly-by-night’ operation trying to sell me a $250,000 ride-franchise deal, (for which they are now asking $500,000!,) with personal possession of that, by then, very-well-used ultralight, 2-years-after its being used to give many damaging demo rides. That odd arrangement was offered rather than any eVTOL-ultralight outright-purchase, but which they would eventually then give to you after this initial use. (Air-One is currently apparently also offering this same sort of deal.) They are now finally doing this, many-years-later, and they claim to have sold a few such franchises and now also claim to have finally actually manufactured “16+” of their ultralights. They have now changed the terms of their franchise deals.
This long-term, very-negative, experience with these early-offerings, that take forever to finally become a reality, has made me quite realistic as to when these numerous prototype-units will actually become actual production-units. For that reason, I am no longer willing to place a typical $20,000 deposit on say a Jetson-One or similar, as I had done at one point, but later withdrew. (I was their order-number-265 at that time.) Currently, I am in a similar order-number-position with my payment of $5,000 for the Ryse-Recon that I had initially offered to the S.D. Air & Space Museum, had it not been nixed due to their insurer refusing to go along with my original proposal, at least “until we can prove its safety with lots of user experience, in many locations and for many identical production-units.”
Most of these eVTOL-ultralights are still just basically introductory or thrill-rides with their short 15-20-minute flight-durations, though the Ryse-Recon is targeted at an actual agricultural-use-case.
As you know, ultralights can only be flown over unpopulated areas, in unregulated Class-G [or sometimes Class-E below 10k,] air-space. However, they can take-off from municipal airports, such as the Air & Space Museum’s facility here at Gillespie Field in San Diego. Such municipal airports are required by FAA-statute, if feasible, to make allowances for ultralight-operations if they accept any Federal funds, which they all do. Fortunately, the S.D. County Administration has expressed their high-level-of-interest in furthering this sort of effort.
Before I get into a very-deep-dive into all of this, here is an overview to familiarize you with a few of these half-dozen current eVTOL-ultralights’, after seeing them in the videos, driving over to Chandler, AZ for a 2-day visit with the Rotor-X Dragon folks and now regularly visiting the Ryse-Recon folks here in Mason, OH. I’ll first review my findings during my visit with the Rotor-X folks, before going on to Mason, OH to meet there with the Ryse-Recon folks and finally deciding to purchase of their ultralight-eVTOL for my originally-proposed project with the S.D. Air & Space Museum, since having to be modified as discussed above.
Here is their test-pilot, Eric Stephansen, a Pitts-pilot, with whom I had been frequently speaking. He has been a great help in trying to get this project started and they have been very-accommodating.
Above are three of the current half-dozen ultralight-eVTOL contenders [https://ryseaerotech.com/ Vs. https://rotorxdragon.com/ Vs. https://www.jetsonaero.com/]
The Dragon was introduced at the 2023 EAA Oshkosh annual get together in July, that I’ve attended previously at the U. of Wisconsin Dorms. The newest offering from Rotor-X is this eVTOL ultralight Dragon Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) seen on my recent visit with them. I’ve read and watched interviews with their new owner regarding their also working on a new 2-place version and another one for the military. That narrow nose-area proved too small, so they are redesigning a wider-nose to give more foot-room. I watched the fellow that was currently working on that new wider nose design during my visit.)
Here is their ‘museum’ with their previous projects and earlier models. [ https://rotorxdragon.com/product/dragon-lite/ ]
I visited with these Rotor-X folks in Chandler, AZ (in 112-degree heat!) to inspect their facility there and determine how far along they were with their prototype. They are a very-credible kit-helicopter and ultralight manufacturer of long-standing, though now under new ownership, with a first-rate production facility. The quality of their work is outstanding, with superb welding of their airframes, as I saw for myself. They have been test-flying their current prototype daily out in the desert, as they were doing the day I visited with them, but I did not have a chance to see it actually flying that day. Eventually, they will likely be a great option, but they are still in the early-stages of prototype development and were not yet ready for production and sale to customers when I visited them.
They introduced their Dragon at the current annual EAA Oshkosh July convention. They do an excellent job of packaging all the kit parts in well-labeled, multiple-blister-packs, for step-by-step assembly, or one could also contract with their associates in CA to have it assembled for you, for a currently estimated additional “$12,000.”
I first met with Ryse-Recon folks on July 27, 2023 and ever since frequently with them at their offices in Mason, OH.
Ryse-Recon
My first visit up to RYSE as they were just first getting started in Mason, OH over a year-ago. All is progressing well according to my most-recent conversations with them.
This is the parking-area behind their offices where I observed their inventory of parts on my first visit over a year ago. Here is my contact Eric Stephansen who is their test-pilot and a Pitts pilot. (He flew with a friend to the annual EAA Oshkosh convention while I virtually attended the Saturday-before VTOL convention from my office here in Cincinnati/Covington, KY.)
“I feel the need. The need for speed.” Eat your heart out, Tom Cruise!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15CuZgcbldaZmOZzlVvptIHrFaqwrTV85/view
On a Sunday afternoon over a year ago, I drove that C8-Z51-HTC Corvette up to their office address to be sure that they really existed. Behind their offices I noted that trailer, with its pallet-loads on skids, tucked beneath, the same as seen in their website video-recording (above), while checking-out their attractive facility there in Mason, OH. Yes, they really do exist and even returned my phone-calls, early-on, and have since been very-helpful! (Be sure to watch their interview at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PktEk1W3KIE&ab_channel=FarmProgressDaily.)
RYSE Aero Is Taking Reservations for Ultralight RECON eVTOL
The single-seat aircraft is designed for work in agricultural markets and other rural operations.
By Jonathan Welsh - January 12, 2023
As an ultralight aircraft, the RYSE RECON can be flown by people without pilot-certificates.
RYSE Aero Technologies (https://ryseaerotech.com/) said it has begun taking reservations for prospective buyers of its RECON ultralight eVTOL vehicle, which is aimed at farmers, ranchers, and other customers operating on large properties and in agricultural settings.
The Mason, Ohio, company said the single-seat aircraft uses 6 motors and automated flight systems that allow it to operate much like the small, radio-controlled UAVs that are familiar to consumers. Essentially, the craft maintains stability while the operator steers. Designed for simplicity, the aircraft uses battery packs that are easy to remove and recharge, like those used on electric lawn mowers, RYSE said.
The RECON will operate as an ultralight aircraft under Part-103 of the FAA regulations, the Company said, adding that while users will require training to fly the vehicle, they will not need a pilot certificate. As an ultralight, the RECON also has the opportunity to enter the market sooner than larger, more complex eVTOLs that will require certification under standards the FAA is still developing.
RYSE said the RECON has a range-of-25-statute-miles and a top-speed-of-63-mph, which is slightly below the 55-knot limit set by regulations. Ultralight rules also forbid flying in controlled airspace, or over congested areas or open assemblies of people, so customers looking for a suburban commuter vehicle will have to wait for certified eVTOLs to become available.
“We have received countless requests from enthusiasts and agricultural buyers to purchase a RECON,” said Mick Kowitz, CEO of RYSE Aero Technologies. “We want to begin the purchase process by allowing future buyers to secure a position in line now, so when we begin production manufacturing, everyone can know what and when to expect delivery.” [Boy, have I heard that one before!]
The Company said its reservation-system lets customers claim what it calls an “assembly-position” for a RECON and gives them a way to determine the date, time, and location of delivery. RYSE also said the initial round of manufacturing “will prioritize reservations for properties such as farms, ranches, and vineyards first, and then later accommodate reservations for more general property owners.”
RYSE said the reservation plan will allow it “to better manage the supply-chain and more-effectively meet customer needs.” The Company said it expects to begin deliveries late this year.
This One-Person eVTOL Flies You Over Trees at 60-MPH—and You Don’t Even Need a Pilot’s-License
RotorX's Dragon requires no pilot's license, while promising flight times of 20-minutes at altitudes of 100 feet. Flying too high? It also comes with a parachute.
By Michael Verdon – Robb Report - Published on December 17, 2022
4140 W Mercury Way, Chandler, AZ 85226, Closes 5:30 PM, (602) 377-5482 [Courtesy RotorX]
RotorX has just opened sales of its one-seat Dragons to wannabe “Star Wars” speeder pilots willing to build their own mini-eVTOLs. The Arizona company says it will begin delivering the flying Dragons in [August 2023.]
The Dragon will have an 8-prop coaxial-layout—think octocopter—with 16-kW electric-motors, powered by lithium-batteries, for each prop. The multi-engine configuration is designed for redundancy in case of a single engine failure. It will be piloted by joystick, but also comes with a “sensor-drive auto-landing system” for safety. The cool auto-hover feature is ideal for flying over your friends, hovering to gloat.
The Dragon is similar to the Jetson-ONE, which is being built in Italy on a similar timeline. Jetson plans to start shipping its first units [in 2023].
The single-seat Dragon is an octocopter with multiple blades and engines for redundancy. [Courtesy RotorX]
Both electric-aircraft have similar max flight times of about 20-minutes. The Dragon will have a top speed of 60 mph and maximum pilot weight of 200-to-250 lbs. Both personal-eVTOLs will have ballistic-parachutes for safety and other failsafes, though flying 12-feet-off-the-ground—rather than 100-feet above it—might be the safest way to pilot the aircraft.
Because it’s classified under the FAA’s ultralight-category, the Dragon doesn’t require a pilot’s-license to operate. Regulations for that class of aircraft do mandate no flights near airports or crowded areas. It’ll be built in kit form, a RotorX rep told Robb Report, though assembly could happen at its Company’s Arizona headquarters with assistance from its technicians. RotorX will also provide flight-training for clients.
A full-scale Dragon undergoing tests in the Arizona desert recently. [Courtesy RotorX]
While this new mini-eVTOL-class doesn’t have an official name, it’s becoming a thing. Besides the Jetson-ONE and the Dragon, other personal eVTOLs like the Ryse Recon and two-person Air One are coming online in the next two years.
The company says the first 100 Dragons for “pre-order” will be priced at $85,000, compared to the list-price of $99,000. [Video: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-rotorx-dragon-is-here-as-the-worlds-first-personal-air-vehicle-that-anyone-can-fly-205934.html#agal_0 ]
Introducing the DRAGON Personal-Air-Vehicle
December 16, 2022 by Stancollins - RotorX Aircraft
Through a partnership between defense contractor Advanced Tactics and America’s top two-seat helicopter company, Rotor X Aircraft, comes the new standard in recreation for those with an appetite for excitement and adventure. With delivery beginning in September of 2023 and a price-tag of under-$100,000, the new DRAGON-Personal-Air-Vehicle is positioned to change the concept of outdoor-recreation.
The all-new DRAGON-Personal-Air-Vehicle is the safest and easiest to fly personal-air-vehicle in the world. With speeds of over 60-mph and a passenger weight of up to 250 lbs., this fully-electric ultralight-eVTOL aircraft is nothing short of a thrill. Currently, the flight-time is around 20-minutes, however, due to the modular-design of the aircraft, you will be able to easily swap-the-batteries when the charge gets low.
The DRAGON-Personal-Air-Vehicle comes with safety features and a level of performance that is unmatched by other emerging single-seat-eVTOLs. Some of the safety-features include a ballistic-parachute, sensor-driven-auto-takeoff-and-landing-system, reinforced-aluminum-landing-gear, and a co-axial-propeller-configuration which means that if one motor stops, the others will compensate allowing you to land safely.
Under the FAA’s Part-103 regulation, the DRAGON-Personal-Air-Vehicle is classified as an Ultralight eVTOL Aircraft which means you do not need a pilot’s license to fly it. You also do not need a 3rd-class-medical so if that is why you were unable to get your pilot’s-license, you will still be able to fly the DRAGON-Personal-Air-Vehicle.
Operating your DRAGON is as easy as flying a drone but Advanced Tactics/Rotor X will also provide free-online-training as well as, in-person-training at the Advanced Tactics facility.
The components of your DRAGON will ship all together along with the tools you’ll need to complete the build. The innovative design of this ultralight-eVTOL aircraft allows for a quick-and-easy assembly, [that is what they all say!] Buyers will also be provided with instructions and a video-guide. For those that require extra guidance, there is also the option of utilizing our builder-assist-program at 1-of-3 builder-assist/training-facilities around the country. With this program you will be able to assemble your Dragon while also learning-to-fly-it.
There are many unique features of the DRAGON ultralight-eVTOL-PAV. Because the Dragon-eVTOL-PAV began as an unmanned-military-aircraft-technology-development over the last-12-years, it has several unique autonomous-functions and safety-features. Another totally unique feature in this industry is that there will be a 2-seat-version of the Dragon-eVTOL for pilot-training, and there will also be builder-assist and pilot-training facilities in several locations in the USA with California, Arizona, Texas, and Georgia on the list.
This joint-effort is expected to see the kit-version of the DRAGON-ultralight-eVTOL-PAV rolling-off the assembly-line in a new facility in Chandler, Arizona as an easy-to-assemble-kit by the Fall of 2023. The Dragon ultralight eVTOL-PAV-kit is expected to take only a week, or 2-weekends, to assemble, and require-only-a-few-hours-of-training that includes following FAA Part-103 flight-regulations for ultralight-aircraft. With the ability to continue hovering even after a motor fails and having a ballistic-parachute and helicopter safety landing-gear the DRAGON-eVTOL-PAV aircraft will be the safest in the industry.
The development and testing of this commercial aircraft – the Dragon-ultralight-eVTOL-PAV– was internally funded by Advanced Tactics and is licensed by Rotor X Aircraft to sell and produce the DRAGON-eVTOL-PAV-kits for the general-public.
Those interested in being a DRAGON owner should go to the website and make their $19,500 pre-order-deposit now while the introductory-$85,000-price is available for the first 100 DRAGON kits sold. The regular DRAGON kit-price is expected to be $99,000 after the first 100 pre-order kit sales are completed. The first DRAGON kits are estimated to start delivery by September 2023.
Website: Dragon – Personal Air Vehicle (rotorxdragon.com)
Specifications
- Empty Weight: 253lbs
- Max Passenger Weight: 250lbs
- Max Flight Time: 20-minutes
- Top-Speed: 63mph
- Battery-Type: Lithium-Batteries (LiPo 100V)
- Motors: 8 Electric 16kW-motors
- Chassis-Type: Aluminum-Frame
- 3-Axis Joystick
- Battery-Recharge-Time: 2-hours
Dimensions: Length: 118.1 in., Height: 77.3 in., Width: 78.5 in. (with arms-extended)
Safety Features:
- Ballistic-Parachute
- Low-Battery-Alerts
- Reinforced-aluminum-landing-gear
- Hands-free-Hover
- Auto-Takeoff-and-Landing-System
- Co-axial-Configuration (if a motor stops, the other propellers will pick up the slack)
Website: www.rotorxdragon.com, Email: [email protected], [email protected]
Phone: (602) 429-9449, Instagram: @rotorxdragon, Facebook: facebook.com/rotorxdragon, Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rotorxdragon
Original Proposal to James G. Kidrick, President & CEO, San Diego Air & Space Museum
Thank you so much for taking the time to work with me regarding my half-baked, but still cooking, ideas regarding a donation of an eVTOL-type ultralight for inspiring youth and others with a potential aviation interest.
Years ago, I took my then 12-year-old condo neighbor to Montgomery Field for a biplane ride hoping that he might become interested in pursuing an aviation-related career. Your suggestion of locating such an activity at your facility at Gillespie Field fits perfectly with my plans. I’ve taken a run over there a number of times to remind me again of your Gillespie facilities, having not been back there for a couple of years. (BTW – we are both exactly the same age, having both been created in 1942; that is this flying-field and I, not you.)
A tethered eVTOL-based ultralight-simulator setup could be utilized at your annex facility. There is also a sufficient vacant area, at your facility, that could also potentially be used. It could be used exactly as is, with no field improvements required.
You are a 501(c)3 organization qualified for my $10,000 fund transfer from my Vanguard Charitable account for this initial project. I've set-up your organization’s account linked with my Vanguard Charitable account for the easy transfers of additional funds, as needed, when we have decided on any additional project specifics. I've budgeted around $10,000 for this current first-step and have transferred the initial $9,000, plus enough to purchase a trailer, if required. These funds are immediately available to pursue the first-step of this project. The exact eventual total budget and future project details are still to be determined. I’ve already provided Vanguard Charitable with $200,000 in overall funding for this project. It is immediately available at Vanguard Charitable for withdrawal, as needed.
Here the next-step appears to be to attach this to a detachable-wing.
Xpeng-X2 Vs. Jetson-One [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taNLMy17YBI&ab_channel=TechCEO &
https://evtol.news/xpeng-voyager-x2#:~:text=The%20price%20range%20for%20the,expected%20to%20occur%20in%202024 & https://www.aeroht.com/article/article?id=143 ]
Pat & I greatly enjoyed our past extensive vacation travels in China, Japan & Indonesia. I still follow this region’s progress with their flying-car concepts but remain skeptical. This Xpeng-X2 appears to be a viable contender but, like all the others, always appears to be “just a couple of years off.” However, they raised $834M from Chinese banks, plus an agreement with a consortium of investors to raise over US$500 million for its Series-A capital funding. That funding round was led by IDG Capital, 5Y Capital, and XPENG Inc. with participation by a consortium of US investors, including Sequoia China, Eastern Bell Capital, GGV Capital, GL Ventures, and Yunfeng Capital. Here is a recent update.
Xpeng Aeroht Inaugurates Flying-Car Ground Comprehensive Testing Center
From XPENG AEROHT 2023-09-16 - Foshan, China
Asia's leading flying-car innovator, celebrated a significant milestone today with the inauguration of its Flying-car Ground Comprehensive Testing Center in Foshan, China. The center, spanning 58,000-meters2, will focus on research and validation of new flying-car technologies, technical-standards development, and ground-testing for the complete vehicle and system-level attributes.
Mr. Shuo Chen, head of the Testing Center, explained, "This center will conduct comprehensive ground tests, including strength, load, vibration, durability, environmental factors, and materials. It will support product validation from virtual simulation to real-world testing."
Xpeng Aeroht, established in 2020, has its R&D headquarters in Guangzhou and operates 4 major testing bases:
- Seagull Island Flight Base: Focused on validation flights, durability tests, and certification flights.
- R&D Flight Test Center: Primarily dedicated to prototype flight testing.
- Powertrain Experiment Center: Specialized in testing electric motors, batteries, and high-voltage electrical components.
- Ground Comprehensive Testing Center: The latest addition, designed to cover all aspects of research and development for flying-car flight process.
Mr. Zhao Deli, Founder and President of Xpeng Aeroht, expressed his enthusiasm, stating, "The completion of the testing-center in just 4-months will provide us with valuable time for the R&D of the next-generation flying-car, which is currently in a crucial research-and-development phase. XPENG AEROHT's pioneering testing and flight-system will continue to play a core-role, assisting us in achieving mass-production in the next 2-3 years." [These things seem to always be “coming in the next 2-3 years,” as they have been now for the past-decade that I’ve been closely following their development and building my fund to help with getting them off-the-ground!]
Xpeng Aeroht's Flying-Car Ground Comprehensive Testing Center underscores its commitment to innovation in the flying-car industry, furthering its vision of reshaping the future of mobility through advanced technology and rigorous testing.
About XPENG AEROHT Xpeng Aeroht, an affiliate of Xpeng, is the largest flying-car company in Asia. Integrating intelligent vehicles and modern aviation, we are dedicated to producing the safest intelligent electric flying-car for individual users. In the future, we will provide products and solutions in the field of 3D transportation.
Established in 2013, the company has accumulated 15,000 safe manned-flights. It has won multiple industrial-design awards including the Red Dot Award, IF Award, and IDEA Design Award.
Xpeng Aeroht raised over US$500-million for its Series-A capital funding on October 19, 2021. The funding round is led by IDG Capital, 5Y Capital and XPeng Inc. with participation by a consortium of renowned investors, including Sequoia China, Eastern Bell Capital, GGV Capital, GL Ventures and Yunfeng Capital. [Address: No.318, Building C, Beiting Square, Higher Education Mega Center, Wai Huan West Road, Panyu District, Guangzhou Phone: 020-66806680 - Email: [email protected]]
EAA Foundation Ultralight-eVTOL Donation Possibility
For those not familiar with the EAA’s Young Eagles program, here is some background information. This proposal goes beyond their current EAA activities at Brown Field in San Diego and could be a follow-up to those with a developing interest in aviation. It would constitute a new intermediate step between an introductory-flight-experience and starting private-pilot training. The idea is to give a real-life, hands-on, flying-experience versus the current static video-game type simulators seen in museums, such as at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, that I just visited to take a look at their simulator setup and other facilities.
Young Eagles EAA’s Young Eagles is a program created by the US Experimental Aircraft Association designed to give young-adults between the ages of 8-to-17 and adults an opportunity to experience flight in a general-aviation-aircraft while educating them about aviation.
Going beyond just giving introductory EAA’s Young-Eagles flights, my idea is to offer those with an interest in aviation and who might be interested, a one-hour of ground-school in a simulator followed by a number of actual flight experiences in an eVTOL-ultralight-simulator and then actual flying time in a geofenced-area before moving on to the large investment in time and expense required for private-pilot training. This is what I’m trying to test-market in San Diego, Oshkosh, Cincinnati, Arizona, or elsewhere for a first test-market regarding this intermediate-step.
I’ve contacted the local FAA District Office (858-502-9882) in San Diego regarding what is possible within that area and asked for their suggestions. (Gillespie Field https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/dpw/airports/gillespie.html )
Nearly a half-decade ago, the LIFT-Hexa people were trying to push me into a $250,000 “franchise-option” when I investigated them with a trip down to Austin, Texas. Unfortunately, they turned out to be literally a ‘fly-by-night’ operation that is still trying to sell those same 25 franchises now a half-decade later, after previously selling $250-rides at those then and still largely non-existent 25 franchises to 15,000+ folks over the past few years and not yet delivering even the first such $250-ride, which they still owe me! They are now asking $495,000 for those same “franchises!” (A fund-raising scheme just like my paying $250 for my Tesla Cyberbeast order position and then finding out that they reportedly have “a million such orders!” Let’s hope there is finally something concrete now that they have finally produced a dozen-or-so of those long-ago promised, but still not delivered, ultralight-eVTOLs.)
I earlier tried to order a Jetson-ONE, being in the 265th delivery position, at that time, but their current order-delivery-positions now stretch into 2025 after many, many, delays in beginning actual fabrication of them, at least the last time I checked. Now, I’m hearing about an apparent current problem with their Chinese electric-motors that “were not performing up-to-spec,” according to rumors. They had invited their original set of early purchasers to visit them (Sweden or Italy?) for personal demo-flights only to be told that they could not provide those promised demo-flights, only see their single old prototype fly. (Boy, I bet they were pissed! I certainly would have been, just as I was when I traveled two-days down to Austin only to discover LIFT-Hexa was a ‘fly-by-night’ operation.)
In reality, these ultralight-eVTOLs are best described as a flying-motorcycles or ATVs, resembling a motorcycle with propellers instead of wheels. They claim that it can reach top-speeds over-60-mph and a cruising-altitude of more than 1,500 feet, though typically operated well below 400’. It's usually all-electric and a single-charge provides around 20-minutes-of-flight-time. Their companies promote them as a “formula-one racing-car for the sky" and boast that the controls are easy-to-learn and, as a legal-ultralight, it can be flown without a pilot's-license, but only in class-G air-space and never over crowds of people, only frightened cows or sheep.
When I first started looking into this possibility, I ran into EAA insurance and tax problems due to the way I had wanted to purchase it myself and as to whom would hold title to it. I had thought that my proposal would have solved that problem with direct S.D. Air & Space Museum purchasing and holding title-ownership and that I would pay for them with a donation to cover all the associated costs, as I had offered to do.
My plan had been to purchase this eVTOL and fund the related expenses with a grant from my already established and fully-funded Vanguard Charitable Trust account with funds transferred directly to the S.D. Air & Space Museum for this purpose, with initially $10,000 to get this project started. Having now transferred $200,000 to that fund for this project, it can only go to a 501(c)3 organization, such as the Air & Space Museum. It being a one-way transfer, it cannot now be rescinded, so it is locked-in for any charitable-organization of my choosing.
Technically this is not an “aircraft,” but rather an eVTOL-ultralight, which is legally a different entity, but the liability-risk is likely similar. The insurance issue must have been addressed earlier by LIFT-Hexa Aircraft in the U.S. (https://www.liftaircraft.com/) and others in Europe and Asia, such as Air Scooter by Zapata (https://www.zapata.com/) and by Air-One [https://evtol.news/air-one], as discussed below, who continue to offer their franchises for providing exactly this same sort of experience that I would like to offer, but in a very-different way. Likely, one could have a parent, guardian or an adult-participant sign a liability-waiver for a minor, but I now understand that the Air & Space Museum’s insurer would not permit such an activity regardless, so that option had to be modified.
Here is the typical LIFT-Hexa pitch:
Before your first flight, you'll sign-a-waiver and watch our orientation and safety videos.
Train in the Sim - Before you fly, you'll get comfortable with the basics in our virtual-reality flight-simulator, and then you'll take a skills and knowledge proficiency test.
Preflight - Our ground crew will walk you out to your aircraft, assist you with the simple preflight checklist in the LIFT-app on your smartphone, and then get you boarded and buckled-in. As your ground-tech steps away, your heart will start racing as you feel a rush of adrenaline.
Flight & Modes - When in Beginner-mode, you will go through an on-screen tutorial - learning maneuvers just like in the simulator. After the tutorial, you will be free to fly around the designated, geofenced flight-area for the remainder of your 8-15-minute flight. Build flight experience and unlock Sport and Group flying-modes.
Mission Control - Every second of your flight is monitored by our highly-trained and licensed primary- and secondary-flight-controllers, with whom you'll have radio-communication and who and can take over remote-control of your aircraft at any time, if necessary.
We’ve already raised over $18M in funding from VC's, accredited-investors, and U.S. government-grants, and now we've partnered with StartEngine to allow anyone to invest in LIFT. We're creating a future where everyone can fly, and we're excited to offer you this limited time opportunity to join us on this historic journey.
They fail to mention fleecing 15,000+ individuals, such as myself 5+years-ago, to pay for as-yet never-delivered $250-rides that they keep touting and continue selling, but are still not yet delivering. They still have my $250 with no information as to when and where I can finally receive my prepaid demo-ride! Worse yet, they received $250,000 each from many earlier franchise-investors for those long-ago promised city-franchises, as they propositioned me with those 5+years-ago, and still have not delivered much of anything. Buyer beware!
Air Scooter by Zapata – Notice combination of the 2 motor-types – both gas & electric. [https://www.zapata.com/]
https://evtol.news/zapata-airscooter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNFG6T0yEQ&ab_channel=FlightJunkies [Video of their prototype ultralight flying.]
Marseille, France - www.zapata.com
Founded in 2008 by Franky Zapata and based in France, Zapata is an innovative company that designs, manufactures and sells water-sport and flying machines for leisure and adventure sports. These machines mostly use water-jet-nozzles or micro-turbo-jet-engines for their propulsion. The Company has recently changed its focus on designing and manufacturing hybrid-electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) passenger-aircraft for advanced-air-mobility (AAM). Some of Zapata's top-goals for their VTOL aircraft will be a high-priority placed on safety, making them easy-to-fly, be environmentally-clean and be affordable.
AirScooter: Hybrid-electric VTOL one-passenger multi-copter aircraft that a person sits in. First revealed in June 2023 at the Paris Air Show. [https://evtol.news/zapata-airscooter]
One-Passenger Multicopter Specifications The AirScooter is a futuristic one-passenger easy-to-fly hybrid-electric-VTOL multicopter aircraft. The cockpit has a slightly-elongated vertical-egg-shaped look with long, high-windows in the front and on both sides of the aircraft. There are 12-propellers located on top of the aircraft on 8-booms with a rear high-boom-tail. The aircraft's cruise-speed is 50 mph, has a maximum-speed of 62 mph and has a claimed flight time of over-2-hours.
The empty-weight of the aircraft is 247 lbs., has a maximum payload of 264 lbs. and has a maximum takeoff weight of over 511 lbs. The fuel-tank holds 5-gallons. The aircraft has fixed-tricycle-strut landing-gear. The AirScooter prototype was first shown to the public on June 14, 2023 at the 7th annual Viva Technology trade show held in Paris, France.
The AirScooter is an ultralight and expected to first be used for tourist flights The Company has stated the aircraft is compliant with the Federal Aviation Administration's (USA) Part-103-Regulations and can be flown without a pilot's license as an ultralight-aircraft. Zapata has patented computer-assisted fly-by-wire controls which ensure the highest-degree-of-safety while requiring-minimal-training. According to the Company, the AirScooter carbon-footprint is comparable to a passenger-car. The Company estimates the aircraft will first be used for tourist-flights and for leisure-travel. []
[They are apparently using their own turbine-jet-engine-combo.]
/Zapata%20Airscooter/AirScooter-in-canyon.jpg)
[All images are from Zapata.]
Their concept is to sell franchised-airparks with multiple-units operating at each giving rides. They already apparently have arranged for insurance-coverage for their type of application, so it should be possible to do the same at Gillespie Field. For years now, ultralight operators all have had insurance coverage and just have the pilot or parent/guardian sign a hold-harmless agreement, likely limiting their liability to gross-negligence.
My revised plan now is to investigate returning to my earlier proposal to offer tethered-flights of just a few feet with large-coil-springs attached to the landing-gear and/or an air-cushion protection underneath at the S.D. Air & Space Museum followed by actual flight experiences out at Gillespie Field in a geo-fenced-area. Tethering would make it nearly impossible to tip-over, or long-poles could be attached to the under-carriage just as the current Moog people did initially at Lunken in the early-phases before their current daily-tethered-testing going on for a number of years now and as seen in my many photos of them, as below, with no need for such protection.
This was the old two-place hybrid-design located at Lunken Field here in Cincinnati that I was initially involved with until this project was later purchased by Moog. Notice the yellow tethering arrangement that I am suggesting for our project and that has worked very-well for them for years now following their initial use of long-poles with weights at the ends in early testing to prevent tipping-over and providing stabilization. A hybrid-power-system makes more-sense than just batteries that limit duration to under 20-minutes, at best, but appear OK for demo-rides and flight-instruction.
/Zapata%20Airscooter/AirScooter-over-forest.jpg)
Specifications:
- Aircraft type: Hybrid-electric VTOL passenger multi-copter aircraft
- Piloting: 1 pilot
- Cruise speed: (50 mph)
- Maximum speed: (62 mph)
- Flight time: 2 hours +
- Empty weight: (247 lb)
- Maximum payload: (264 lb)
- Maximum takeoff weight: (511 lb) +
- Propellers: 12 propellers
- Electric motors: 12 electric motors
- Power source: Hybrid-electric power source
- Fuel tank: 18.9 L (5 gallons)
- Fuselage: Carbon fiber composite
- Dimensions: 11’ X 11’ X 8’ (feet)
- Window: 3 long, high windows. 1 in the front of the cockpit and 1 on each side of the cockpit.
- Tail: 1 horizontal-stabilizer tail, very-similar to a high-boom-tail
- Landing-gear: Fixed-tricycle-strut landing-gear
- Safety features: Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP), provides safety through redundancy for its passengers and/or cargo. DEP means having multiple propellers (or ducted fans) and motors on the aircraft so if one or more propellers (ducted fans) or motors fail, the other working propellers (or ducted fans) and motors can safely land the aircraft. There are also redundancies of critical components in the sub-systems of the aircraft.
Company Insights:
Resources:
- Zapata website
- Zapata Facebook
- Zapata YouTube Channel
- Zapata Instagram
- Zapata LinkedIn
- Franky Zapata Wikipedia
- FlyBoard Wikipedia
- FlyBoard Air Wikipedia
- Article: Franky Zapata’s Real Life Hoverboard Sent Social Media Ablaze. Then the American Military Called, Sharp, July 10, 2017
- Video: FLYBOARD AIR DEMO - MOTO GP LE MANS, Zapata, May 29, 2018
- Video: Flyboard Air in the US desert!, Zapata, Mar. 8, 2019
- Article: Franky Zapata successfully crosses the English Channel on his jet-powered Flyboard Air, New Atlas, Aug. 4, 2019
- Article: Franky Zapata’s Hoverboard, for an Adrenaline-Filled Water Ride, Luxatic, Dec. 13, 2021
- Video: JETRACER®: THE FIRST FLYING-CAR AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC (by ZAPATA COMPANY), Zapata, Aug. 4, 2022
- Article: Flying chair ‘JetRacer’ travels up to 250km/h with 10 micro-turbojets, Design Boom, Aug. 16, 2022
- Article: This Bonkers Jet-Powered Hoverboard Can Fly 10,000 Feet High—at 110 MPH, Robb Report, Jan. 14. 2023
- Video: Airscooter: the world’s most advanced personal flying machine, Zapata, June 14, 2023
Most recent video update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xNFG6T0yEQ&ab_channel=DiscoveredFiles
Air-One [https://evtol.news/air-one]
A ‘Better Idea’ from Morty Berger in San Diego
These two alternatives were suggested by my EAA associate Morty Berger in San Marcos, CA that I’ve since proceeded with after deciding on donating his old ultralight-eVTOL project to the San Diego Air & Space Museum for ultimate use as a tethered-operation to give a real-flight, visceral-experience, not just a video-game experience.
I like both of these as better alternatives to the half-dozen ultralight-eVTOLs I’ve been considering so far. Both of them are apparently actually currently flying and appear to have viable, established organizations behind them. The Blackfly is also said to finally have sold its first unit after a decade of my following them since they first appeared at EAA Oshkosh, as documented in my many photos and emailed reports on them from back then. (I’ve had to discard all my many boxes of file-folders of 60+ annual pages of notes from each of those 48 EAA-Oshkosh annual conventions but, so far, still have retained my PC-files and many, many, photos.)
Hey! Look at me. I can fly by myself! No need for useless, expensive, easily-damaged, humans! We and AI will rule the world!
EAA Oshkosh 2013
Unmanned evening flight demonstration at EAA Oshkosh 2023 Convention – Wisk Gen-5 N307XZ at the daily air show. (Video: https://www.eaa.org/videos/6331906082112 )
Operating Costs of Various VTOL Aircraft
eVTOL Background – Now for a little more background on this eVTOL topic. Other than the electrified-power-source, this is certainly not a new concept!
https://vtol.org/qr/november-2022
Curtiss-Wright X-19 Quad Tilt-Propeller Tri-Service VTOL
The Curtiss-Wright X-19 was an experimental V/STOL transport featuring tandem wings with a quad tilt-propeller lift system. Using the propeller radial lift force concept proven by the X-100 demonstrator, Curtiss-Wright designed a six-passenger civil executive transport, originally designated the X-200. As part of the joint US Army, Navy and Air Force Tri-Service Assault Transport Program, the Air Force funded the conversion of two partially built prototypes to meet Tri-Service requirements.
The 44-ft (13.4-m) long fuselage carried a crew of two; it was powered by two Lycoming T55-L-7 turboshafts of 2,650 shp (1,976 kW) each and had four, 13-ft (4-m) diameter tiltable propellers constructed of fiberglass.
The aircraft was rolled out on July 23, 1963, and made its first hovering flight on Nov. 20, 1963, although a hard landing resulted in a collapsed landing gear. During the aircraft’s 50th test flight on Aug. 25, 1965, at an altitude of approximately 1,000 ft and an airspeed of 90 kts, a propeller separated from its nacelle and caused an asymmetric-lift condition, which led to one of the first ejections from a VTOL aircraft. Both pilots survived the low-altitude-ejection with minor injuries. [My Uncle Bud Gero, who worked for Goodyear in Akron at the time, received the U.S. Patent for the first enclosed-ejection-pod-type version of this device.]
The second X-19 prototype was never completed and is currently stored at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The X-19 was the last aircraft ever built by Curtiss-Wright Corporation. [I hope to be able to actually see it at the nearby Wright Pat AF Museum on my next annual visit to their facility. I have somehow missed it to date.]
They were back at it frequently out at Lunken Airport here in Cincinnati but always tethered when I was there!
(Photos taken during my many monthly visits with them.)
Now back to this current Moog project, still tethered to the ground, that I had been involved with at Lunken Airport for the past 5+years until they recently were purchased by Moog and received a large DoD-grant. Now apparently they are no longer interested in working with me, ever since then; perhaps because they no longer need any more funding, given their new large Government grant.
My Long History Of and Much Background Material On Jacumba, an Interesting Old Historic Area in San Diego My interest in ultralights and VTOLs got started while at Case Tech in Cleveland (now CWRU) working on my undergrad engineering-degree, before going to the U. of Michigan for an Engineering MS & MBA in Quant Methods. I was intrigued with ultralights and VTOL back in 1963, just before Pat & I were married and I started working for Procter & Gamble, there in Cincinnati. I joined the EAA in 1971 following the early development of ultralights and have attended a full-week at EAA Oshkosh for 48 of the past years focused on attending all of their daily seminars and the development of ultralights. I now fly ultralights north of LA and belong to the S.D. EAA Ultralight Assoc. Chapter 114, as well as the EAA Chapter 14 at Brown Field. Little did I guess it would again become an area-of-interest of mine in 2020s!
I took a number of enjoyable trips out to Jacumba Airport to investigate it as a potential site for this activity. Here is their very interesting history, including its being a famous hot-springs hotel hangout for both Clark Gable and for the Rat-Pack, (for those of us old enough to even know who he was!) The landmark Jacumba Hotel was destroyed by a fire and was torn down in 1991. However, its walls still stand today, and it is being rebuilt, I am told. (Here is my current picture of what is left of it from my most-recent visit. It is said to now being restored again to its former glory.)
This desert town itself has an interesting history. Today some 400 people live in Jacumba. What now appears a quiet high-desert retreat was once a thriving spa. In the 1920s and ‘30s the community thrived, its therapeutic hot-springs a mecca for Hollywood celebrities and wealthy Imperial Valley growers. Clark Gable is said to have made Jacumba famous by frequenting its spa.
I initially researched this location as a possibility for this eVTOL venture, but gave up on it.
Jacumba Airport History & Details
Here with my glider-port buddies on a sunny, but windy, afternoon. (Winds no problem for my C8-Corvette, but likely for ultralights and eVTOLs!)
If I had eVTOL-wings, I could fly with those beautiful sailplanes and other ultralights. I love visiting this location but the constant prevailing winds of 12-15 MPH, at least while I have been visiting, while great for sailplanes are not so much for ultralights, not to mention the 90-minute drive over from my condo in La Jolla. It is just too far for me to consider eVTOL-ultralight operations out there, even if this is likely where EAA Ultralight Chapter 114 eventually ends-up.
A border wall now separates us from Mexico, versus the three-strands-of-barbwire that stood there previously [https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/dpw/airports/jacumba.html] for decades.
Jacumba Airport History It was acquired from the Federal Government in 1953. The airport is largely unattended and unlighted, except for my associate Roman in his 100’x150’ hangar, pictured here. It is used mainly as an operation area for gliders, especially on weekends. (122.9 & 123.5 for winch-launch operations.)
Flying over, or driving by on Interstate-8, you might miss tiny Jacumba. But soaring enthusiasts know the airport and some might even know where the town is. However, few people know what Jacumba is all about.
On weekends you’ll find sail-planes being tossed-aloft, using that yellow-winch, to catch the thermals, with pilots who savor the solitude and challenge of powerless-flight. During the week the airport is quiet, inhabited only by hawks and their prey. (I’ve taken many sailplane demo flights in Cincinnati, Denver, San Diego County, etc. but, enjoyable as they have always been, never felt motivated enough to obtain a sailplane-license, so I’m still just an FAA-registered Student Pilot at age-81.)
Old U.S. Highway 80 bisects the town which is about three miles west of the airport on Old Route 80. There are several quaint western-style shops, including a market and gift-shop. The landmark Jacumba Hotel was destroyed by a fire and was torn down in 1991. Walking through town on a sunny day you get the sense of history. The old buildings, tumbleweeds and dry-air give the imagination room-to-wander, to sense what was. I’ve spent a couple of days out there to explore the town, having previously gotten to know both the airport and Roman, before giving-up on using this location for my eVTOL activities. (Jacumba is located in County of San Diego District 2 - Supervisor Joel Anderson)
Old friends & neighbors Nancy & Curt Koch at San Diego Air & Space Museum’s Legends of Flight – 2015 where Curt was a long-time docent. Loved recently watching F-35 & F/A-18 flight operations off the USS Abraham Lincoln while we were at sea with my old friends Sandy & Kevin who kindly allowed me to sit in his Admiral’s-chair on the 9th deck during that day’s operations at sea as we watched from ‘vulture’s-row.’
It is easy for eVTOL-ultralight to allow for its remote-control from the ground by an instructor, in a manner similar to what LIFT Aircraft has been stumbling-around trying to do for the past 5+years, now finally delivering their first Hexa ultralights, according to press reports, and only now finally beginning to actually produce a few of them. (See: www.JDBender.com LIFT)
Another related use-case beyond ultralight-fun applications, is the possibility of converting this or a similar design into a flying-gurney by switching the pilot-seat to a similar setup we had for the 1-or-2 patients on either side of our custom-designed gyrocopter, which had 2-seats for the EMS-tech and pilot (see: Navajo Project Conclusion Updated - Pat & Dennis Bender Experimental-Aircraft Development Fund (jdbender.com)). The current generation of 4-5-place eVTOL air-taxies being the more-likely configuration, but I’m always looking at all possible EMS options and applications.
Finally, a third use-case would be for something like Ryse-Recon’s agricultural application, as described below. I’m currently spending considerable time looking into that application’s feasibility, now that they are about to produce and have been demonstrating their prototype ultralight at agricultural trade-shows, such as in Las Vegas, Georgia, Illinois, etc.
Technically and legally, an ultralight is not an “aircraft.” It is in a different Part-103 category, thus no requirement for a pilots-license to fly it, nor its being considered an “aircraft” for aviation-related-property-taxes, etc. It is more like a ‘flying-ATV’ for off-road-use-only that doesn’t require a State vehicle-registration and license-plate. In this case, for restricted use only in uncontrolled-air-space (Class-G) with no habitation or population below and not in proximity to any airport, other than for taking-off and landing, with the tower’s permission.
The Ryse-Recon would seem to be just like all the other ultralights since 1974, when I began following their development with those past 48 week-long treks to EAA Oshkosh for the annual national get-together to watch their development, with initially mixed-enthusiasm on the part of the EAA. Finally, with their Red Barn setup, they became firmly established at EAA Oshkosh; if only at the far-end of the field, well away from everyone else and the Forums that I attended every day, during those many week-long visits, while staying in the U. of Wisc. dorms each year.
Skyports Drone EMS Air-Ambulance Services
This has been one of our concepts from the beginning. Now we need some credible organizations to actualize it! Here is one real-life example from http://airbornemotorworks.com/air-ambulance
Previous Related Prototype-Projects This harkens back to the early LIFT-Hexa Aircraft (https://www.liftaircraft.com/) days and my wasted week-long trip down to investigate them in Austin, TX and their single prototype aircraft, over half-a-decade-ago. They are only now finally beginning to build their very-first 16+ such aircraft, 5+years after their initial and many later prototypes. (That disaster is recounted in detail on my website (www.JDBender.com.) After taking $250 deposits from 15,000+ enthusiasts, such as myself, plus selling a number of $250,000 franchises for their purported “coming 25-locations” for flying folks with 10-minute, $250-amusement-type-rides “near amusement-parks” (likely with restricted-airspace and ultralight-rules prohibiting any such use, anywhere near such a populated-area as in the proximity of an amusement-park.) Their cost being about the same as current 20-25-minute Robinson-R44 rides at Lunken Airport for $180 that I enjoy giving to EAA Young Eagles and friends interested in aviation and eVTOLs (see: www.JDBender.com Young Eagle.)
They are still only now finally producing their first few aircraft, that they promised over 5+years-ago, and will only be providing one mobile-location, versus the promised 25 permanent-locations! What a disaster! They, like the flying-dune-buggy folks I’ve worked with in the past, seem to have turned to the military or a few very-wealthy-folks, as their only viable market-segment. Their currently asking price of $500,000 for a franchise and eventual ownership after 2-years is ridiculous! One can purchase a used Robinson R44-Raven-I for much-less, half in this example (https://www.barnstormers.com/classified-1785815-Robinson-R44-Raven-1.html ), and it’s actually useful for all these applications, with a useful-range, unlike the LIFT-Hexa.
Ultralight Background I have been involved with ultralights since their very-beginning in 1975 when I first met John Moody at my annual week-long EAA Oshkosh fly-ins. Now after my 48th annual 10-day-visit there, I’ve switched my focus from ultralights and LSAs to eVTOLs. Having taken dozens of demo-flights in all sorts of aircraft, everything from ultralights, to soaring, to flying a heavy-duty twin-engine Beech. I have now switched my focus to the VTOL organization ( https://vtol.org/) over in Arizona. (Now at 81, I’m rapidly running-out-of-time, so I need to speed-up this current eVTOL-based, youth-introductory-flight-experience and air-ambulance/EMS development effort!)
My own most recent ultralight flying was a couple of days flying north of LA, up along the coast in Camarillo, which I always enjoy, [see: http://www.skyriderultralights.com/UntitledFrameset-6.html ], but never enough to have purchase one for myself. As mentioned, I have also sponsored a couple of past EMS-related rotorcraft and flying-dune-buggy-type philanthropic-projects prior to this current one with the S.D. Air & Space Museum.
I twice stopped over at the local Kenton County Sheriff’s Office to discuss this possible EMS-application topic with the Kenton County Sheriff Charles L. Korzenborn, the first-time was some 20+years-ago, and even will be trying again now that I’ve return in July. (The Kenton County Sheriff was away from his office both times I last dropped by, so I’ll have to return again for that updated discussion regarding possible Kenton County uses for this interesting new technology. My friend and Covington neighbor is Chair of the CVG Board, so I was also trying to catch her at one of our local HLRC community meetings to discuss possible interest at CVG in flying-taxi service to Covington and on to the Springfield-Beckley vertiport, which I’ve been visiting on numerous occasions to watch its development as a vertiport.)
In an early related project, I ended-up working with the DOJ and two rural-police-departments in KY and TX utilizing modified-gyrocopters as less-expensive police-helicopter-alternatives, that they and similar jurisdictions could not afford. (After that one, I ended-up with a still-prized DOJ-lapel-pin.)
My first EMS-related project of this sort was down in Florida and involved the indigenous-people of the Amazon-rainforest. A firm in Florida modified a dune-buggy by adding a parafoil to convert it into a flying-dune-buggy called the Maverick. It is a road-shedding vehicle with the ability to fly over streams and rough territory. Designed for quick transport in hard-to-reach places. Maverick had a top road speed of 100-mph or 40-mph in flight-mode. It had a 400-mile-range on a full-tank-of-gas or 120-miles in the air. A private-pilot-license or sports-pilot-license, with a powered-parachute-rating, was required. Pricing for a Maverick started at $94,000. It was available as an experimental homebuilt, S-LSA, or E-LSA. There were two accidents, in which no lives were lost, involving problems with the design of that parafoil-wing. Due to insufficient resources to re-engineer the parafoil, development of the Maverick was concluded. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-TEC_Maverick)
I then switched to SkyRunner LLC and their SkyRunner MK 3.2 S-LSA $230,000, (https://www.flyskyrunner.com/ ) which we also closely investigated as an alternative with a couple of trips down to their home location in Shreveport, LA and hours of phone conversations with Stewart Hamel. The last time I spoke with him, Stewart seemed more-focused on military-applications than the S-LSA market. At least they are still in business, but “only producing up to 15-units annually” for the commercial market. Obviously a very-limited market for their expensive “adventure-vehicles.” However, they obviously have a lot more functionality than these new man-carrying-drones with only a 20-minute flight-duration.
A later project of mine with the Navajo Nation involved modifying a Golden Butterfly rotorcraft (gyrocopter) that we outfitted with 2-seats, plus adding two covered-litters on either side (See: www.JDBender.com Keyword: ‘Navajo’)
There is something to be learned from these prior experiences. Neither of those prototype-projects were successful in leading to their extended use in EMS, nor related applications. Recently, there have been press-reports of police departments, such as Hamilton County there in Ohio, substituting camera-carrying-drones for their expensive-to-operate police-helicopters. Both a great use-case and are highly-successful, they demonstrate that one needs to find a proper match between new-technology, cost-effectiveness and current healthcare and other important societal-needs and that this is indeed possible. You just have to get the optimal match-up of needs, technology, human-behavior and costs.
I continue trying to find a viable way to repurpose some of the lower-end experimental-aircraft and eVTOL designs into something with a different purpose; such as for EMS, local-policing, agricultural, forestry-management, border-patrol, EAA Young-Eagles experience, or similar low-altitude missions. (I have established a $2M endowment-fund, eventually likely to be jointly managed by the EAA Foundation and/or S.D. Air & Space Museum and/or the AZ VTOL group to carry on this effort with $100,000 annual R&D-grants, after I am gone, in addition to setting-up this $175,000 eVTOL flight experience at San Diego’s Aviation Museum’s Gillespie Field location.
So far, a couple of my previous attempts in this area of “flying-ATVs” had not proved very successful, at least in the longer-term. Our first prototype flying-dune-buggy project was successful in the Amazon rainforest, for which it was designed, but not so much so in other locations, other than possibly for potential military applications. A later updated-version is currently available for $250,000, but primarily targeted at the DoD and military-market, the usual end of such projects, unlike this newest Ryse-Recon attempt that is focused on agricultural-applications.
We also modified a rotorcraft (gyrocopter) and converted it into a flying-ambulance which operated perfectly and was demonstrated to the Navajo EMS Director but failed to be seen as being of any real additional EMS help to the Navajo Nation. It was focused on providing more-cost-effective EMS service to their remote locations but it turned-out that they have adequate coverage from other overlapping jurisdictions, such as the State, local-police, and/or US military.
Our early hopes for LIFT Aviation’s Hexa of 5+years ago have rapidly faded as their only viable non-military use-case appears to be only in selling franchises for providing $250, 15-minute amusement-park-rides, for one-time experiences, and even that seems questionable. However, they are now finally actually building some aircraft, claiming to have built 16 so far, after all these intervening years. They had shifted their interest to the military-market for a long time, just like Moog’s SureFly-2 (see: www.JDBender.com search “Moog SureFly”) apparently has done.
Returning from our annual SWORFI EAA outing at the beautiful Winemiller Farm here in southern Ohio, I thought more about possible uses, so I drove up to Mason, OH to check-out their interesting new Ryse-Recon project, as discussed above. But first, here is the background on this intriguing Ryse-Recon project versus the previous flying-dune-buggy attempts versus a used Robinson R22-Beta-II for comparison purposes, as an existing certified-aircraft alternative.
2005 Robinson R22 Beta-II - TTAF 6058.5 Hobbs 1,691 Overhauled 9/15. No Damage history, 500-hrs./5-yrs. left., Fresh Annual ready for work or personal use. KY197A Com Garmin GNC 250XL. KT76C XPDR uAvionic ADS-B out. Very-good condition. $151,000. (Why are these not more popular? Probably because of the high hourly operating cost, high annual maintenance cost, and mostly because helicopters are so difficult to learn how to fly!
Here is the pitch for the Ryse Aero – Recon’s potential use in agriculture as a ‘flying-ATV,’ similar to our previous couple of attempts to develop this same idea of a flying-dune-buggy over the past decades. [See: https://evtol.news/ryse-aero-technologies-recon for details.]
“The test flights were a monumental-step-forward in accomplishing our mission, which is to provide an accessible aircraft to people with a purpose and make flight accessible to all. We proved that this vehicle is reliable, stable, and enjoyable, but most-importantly, it’s safe.”
Ryse has in mind farming/ranching applications, similar to an ATV’s use, literally a flying-ATV such has we have been working on for decades now with our prior 3 similar projects, (as described above.)
To date, our focus has been primarily on Joby, Beta, Moog, or similar-sized, 2-4-place, hybrid electrified-vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) designs first at Lunken Airport here in Cincinnati and now also at the Springfield/Beckley Municipal Airport (SGH) vertiport facility here in SW Ohio.
Recently, nearby Mason-Ohio-based, Ryse Aero Technologies introduced its new design for an ultralight-eVTOL aircraft that is “designed for those working in the agriculture-sector or who live in rural-communities.” It too also might be useful for some EMS, policing, or related applications. I was a bit skeptical after our very-negative experiences with LIFT Aircraft’s Hexa over the past 5-years, but this appears to be a much-more-viable startup, so I started to purchased one for the S.D. Air & Space Museum, but that was nixed by their insurance company. I decided to go ahead with ordering it myself until I figure out a viable approach to the insurance issue. (See www.JDBender.com for more information on the LIFT-Hexa topic. Search “LIFT”)
Let’s start with a comparison of this ultralight-eVTOL-technology, versus say the option of alternatively utilizing a used 2005 Robinson R22-Beta-II or, better yet, only $62,000 for a used SkyRunner MK 3.2 S-LSA that I was last most-interested in and drove down to Louisiana a couple of times to see it, while it was being developed. (This one is the latest version of the one that I was originally looking at.) That new version is now currently selling, or not, for $250,000. The estimated initial outlay of $150,000 for the eVTOL Ryse-Recon, which is now becoming available, and expect to begin delivering their planned initial production-lot of 100, being about the same purchase cost as a used Robinson R22-Beta-II, but with much-lower operating-costs.
While the initial-cost is similar, the maintenance-requirements and hourly-operating-cost should be very-much-more affordable, plus you wouldn’t need to have an expensive and difficult-to-obtain pilot’s-license, plus the additional training needed to qualify for a helicopter-rating on top of that! (Watching a student helicopter pilot at Sporty’s learning to hover at 10’ while sweating-bullets was enough to convince me, as a forever-student-pilot, not to be too interested in attempting trying it myself!)
The Ryse-Recon recently had its first-flight demonstrations at multiple agricultural shows and it costs $150,000, which I had now budgeted for final payment. Like all the other ultralight eVTOLs, it has a flight-duration of only say 20-25-minutes, versus a helicopter’s relatively-unlimited capabilities. This limited flight-duration is the major stumbling-block with all of the battery-only-powered eVTOLs, versus hybrids, such as Moog’s original design that I have been closely following here at Lunken Airfield in Cincinnati for the past few years. (On my most-recent visit to their Hangar #7, I found no indication that they are still located there, so apparently, they have moved on to another location, as had been previously discussed with them prior to my last returning to La Jolla earlier.)
Limited Flight Range Given the problem of a limited-flight-duration of <25-minutes, Ryse’s suggestion is to locate a set of charged-batteries around one’s property and keep them constantly charged-up with a solar-panel, which seems a plausible idea. Not knowing the likely acreage of a potential buyer, I did a little USDA research. The average Ohio farm is only 46-acres which is likely far too small for this kind of application. Nationally, small-family-farms average 231-acres, large-family-farms average 1,421-acres and the USDA says that the very-large-farm average-acreage is 2,086 so let’s use that figure for an example.
My friend Bob Burkhardt – EAA Warbirds Squadron 18 – EAA-974 – I have flown with him in his great old WW-II Navion and frequently meet annually over at Winemiller’s farm and also at the EAA-974 Chapter meetings. (I donated a set of my old Corvette C7-Z06 wheels & tires to him for his EAA chapter to raise funds. Should have auctioned them off at our local Corvette Club here in San Diego where the same set of wheels & tires went for $1,200 vs. only $500 for mine in Ohio. Wrong target-market group!)
EAA Chapter-974 - Butler County Ohio Regional Airport KHAO Hanger-T5
The Winemiller’s family-farm holdings, where we have met annually for SWORFI for the past decade, are around 4,600-acres, I am told, so they are clearly more than large enough to be a possible candidate for utilizing a flying-ATV. (They already have a WW-II T-6 Texan trainer, beautiful grass-strip, and huge hangar. (I’ve done aerobatics in a T-6 with the Shell aero-team and was given a chute for the second-seat, but no instructions on how to actually use it! Just told “not to release the seat-harness before we are inverted and the canopy is fully-opened to bail-out, or we will both go down with the aircraft with me jammed against the canopy and blocking it from opening,” as I well remember being told by the pilot as we were taking off.)
I stopped by one of their multiple farming locations, this one with their airstrip. It looks to be about 360-acres and I spoke with the Winemiller’s tenant about his thoughts regarding the practicality of utilizing such a thing as a ‘flying-ATV.’ He was highly-skeptical, as I was also somewhat skeptical, as well. However, in discussing soil-compaction and similar topics further with Ryse-Recon, I am now somewhat less skeptical and look forward to learning much more at my next meetings with them.
I noted my past work for Procter & Gamble (P&G) on crop-surveys and forest-mensuration using Landsat hyperspectral-imagery and ground-cover mapping from Learjets flying at 60,000-ft. I had two-weeks of Landsat-training at Purdue U. to be able to do this with Landsat’s early remote-sensing data when Landsat-1 first went up. When I queried the tenant-farmer: “How do y’all do periodic crop-surveys,” he just laughed and noted that “they are out in the fields daily and drive all over the place in their ATVs, trucks and tractors so don’t have to do [no damn] ‘periodic-crop-surveys.’” He went on to note that he just “throws-away those mailed periodic crop-surveys.” [All this making me wonder how the USDA and State’s, such as Ohio, adjust for non-response-bias in their surveys.]
So much for the USDA’s sophisticated, multi-level, survey-methods that incorporate ground-truth information into their periodic-crop-surveys. I had been studying the current USDA crop-survey-methods that incorporate both satellite-mapping, newest Landsat hyperspectral-sensor-data (versus the original old 4-band-only Landsat-1 sensor data I used), aerial-surveys, multi-level-land-surveys and ground-truth periodic-surveys of farmers (see:https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Methodology_and_Data_Quality/Advanced_Topics/Yield%20Forecasting%20Program%20of%20NASS.pdf.)
[You can tell I’m a city-boy from my naïve questions. My own grandfather raised my father and his brother on their tenant-dairy-farm in New Philadelphia, OH, owned by the Reeves Steel Co., and what has today become a housing-development surrounding their classic old white-stone farmhouse. My Uncle got his PhD and became an Ohio Experimental Station and later USDA Regional Director, while my Father graduated from Wooster, with a degree in Chemistry, and became co-owner, as I now am, of the now long-failing West End Lumber Co. in Cleveland, OH. Now reduced to the last of their original 6-locations. (Let me know if you are interested in purchasing my half, cheap!) Maybe we could convert it into a vertiport and use their large shed as a hangar!
In 1947, my Uncle and his young-family were sent to Israel by the USDA where he and their two-girls, both my age, first lived in a tent in what had just become the new country of Israel. I still remember shopping in Cleveland with my parents for all their needed tenting and camping-supplies before their being shipped off by the USDA to Israel at the end of WW-II to advise the then new nation of Israel on best-farming-practices. Thus, my following lifelong interest in farming, rural-life, and EAA experimental-aviation; as well as my current interests in eVTOL-aviation and delivery of more-cost-effective EMS-services in rural-areas.]
Another such potential eVTOL-application being the autonomous-delivery of transplant-organs and medical-supplies as is now being done routinely in rural-portions of Africa. My wife and I visited Africa a number of times on vacation where we had the opportunity to meet with Doctors Without Borders in Kenya and travel all over the rest of sub-Sahara Africa, with flight-seeing over Victoria Falls, Mt. Kenya, Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, etc., plus later trips to Egypt, Jordan and north Africa. I noted that we stayed at the same treetop-hotel in Africa where Queen Elizabeth learned of her father’s death and her becoming Queen. I still vividly remember watching her coronation on B&W-TV all that day. More recently, I spent the day watching her funeral, now live and in glorious-color, on a huge-60”-OLED-screen, with a 7-speaker, surround-sound-system, cranked-up during the musical performances – what a magnificent change for the better since those old B&W-TV days!
Say you have that very-large-farm or ranch, sized 2,086-acres (3.26 sq.-mi.) Say this farm is roughly a rectangle 1-mi. x 3.3-mi., that would require, at the very-most, a 6.6 mi. round-trip capability or placing batteries at the other-end of the farm, as was suggested in the attached press-article. You could place a storage-shed-with-solar-panels and a charging-station, plus 6 spare-batteries, 3.3-miles out at the furthest location and keep them fully-charged and constantly-available at both locations, as suggested by Ryse-Recon. (https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/fnlo0220.pdf )
Skyrunner-Mk-3.2
Cost of Operation I wondered how would this interesting new Ryse-Recon eVTOL-ultralight compare with purchasing say a used Robinson R-22 helicopter or perhaps even the 2016 flying-dune-buggy project that I was involved with (above), “lightly-used,” for $62,000 plus-shipping? [TTAF: 124-hr, mileage-4,158, location-USA, price (negotiable).] Only 124-hours in 6-years! Really! Yes, certainly an expensive-toy!] I had let them know I was possibly interested in purchasing both it and/or their other one, but never received any response back.
The average utility all-terrain-vehicle (ATV) only costs about $14,000 without that added parafoil. (A Honda Pioneer on the low-end goes for $12,000 and Can-am Defender comes in at the high-end $18,000.) This more-comparable SkyRunner MK 3.2 S-LSA flying-dune-buggy is currently listed new for $230,000 but I know that he only plans to sell say 10 to a few well-healed international-potentates and all the rest to the U.S. Army. It was at that point that I gave-up on him and his long-time project, but considered possibly purchasing a used one, until this new eVTOL technology came along.
A parasail-design-flaw led to fatalities that was apparently the killer-issue with the earlier Florida-based-project that I was earlier involved with that led to its being abandoned by its developer in favor of developing unmanned-drones in Africa that have been very-successful and are currently daily actively delivering medical-supplies.
What is a realistic annual-total-cost-per-hour estimate that would be fair for an R-22 comparison? I’ve had a lot of difficulty coming up with even a ballpark-estimate due to the great unknown of exactly how many hours annually a farmer/rancher might be flying their Ryse-Recon.
I wondered how the Ryse-Recon would compare with a used-R-22 in annual-total-operating-cost considering that their respective initial purchase-costs are about equal? Since the Robertson R-44 seats-4, versus the single-place Ryse-Recon, it is not a contender for this use-case, so I attempted to instead take a look at a used-R-22 hourly and annual-costs for comparison and found as follows.
I’m assuming their 2,500-hr. [need to check on that and the $$$-cost-estimate] useful-life of the Ryse-Recon before re-build of the electric-motors and replacement of the batteries, that being the only major maintenance items. For an assumed 450-annual owner-operated-hours, this 5.6-yr. point might be used for comparison with the major-rebuild-point equivalent to an R-22 helicopter.
Looking at industry-averages for the hourly-operation-cost of an R-22 based on 9-hours/week or 450-annual-owner-operated-hours, plus $7.00-per-gallon fuel-cost that I last paid for fueling that beautiful Navion, the Robinson R22-Beta-II has total-variable-costs estimated at $160,767 ($357/hr.,) total-fixed-costs of $33,718, for an annual-cost of $194,485. This yields $432-per-hour, but so much depends on that level-of-utilization-assumption. To do a more-realistic and careful comparative-analysis we need to go further than that.
Would that current Hobbs at 1,691-hrs.+ “500-hrs./5-yrs. remaining,” for a total of 2,191 hrs. or 438-hrs./yr. for that used R-22 be comparable? If so, then we could assume a useful time to major-overhaul for both of them as being close to nearly the same and worry less about its comparability.
Obviously, the R-22 routine-maintenance, 100-hr.-inspections, plus annual-inspection, would be much more expensive. For example: one Robinson-R22 maintenance-cost quote was: 100-Hr.-Inspection $1,200, Annual-inspection $1,300, and 2,200-Hr. overhaul $15,000. (For our assumed 450-annual-owner-operated-hours., then the annual-maintenance would be about $6,700 or $14.89/hr.)
I’ll assume another decision-point at say 2,500-Hours and that either one would be used for an identical number of hours over the same intervening time-period. We would also need to consider the additional cost of constructing the remote, solar-powered, recharging-shed with its solar-panel, plus additional 6-or-more spare batteries, with costs amortized over a reasonable useful-life, say 2,500-hrs?
Another cost comparison might be with the $180/ride cost of giving my friends similar 20-minute Robinson R-44 helicopter rides with Stratus here at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, (which I highly recommend.) Everyone seems to enjoy those 20-minute Stratus sightseeing-flights over my Covington condo office, the nearby famous Roebling suspension-bridge, and viewing downtown Cincinnati all-light-up at dusk, that you can watch on their website video, (see: https://www.stratushelicopters.com/tours). I’ve found that 20-minutes is an adequate amount of time for this sort of sightseeing.
I’ve spoken with the Lunken Airport Waypoint FBO Manager for his opinion as to what is the hourly-cost is for an R-44 helicopter-pilot and he said “$35-$40/hr.” So, deduct 1/3rd of that or $13 for pilotage, leaving $167 times 3 = $500/hr., which includes downtime and some small-profit, if any, for another way to back-into an hourly-cost-estimate. [This needs more research for comparable helicopter-operating-costs versus eVTOL-operating-costs.]
My Aviation Project Background My previous prototype projects have been aimed at light-aircraft-conversions for EMS, police-work, forestry-management, border-patrol, or other possible related-uses, but this agricultural-use is a new one for me. Fortunately, I spent a lot of time with P&G’s Buying Dept. and modeling the soybean-complex, soybean-oil-prices, the pulpwood-complex, and forest-mensuration for managing their millions-of-acres of leased forest-lands in Canada and the Southeast US. This got me into remote-sensing data-analysis with Landsat-1 and a two-week-course on that topic at Purdue U. Little did I know that it might eventually prove useful for agriculture-applications with eVTOL-platforms some 50+years later!
Weekly row-crop-management with today’s sophisticated soil and plant treatment customized to micro-areas within single-fields concept would seem to fit-right-in. However, it turns out not to be. Unfortunately, this proved not to be practical with soil-sensors that require positioning close to the ground, not useable from an aircraft, I am told. However, it might prove useful for vineyard management instead. One can envision using remote-sensors, attached to these eVTOLs, flying-low over vineyards in the same pre-programmed-patterns followed by today’s self-driving-tractors, such as I’ve seen annually on the Winemiller Farm with their operator (his kids?) looking intently at their cellphones and paying no attention as the tractor navigates itself back-and-forth over the field. This same-type navigation-system can be used in an eVTOL equipped with remote-sensors for analyzing vineyard conditions, etc..
So, what about other potential agricultural-related applications?
Agricultural Applications On Sept. 30, 2023 I attended my 11th annual fly-in at Cincinnati EAA Chapter 174's Annual Southwest Ohio Regional Fly-in (SWORFI) at Winemiller Farm’s beautiful airstrip along with my friend in his Cincinnati Kid, a 1947 Navion from which we enjoyed an hour flying over verdant Ohio corn-and-bean farm-fields nearing harvest. (The field is located 12 NM from Clermont County Airport (I69), the home of Sporty's and our local EAA Chapter-174. Coordinates are 39.207N, -84.019W. Runway 6/24 is beautiful green-turf and 2,800' long.)
I thought this a perfect place to visit again to think about potential applications and farm-management issues, prior to my driving up to Mason, OH to check-out that interesting new Ryse-Recon technology project aimed at farmers and ranchers, just like the Winemillers; though most are not fortunate enough to own a beautifully-restored WWII T-6 trainer, such as his, plus a collection of other light-aircraft located in his beautiful, spacious hangar. (I’ve done aerobatics in the 2nd seat of a T-6 Texan, as I mentioned.)
The newer leading local candidate is this Ryse-Recon ultralight-eVTOL with their concept of a “flying-ATV” for farming-applications.
The RYSE Team They’ve brought together a seasoned team of software, mechanical and aeronautical engineers totaling 150+ years of experience and ready to take to the skies.
Mick Kowitz, Founder & CEO
30-years experience, 7 companies founded, holds 14-patents
Thaddeus Bort, Chief Software Engineer
+15-years experience in flight-control systems, instrumentation layout and safety controls
Alan Arkus, VP of Design Engineering
+20-years experience in aviation structural design, propulsion systems, battery management
Zach Carlton, VP of Aerospace
10-years in aerospace dynamics engineering and model-based flight-control
Erik Stephansen, VP of Regulatory [and West Coast test-pilot]
+30-years of aviation experience, aerodynamic design and regulatory agency expertise
Robert Royse, VP of Production
+30-years of development & production experience including military weapons
Kurt Freyberger, CFO
+30-years of experience in finance and public accounting including IPO and start-ups
Current News Coverage of Ryse-Recon Ultralight Personal eVTOL
Ryse-Recon Ultralight Personal eVTOL Completes First Piloted Flight
By Evtol | August 25, 2022
Ohio-based startup Ryse Aero Technologies said it has completed multiple piloted flight-tests with its single-seat Ryse-Recon ultralight personal-eVTOL aircraft in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Since its first crewed flight in late June, the Company has tested the aircraft’s flight-control-systems while the Recon completed various maneuvers, including take-off, controlled-hover, forward-flight, pivot-turn, and landing.
Rather than targeting air-taxi-applications that many eVTOL developers are focused on, Ryse Aero Tech has designed its eVTOL for those working in the agriculture-sector or who live in rural-communities. Designed to fit under existing U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Part-103 regulations for an ultralight-aircraft, the Company said its eVTOL doesn’t require a pilot’s-license to operate.
“This is an amazing accomplishment for our entire team at Ryse Aero Tech,” said Erik Stephansen, Director of Regulatory Affairs and Aeronautics at Ryse Aero Tech, who also piloted the aircraft. “It was effortless and very-enjoyable to fly. I was thrilled at how I could literally hover, take my hands off the controls and the Recon sat there stable and safe.”
With 6 independent propulsion-systems and an independent, removable-batteries, the aircraft is targeting a range of up to 25-miles, and top-speeds of 63-miles-per-hour (55-knots), while flying 400-feet from the ground and carrying a weight of 200-pounds. [Just like me!] The Company is aiming for first-deliveries of its aircraft [now in late 2024.]
Join the Conversation Xin Gou says: August 26, 2022 - The problems of Part-103-eVTOL are: 1. That within the weight and the associated structural-space (yes it matters) limit-of-Part-103-ultralight, it’s extremely-difficult to design an eVTOL meeting the necessary safety-level that operators with very-limited-flying-experiences will feel comfortable to fly; [Not true! We have many successful ultralight designs that have sold well.] 2. Insurance-policy is unclear for Part-103-eVTOL. as there’s a lack of historical data of the aircraft safety and operation, initial insurance-premium may be very-high if underwriters are available at all. 3. It’s unclear if FAA will include battery in the empty-weight of Part-103 electric-aircraft including eVTOL. [It’s perfectly clear that the FAA is currently including the battery-weight as part of empty-weight, instead of at least providing an allowance of the weight of 5-gallons-of-fuel (30#) currently allowed on ultralights. That needs to be fixed!] All considered, the commercial-prospective of Part-103-eVTOL probably wouldn’t be bright. [Ultralights were never designed to be for anything more than fun-flying and they have been and still are very-popular and a commercial-success, as is apparent at the annual fly-in at EAA Oshkosh ever since 1975.]
Mick Kowitz is the President and CEO of RYSE Aero Technologies, LLC. Mr. Kowitz is a leading artificial-intelligence communications expert. With over-30-years of software-development and innovation of new technologies related to artificial-intelligence, speech-recognition, natural-language-processing and engineering experience. Pioneer of speech-recognition-technology in coordination with natural-language-processing on mobile-platforms developed with embedded-systems-technology in addition to client-server-implementations and patents in this field. Mr. Kowitz has served as a Board of Director on several companies and has founded and co-founder several companies that have been successfully sold to private-equity-groups or become public-companies worth over-$500-million.
Innovation – The Daily Beast
This Flying-ATV Might Bring Farming Into a Cyberpunk Future
It’s a little boring to fly. And that’s actually a good thing.
Tony Ho Tran – Sky High – Deputy Editor, Innovation & Tech - Updated Aug. 22, 2022
It’s easier to operate a flying-ATV than you think—or at least it was for me. That’s not a humblebrag either. It was designed so any idiot like me—who backs-up into his recycling-bin every time he pulls out of the driveway—can jump in and use it.
Making sure I fly without freaking-out, though, was another question entirely.
“Alright, you’re doing great,” the voice of Mick Kowitz, the CEO and Founder of RYSE Aero Technologies, chirped in my ear via a radio-relay in my helmet. “Now just pull back on the left-handle and press-the-button to take-off.”
The machine I was sitting in—dubbed the RECON—is known as an electric-vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) aircraft and it’s Kowitz’s brainchild. While not technically a flying-ATV, it’s pretty damn close. As I pulled back on the handle, 6-battery-powered-propellers whirred to life around me and my seat began to rumble. Images of the new Top Gun movie flashed in my mind’s-eye before a macabre intrusive thought popped into my head: If I stuck out my arm just a little bit, I’d sever my hand entirely from my arm. A shiver ran down my spine as I attempted to bury that mental-image.
I pressed the takeoff-button on the center-console. For a moment, nothing happened. As I was about to tell Mick that something was wrong, though, the motors whirred louder as the RECON lurched sideways. Before I could react, I felt a weight on my chest and my heart jump into my throat as it lifted me off the ground and into the sky.
The Daily Beast’s intrepid reporter tests-out the RECON for himself.
Though I was piloting the craft that day, “nervous journalists on field reporting trips” aren’t exactly the target demographic for RYSE. In fact, Kowitz told me that he wanted to put the aircraft into the hands of a much different and unexpected kind of person: farmers and ranchers. Other eVTOL companies like Joby Aviation and Vertical Aerospace have their sights set on private-transportation (think flying-Ubers-and-LIFTs), while others are focused on building the aircrafts for military and defense.
RYSE, on the other hand, is focused on an industry that Kowitz claims has always been on the forefront of innovation and technology—despite public perception otherwise.
“We tend to think of farmers and put them in the bucket of hillbillies, but I picked them for the exact opposite,” Kowitz said. “They’re actually the most innovative users in the world. They’re the first to use fully-autonomous equipment in the market like tractors that run on GPS for the last 20-years. Nobody was doing that. Tesla’s only had autopilot in their cars for 8-years.”
“Then there’s tracking fields and soil, doing high-definition-imaging and topography-analysis—farming’s a very-sophisticated-science,” he added. “These guys are used to using high-tech before everyone else.” [At least some of them, such as the Winemillers.]
The RECON can fly as high as 400 feet AGL and as fast as 63 miles-per-hour and is slated to retail at $150,000.
That’s why Kowitz believes that farmers, ranchers, and other folks in rural-communities can largely benefit from a machine like the RECON. These are people who own hundreds if not thousands of acres of land, farms and fields that need-to-be-regularly-maintained-and-analyzed. If there are animals grazing on it, a farmer might need to be able to get out there quickly to help their livestock in case of emergencies.
Currently, the only way to do that is to walk, drive via a truck or a utility-vehicle, ride-on-a-horse, or—if you have a lot of money—fly in a helicopter or fixed-wing plane. All those options can be an incredible drain on time-and-money, or even pose a direct-threat to the land outright (you don’t want to be driving over your crops).
“Being able to take a vehicle like this can get you out there as-the-crow-flies,” Kowitz said. “If you have broken-down-equipment in the field, you could get there, repair-it, and fly-back.”
He told a story about a rancher in Colorado who had 20,000-acres for cattle. When the season approaches winter, roughly 80% of the herd comes back naturally to “get fed and be close to the ranch.” However, the other 20% remains out in the acreage.
“Every October, he has to send 5 cowboys out-on-horseback to come get those cattle. Those 5-can-only-cover-about-20-miles-a-day because they’re at ground-level,” Kowitz explained. “With this vehicle they can get up above to locate where they’re at and get people more-efficiently where they are. They can save-thousands-of-dollars just using it for location.” [Of course, a camera-drone could do this as well, at a much lower cost.]
“Do I personally want to risk-my-life counting on a few batteries and a drone? I don't know.”
— Bill Seda
Bill Seda will tell you himself that he’s not the most “cutting-edge farmer.” The 61-year-old grows corn and soybeans on 550-acres-of-land on his farm in Tama County, Iowa. He knows a little bit about the RECON, having heard about its upcoming appearance at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa on August 30. However, he's skeptical about the technology and how useful it could possibly be to him as a farmer—not to mention its price-tag.
“I’m an old school type of farmer,” Seda told me. “Something new in innovation needs to be able to pay-for-itself-in-a-decent-amount-of-time. Some farmers like to have the newest and greatest toys, but if it doesn’t pay you back on your return-on-investment quickly then you lose money.” [Payback-period and rate-of-return were also always a focus at my old companies, P&G, Nielsen, Millward-Brown, MSA, etc.]
He’s the exact type of farmer that RYSE needs to convince that a RECON—which is slated to cost $150,000—is a good investment. To do that, they need to address two of the biggest eVTOL-challenges: battery-life-and-safety (the same hurdles the electric-vehicle-industry faces).
The RECON and its 6-onboard-batteries currently offer about 25-minutes-of-flight on a single-charge, though that can change depending on a variety of factors including the weather, wind, density-altitude, and the user’s-weight. That could become a big problem for a farmer who needs to fly to a location that’s at-least-15-minutes-one-way.
The RECON has a 6 battery-powered-propeller design that Kowitz claims is safer than a helicopter and other eVTOLs on the market.
Kowitz said that this can be solved by stashing another set of fresh batteries in a location near to where you’d be flying, and swapping-them-out for the return-flight.” Still, that requires even more money and time spent purchasing and installing kiosks, [solar-panels,] and batteries throughout one’s land.
And that’s assuming there’s no fear-of-plummeting-out-of-the-sky. It’s safe to assume that the-majority-of-farmers-and-ranchers-don’t-have-previous-piloting-experience. And when you’re messing with an aircraft with 6-unprotected-propellers, intrusive thoughts-of-being-dismembered-limb-from-limb aren’t that crazy. [All conventional aircraft have unguarded props! That’s why they shout “clear!”]
However, Kowitz stressed that RYSE put-user-safety-first when designing the vehicle. Part of it comes by way of the software, which uses AI to help keep the craft flying smoothly by responding to changes in the weather and altitude. Kowitz also said the propellers are even safer than a helicopter’s or other eVTOLs’. “A helicopter has a single-point-of-failure because of its one-rotor,” he said. “We have 6 and we put a lot of effort into building-redundancy to make sure it’s not going to come down and get you hurt.”
Each propeller has a battery to power it, and even if-one-battery-goes-out, Kowitz said that the other batteries would support that propeller to keep it spinning. That way, you don’t just fall-out-of-the-sky if something happens and a rotor-stops-working. [Mixing-up two different failure-modes – battery-failure versus motor/prop-failure.]
The RECON gets around training-requirements needed to get something like a pilot’s-license, because the aircraft falls under the category of “ultralight-aircraft” from the Federal Aviation Administration—anyone can jump into the RECON and start operating it pretty much right away. The Company’s video-tutorials that show the user how to operate the vehicle takes about 45-minutes to watch, said Kowitz. Users are still required to follow FAA regulations on where they can and can’t fly, like over [or near] airports or through cities; and payload-restrictions.
That does mean the rules can be very easily broken, inadvertently or intentionally, for a vehicle flying 400-feet-in-the-air and at 63-miles-per-hour. One dumb decision could cost you your life—and maybe the lives of others.
“Do I personally want to risk-my-life counting on a few batteries and a drone?” Seda asked. “I don’t know.”
“I can tell you from personal-experience: It’s boring.”
— Mick Kowitz, RYSE Aero Tech
I arrived at RYSE’s facility in Cincinnati [Mason], Ohio on a bright and sunny morning—optimal flying weather—I must have been wearing my nerves on my face, because Kowitz kept reassuring me how safe the machine was. [No mention yet of a ballistic-parachute option, with its additional-weight-allowance available for ultralights.]
“I can tell you from personal experience: It’s boring,” he said. “I’m a pilot so I’m used to all the rigamarole of controlling an airplane but with this, it pretty much does all the workload for you. That’s kind of the point of it. It should be like hopping on an ATV, except you have an extra up-down dimension to it.”
Still, my own personal history with potentially dangerous transportation devices kept my anxiety at a fairly-high-level as I prepared for my ride in the RECON. Going through the instructions for how to fly the vehicle across an empty parking lot seemed easy to understand—the only question was would I be able to do it and survive.
After the training, I was given a flight-helmet and we headed toward the lot where the RECON sat. There was a team of engineers for the Company getting it ready. I felt like an Apollo-astronaut heading towards a rocket destined for the moon. As I climbed-in, I found the seat was smaller than I expected. I’m not that tall—just 6’ 1”—and I still struggled to fit my legs all the way in comfortably. The team strapped-me-in before taking their positions about 20-feet-away to watch. I was on my own.
Kowitz helps me settle into the RECON.
I ran through a pre-flight-checklist on the center-console of things I needed to make sure of before I flew: no person or object within 20-feet of the RECON, clear-weather, propellers in working-order, etc. Once I got through it, it was time-to-fly.
Following the prompts on the console and from Kowitz, I pressed a few buttons and pulled back the lever before rising. It felt surreal as the RECON lifted into the air, like I was breaking some law of man and physics and god by doing this. Wind from the propellers whipped around me as I kept stopping myself from white-knuckling the controls completely. Eventually, the vehicle climbed to a whopping 10-or-so-feet-off-the-ground. While it was nowhere near the 400-foot-geofenced-ceiling, it felt like I might as well have been in orbit. [This air-space-geofenced-restriction having nothing to do with its being an ultralight, just a safety precaution.]
I tried to imagine what a farmer might think up here, trying to get a good look at her crops or find a lost calf, and I could almost see the value in this vehicle for the agriculture industry. And if RYSE could get farmers to buy into eVTOLs, the greater-public might be more-amenable as well. That’s still a long shot—but it’s possible.
“You’re doing great,” Kowitz said. “Now push-the-right-controller-forward.”
I slowly eased it forward. As I did, the RECON moved slowly as well. I have to admit, it was pretty damn cool. Sure, I wasn’t breaking-the-sound-barrier, but I was piloting an honest-to-god flying-ATV. And I hadn’t died yet. It was awesome.
Eventually, I traveled the length of the parking-lot, and I pulled the left stick back to bring the RECON down. It landed somewhat gracefully, moving to an angle before settling down. Once the propellers stopped whirring, I heard the team cheer and clap for me—which I felt dumb for enjoying.
“How was it?” Kowitz asked after running up to me.
“Awesome,” I said as I climbed out and took off my helmet. “A lot easier than I expected. And you were right. It’s kind of boring.”
He laughed and nodded. “Yup, that’s the whole point.”
Tony Ho Tran, Deputy Editor, Innovation & Tech, @TonyHoWasHere, [email protected]
Ryse Aero Technologies Lets Farmers Take to the Sky
Startup Has Created Recon, A 6-Rotor Ultralight Providing Stable Flight with Little Training
Willie Vogt | Aug 23, 2022 – Farm Progress
“I’m a technologist by nature, I’m also a private-pilot.”
says Mick Kowitz, Founder and CEO, Ryse Aero Technologies.
If you’ve dreamed of flying over your farm to check-things-out, Ryse Aero Technologies may be the airship you’re looking for. This Ohio-based startup has created a unique machine that can be flown without a pilot’s-license and offers a new way to see a farm or ranch.
He explains that he and a few business-partners started discussing the electric-vertical-takeoff-and-landing market – eVTOL – which is today focused mainly on creating air-taxis. Kowitz and his partners saw a different opportunity: an ultralight-machine that could be flown by anyone.
Kowitz recalls those early discussions of creating an ultralight. He admits as a private-pilot that he has no love of conventional-ultralight-machines, but discussions continued. He recalls early arguments about the idea and his stance that “a good technology doesn’t always make a good business,” [but maybe a great philanthropic venture with the S.D. Air & Space Museum!]
The discussion turned to agriculture and the wide use of all-terrain-vehicles to get to remote-places or travel-around-farms-and-ranches. “An ultralight is generally a sports and recreation class vehicle,” Kowitz says. But then he started looking at how a “sports-and-recreation” ultralight-class machine could be used by a business noting that farms use ATVs and utility-vehicles.
“We started looking at who would be a great early-adopter for this technology,” he says. “I have good friends that are farmers with large farms and they’re like the perfect market for this.” He observes that farmers have long been the first to take on new tech including GPS, automation, and autonomy.
And the idea for a new-kind-of-ultralight was born.
Rise of the Recon When you first see the Recon, and Farm Progress got a look at version-1 of the machine, it’s almost obvious in its design and purpose. It’s a single-rider, 6-blade aerial-vehicle that operates more like a drone or helicopter than a traditional ultralight many have seen. The Company celebrated its first-manned-test-flight of the machine this week (the video with this story includes images from that first-flight), a significant-milestone for the startup.
Powered by 6-electric-motors, the carbon-blade-propellers spin-at-2,000-rpm and when flying it’s not-very-loud. Kowitz is also quick to point-out how easy it is to fly, noting that with as little as 45-minutes-of-training a user can be in the air.
There are safety-systems and the controls for this airship are “drone-like” in the ability-to-hover-and-rotate as easily as a helicopter. A main-screen between two-joysticks is what constitutes the operator-platform.
“We have an artificial-intelligence-system on board, almost like a supercomputer, for controls,” Kowitz says. That AI-system works to keep the machine steady when hovering-even-in-winds-has-high-as-25-mph. As for safety-systems, if a pilot feels they’re in a little trouble, just maneuver to a safe-place to set-down and hit “land-now” and the machine will lower to the ground providing a level-landing.
The 6-electric-rotors use removable-battery-packs that can-be-taken-out-for-charging. “The removable-battery-pack-design makes it easy to charge, but it also means in the future if there are new-battery-technologies they could be added with upgraded-packs,” Kowitz says. [Yet another hope for better future battery-technology.]
In addition, those removable-packs can boost-range. The machine will run for about 25-minutes-on-a-charge. With it’s top-speed-of-63-mph, you can cover a lot of territory in that time, but if you need to expand-the-range Kowitz has a suggestion.
“A user could set-up-remote-charging-stations that are solar-powered with more-packs,” he says. “That way if they’re 20-miles-out and don’t feel they have the range-to-return they could swap-in-fresh-batteries-from-a-remote-station.” That approach would be popular on larger farms or ranches.
The machine is outfitted with equipment approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. In addition, the airship uses optical-LIDAR for laser-based-obstacle-avoidance. This is not-an-autopilot-system, the operator is always in control, but these added systems add to the safety of the Recon design.
And Recon floats. “The limit for an ultralight is 255-pounds-empty, but if you fly on land and water you can add weight. We’re at 285-pounds,” Kowitz says. That increases the versatility of the machine as well.
Maintenance and Upkeep The design of the machine is essentially simple. The aircraft-grade-aluminum-frame holds the 6-rotors. Battery-packs are contained under each rotor powering an electric-motor that can be refurbished after it passes its useful-life. Rotors are carbon-fiber and can be replace by the owner too.
“A farmer that’s maintaining an internal-combustion-engine on his farm will have no problem maintaining this machine,” Kowitz says.
Initial-operating-life of the batteries-and-motors is about 2,500-hours, though that’s based-on early-build-models. The Company is putting test-machines in the hands-of-farmers-this-fall and has a full-build-schedule-planned-out.
“We’ll start in 2023 with 100-machines that will mostly be hand-built,” Kowitz says. “Our goal is to build 1,000 in 2024.” [Now add a year to both of those early guesses.] He explains that the first-100-machines will allow the Company to fine-tune it’s manufacturing-processes, which may include 3D-printing of some components.
That first-manned-test-flight marks a major milestone for the startup. Kowitz wants to talk with farmers too to get more insight into their thoughts of how the machine might be used. Ryse Aero Technologies will be on hand near the Autonomy exhibit on the east-side of the grounds of the 2022 Farm Progress Show and they will be flying the machine during the event.
“Although most cropland was operated by farms with less-than-600 crop-acres in the early-1980s, today most cropland is on farms with at least 1,100-acres, and many farms are 5-and-10-times that size.”
Average Farm Sizes
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45108/39359_err152.pdf
I’ve used an extreme example of a western-mega-ranch of say 20,000 acres but, for example, when it comes to ranches specialized in beef-cattle operations, a farm is considered a ranch at around 440+ acres of land. Small-family-farms are considered to be small-ranches at around 200 acres of land. A large family-farm is considered a large-ranch upwards from 1,400 acres. There are a few mega-sized ranches with around 2,000 acres. It is these small ranches that make-up about 80% of the total ranches. In Texas there are 30 ranches with 2,500 acres-of-land-or-more. Among the 30-ranches, there were 134,000 beef-cows.
Here is another example of a long-delayed project still struggling to finally begin volume production and determining how it will be classified in the U.S., apparently being too heavy now to qualify as an ultralight, as they originally claimed.
Jetson-ONE Update
September 5, 2022
We are proud to introduce our new R & D and limited production facility in Arezzo, Tuscany. In April 2022, the stars-aligned for Jetson. We found our new home in a private-airfield south of Florence, with an 2,600’-airstrip and an adjacent industrial facility from the late 19th-century.
Our team celebrated the opening of our new HQ and R&D hub last week. We invited a handful of Italian press and important local government officials to join us for this momentous occasion. Our guests watched the Jetson-ONE take to the skies and later enjoyed a tour of our beautiful new facility.
Our new ‘skunk-works’ were originally used as a silk-factory in the 19th-century. This is now being aggressively renovated to home the new R & D and limited production series.
However, we will not be stopping there.
We are also creating a client experience center and pilot school. It is here in the breathtaking Tuscan hillside, surrounded by vineyards and stunning Tuscan architecture, that we will be inviting guests to experience the Jetson-ONE and also learn-to-fly.
The Tuscan climate allows for perfect flight-testing conditions and the 2,600’ airstrip means we can continue to fly daily. Any customer who has received an assigned chassis-number were invited in the Spring of 2023. We look forward to welcoming you soon. [Well, that didn’t work out well for them when they failed to give the promised demo-flights to the early purchasers.]
It appears that the Jetson-ONE must be too heavy to qualify as an ultralight in the U.S. Being factory-built, it would also not qualify as an experimental-aircraft here in the U.S. As such, it leaves open the question of exactly what sort of pilot-license one requires to operate it here.
Navigating the Skies: Unraveling the Licensing Requirements for Jetson-ONE
By Davis Brown - December 26, 2023 - Do you need a license to fly a Jetson-ONE?
Introduction: The Jetson-ONE, a revolutionary personal aircraft, has captured the imagination of many aspiring aviators. With its sleek design and futuristic capabilities, it’s no wonder that people are eager to take to the skies in this cutting-edge flying-machine. However, before embarking on this airborne adventure, it’s essential to understand the licensing requirements associated with operating a Jetson-ONE. In this article, we will delve into the intricacies of obtaining a license for this remarkable aircraft, debunk common misconceptions, and provide valuable insights for prospective Jetson-ONE pilots.
Understanding the Jetson-ONE: The Jetson-ONE is an innovative personal aircraft that combines vertical-takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) capabilities with electric-propulsion. It offers a unique flying experience, allowing individuals to navigate urban environments with ease. With its compact-size and advanced technology, the Jetson-ONE has the potential to revolutionize personal transportation. [Just like all the other competitors in this segment here in the U.S.]
Licensing Requirements: To operate a Jetson-ONE, it is crucial to possess the appropriate license. However, the licensing process for this futuristic aircraft differs from traditional pilot certifications. Currently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States does not have a specific license category for personal-electric-aircraft like the Jetson-ONE. As a result, individuals must explore alternative avenues to obtain the necessary qualifications.
1. Sport-Pilot License: One option for flying a Jetson-ONE is to obtain a Sport Pilot License. This license allows individuals to fly certain light aircraft, including powered-parachutes, weight-shift-control aircraft, and gyroplanes. While the Jetson-ONE does not fall under these specific categories, some argue that it aligns with the spirit of the Sport Pilot License due to its lightweight and simplified flight controls.
2. Part-107 Remote Pilot Certificate: Another potential route is to acquire a Part-107 Remote Pilot Certificate. This certification is designed for individuals operating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for commercial purposes. Although the Jetson-ONE is not explicitly categorized as a UAS, it shares similarities in terms of size, weight, and flight characteristics. As such, obtaining a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate could be a viable option for Jetson-ONE pilots.
Common Misconceptions: 1. “I can fly a Jetson-ONE without any license”:
Contrary to popular belief, operating a Jetson-ONE without the appropriate license is not permissible. While the licensing requirements may differ from traditional aircraft, it is essential to adhere to the regulations and obtain the necessary qualifications. [For what category exactly?]
2. “My driver’s license is sufficient”: Although possessing a driver’s-license demonstrates a level of responsibility, it does not grant individuals the authority to operate a Jetson-ONE. The unique nature of this personal aircraft necessitates specialized training and certification.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):
Q1: Can I fly a Jetson-ONE with a private-pilot-license?
A1: Currently, there is no specific license category for the Jetson-ONE. However, individuals with a private-pilot-license may possess the necessary skills and knowledge to operate this aircraft safely.
Q2: Are there any age restrictions for flying a Jetson-ONE?
A2: Age restrictions may vary depending on the licensing route chosen. For example, the minimum age for a Sport Pilot License is 17-years, while the minimum age for a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate is 16-years.
Q3: Are there any ongoing efforts to establish a specific license category for personal-electric-aircraft?
A3: Yes, various organizations and regulatory bodies are actively exploring the development of specific license categories for personal-electric-aircraft. It is crucial to stay updated on any changes or advancements in this area.
Conclusion: Operating a Jetson-ONE requires more than just a passion for flying; it necessitates the acquisition of the appropriate license. While the current licensing landscape may not have a dedicated category for this futuristic aircraft, exploring alternative avenues such as the Sport Pilot License or Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate can pave the way for an exhilarating flying experience. As the world of personal-electric-aircraft continues to evolve, it is essential to stay informed about the latest regulations and licensing requirements to ensure safe and responsible aviation practices.
{Ultralight Donation – Plan B – Updated}
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