
Volocopter – The world’s first green helicopter - sasvari
http://www.e-volo.com/
======
benjamincburns
Cool stuff. However, the first thing I wondered was "does it use variable
pitch props so I can get it to autorotate?"

    
    
        Our volocopters are fitted with a rescue system in the form of
        a parachute which safely lets the entire aircraft sink to the ground
        in the case of an emergency. At helicopters in contrast, is the main
        rotor in the way.
    

\-- [http://www.e-volo.com/information/safety-
concept](http://www.e-volo.com/information/safety-concept)

This (combined with an emergency back-up battery) is probably better than a
traditional helicopter for low-altitude power failures, but worse for higher-
altitude. With a main engine failure at sufficient altitude, a helicopter
pilot can reverse the pitch of the main rotor so that it builds momentum while
the craft falls. During the decent the pilot also has control over the craft,
so he/she can hopefully avoid trees, power lines, etc. Finally, at the end of
the decent the pilot is able to reverse the pitch of the blades again, turning
the stored momentum back into downward thrust, safely landing the craft.

~~~
ominous_prime
I think lack of autorotation would make this idea dead in the water. Very low
altitude failures would also be dangerous, as parachutes are hard to deploy
without a few hundred feet to spare. Also currently, all single engine
helicopters must be able to complete an autorotation to get certified. I'm not
sure where this would stand though, since it may end up as an experimental
category aircraft.

A clarification for those who haven't seen one, an autorotation is less about
falling than gliding. You have very good control, though you do only get one
shot at the landing. A quick search brought up this video with a few landings:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2a9H8Xw8Mo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2a9H8Xw8Mo)

~~~
benjamincburns
Yes. Also, Smarter Every Day's Helicopter Physics series on YouTube had one of
the best explanations of autorotation I've seen:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7u8m0Qpn38](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7u8m0Qpn38)

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jpollock
Didn't I just see a story about quadcopter design, and how helicopters were
actually more efficient due to the single large rotor?

Here it is: [http://www.geek.com/science/weve-been-designing-
quadcopters-...](http://www.geek.com/science/weve-been-designing-quadcopters-
incorrectly-since-day-one-1577256/)

~~~
baddox
I wonder if, at larger scales like this, electric motors and batteries are
unable to efficiently power a tradition helicopter design (one main rotor and
a small tail rotor).

~~~
VladRussian2
the advantage here is the ability to have several (like 8-16 motors) so the
failure of one motor isn't leading to a crash). It is the same paradigm shift
as when horizontally scaled commodity hardware systems with expected multiple
points of failure have almost everywhere replaced the highly-reliable Big Iron
systems.

Another advantage is the possibility to have the propellers in ducts/shrouds
(eVolo didn't do it, yet nothing prevents it) that is not doable for one big
helicopter's propeller, thus such machine can fly near buildings/trees/etc...
where helicopter can't. There is also issue of control in tight quarters where
air flow is hard to predict and is affected by near by objects - multiple
electric motors are much more flexible and faster reacting than one big
engine+propeller.

Like with electric cars, the main issue is "range". It is solvable by having a
series hybrid drive (especially once new gas engines specifically developed
for series hybrids - ie. higher efficiency and lighter weight at the cost of
power band - come to market). While such system willn't beat efficiency of 787
or fly transatlantic, it would be unbeatable for Santa Cruz to Mountain View
commute.

~~~
jotm
Helicopters are pretty crash proof - the autorotation system is simple and
very effective.

~~~
VladRussian2
the autorotation requires a highly trained pilot and it is an emergency
situation. Failure of 1 motor/propeller out of 16 is like a "low gas" warning,
time to think about where to conveniently and casually land, instead of
immediately autorotating down to whatever lake or heavy forested mountain you
happened to be flying over.

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WayneS
Green? Because it runs off batteries? Is that all it takes.

OK, but didn't we just have a discussion on hacker news showing that
helicopters with one large blade are more efficient than ones with many
smaller blades?

~~~
Scaevolus
It's easy to ignore where your power's coming from when your vehicle's not
burning fuel-- in the US, ~40% from coal and ~30% natural gas.

Morality fades away when the results occur at a distance. Compare plugging
into a socket to pumping gas, or buying cuts of meat to slaughtering an
animal.

~~~
sp332
Centralizing power production, even in a coal-burning plant, is better for the
environment than burning fuel locally (and extremely inefficiently) in a
helicopter.

~~~
timmaah
So just ignore the "emission- free" quote on their home page.

~~~
sp332
The helicopter is emission-free. How you power it is up to you. You have the
option of using an emission-free source, which is not an option with normal
helicopters.

------
gress
20 minutes flight time, constrained by battery technology. They say it's
'conceivable' that there could be a considerable improvement in battery
technology over the next few years to allow up to an hour of flight.

I hope so - both for cars and for mobile devices a 3x improvement in battery
capacity per unit weight would be transformative. Imagine an iPad air at half
the weight again, or a Tesla Roadster with a 750 mile range.

~~~
tjoff
You mean, imagine an iPad too hot to touch.

Because we always optimize for performance, keeping battery on the bare
acceptable minimum. With the newest trend to also seal the batteries to ensure
that the device has a limited useful life.

While I often cringe at how terrible batteries are, the alternative wouldn't
be that attractive for mobile devices either. Because we wouldn't have had the
same focus on low power if we had decent batteries.

~~~
gress
Do you seriously think that sealed batteries are designed to shorten the life
of devices?

~~~
tjoff
No, but there aren't any less pathetic reasons for it.

~~~
gress
So you were being deliberately misleading in your earlier comment.

~~~
tjoff
Wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

Just as I don't imagine that apple would create an iPad that was too hot for
touch...

The gist, and my point is that it is easy to imagine an alternative universe
with, for instance, much better battery tech, without considering how our bad
batteries have influenced our.

Our batteries have forced us to focus on low power designs. Designs that also
benefits from low heat output which also benefits from cheaper, smaller and
quieter cooling.

~~~
gress
That seems like a strange universe. I don't see why designers would suddenly
disregard heat output or noise just because batteries were able to provide
more power. Apple doesn't disregard these factors in their AC powered
computers, so why would they do so in mobile computers?

~~~
tjoff
Apple don't have much to say about these factors in their AC powered
computers. They just buy whatever is on the market.

And that's exactly what the market did just a few years ago, "ignored" (in
favor for performance) heat output - until it became a big enough problem.

[http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CPU-
Sc...](http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CPU-Scaling.jpg)

Just before 2005 power consumption suddenly became a top priority (well, ok,
earlier than that but it was around then the results were showing in consumer
products _across the board_ ).

One can argue the same even with modern macbooks that get extremely hot when
pressed. That's favoring performance over heat output. In a world were
batteries were even worse that would not have been acceptable, now we live on
the edge on how much heat we can tolerate.

Many of todays phones do get quite hot when gaming and with better batteries
I'm sure it wouldn't exactly be less of a problem. Now we are saved by the
fact that a battery time of 60 minutes wouldn't be acceptable in a phone and
the goal is to get as much performance out of a device that has decent battery
life. When battery performance goes up so does the performance of the phone -
but not the battery life.

~~~
gress
What are you talking about? Apple are renowned for striving to make quiet
computers. And your comment about hot MacBooks directly contradicts your claim
that heat would be ignored as a factor.

~~~
tjoff
Really? MacBooks have never been quiet, apple don't want to pay the premium
for low power chips so even if they tried they would fail (exception: MacBook
Air).

Of course you have to take heat into account, but it's not like it takes
priority.

~~~
gress
Exception: the most carefully engineered and popular computer in Apple's
history, regarded by many reviewers as the best laptop ever designed.

If you consider the MacBook Air to be an 'exception' then there is nothing to
discuss. I can't really respond to comments that are in blatant disregard of
the evidence.

~~~
tjoff
The only, ehm, evidence you've put forward is claiming to the authority of
"reviewers". I guess that works for you.

~~~
gress
So you no longer consider the MacBook Air to be an exception?

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rtpg
First time I read this I honestly thought they were talking about a helicopter
painted green...

I wonder if this can allow for bigger sizes. The most common use cases for
helicopters (transporting people like for medivac) can't seem to be filled by
this. I did hear once about IBM using a helicopter to fly in a technician to
some server farm to fill in a "on site in 60-minutes" contractual clause with
a client.

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rdtsc
From a quick look at it, it seems they are just fishing for investors. They
have a cool looking prototype and use "green" in their marketing a bit too
much. I couldn't find any studies or more detailed explanation justifying
their design vs the traditional one.

~~~
Timmmmbob
These are the advantages and disadvantages I can think of:

Pros

* Probably much cheaper than a traditional helicopter - you don't need any complicated mechanical components like swash plates. * Increased redundancy would be much easier - you can wire up batteries in parallel, and it can no doubt fly with a significant number of broken propellers. The only other component is the microcontroller, which is cheap enough that you could have multiple copies of it. * Looks like you could fly it indoors fairly safely (in large buildings). With minor modifications it could be flown closer to buildings more safely than a traditional helicopter. * Easy to remote control, as already demonstrated in the video! This could make a great medical evacuation helicopter. * Should be virtually maintenance-free. The only thing I can think that you'd need to do is replace the battery.

Cons:

* Undoubtedly has a much shorter flight time than non-electric helicopters. * Lower capacity than (most) traditional helicopters. * Can't autogyro, so running out of fuel is much more serious! * _Possibly_ costs more to run when you consider the cost of replacement batteries. Hard to say for sure.

It's certainly not a worthless design.

~~~
crististm
What's the point of flying it indoors!? And how many buildings you know are
suitable, not to mention need, such an apparatus?

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protomyth
"However, a considerable advancement in battery technology is conceivable
during the next few years, so that a multiplication of the energy capacity
will occur within a short period of time. At present a battery flight time of
20 minutes is possible, but in the near future this will be extended to one
hour or more."

What companies / people are working on new technology to make this true? We
hear this with every new project, but it doesn't seem like enough people are
choosing that as their goal.

~~~
moocowduckquack
There have been quite a few developments in battery and ultracap technology
that seem pretty promising in the last few years, but it is one thing to have
something up and running in the lab and quite another to bet on a particular
technology and then industrialise the production process for global mass
production. Luckily there is now money being waved around by the car industry
that should see at least some of the developments enter the marketplace, which
is what more specialist companies like this one are banking on, as they don't
have enough money themselves to wave around.

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noonespecial
As most rc hobbyists know today, you can make just about anything fly by
festooning it with little propellors. Flying _well_ on the other hand...

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ithkuil
Ah interesting.

I don't understand much about efficiency, but after reading
[http://www.geek.com/science/weve-been-designing-
quadcopters-...](http://www.geek.com/science/weve-been-designing-quadcopters-
incorrectly-since-day-one-1577256/) I thought that a big rotor was inherently
more efficient, so how can this design be more "green"?

~~~
timmaah
It is "green" because the emissions are out of sight out of mind..

Just ignore the coal plant in the background.

~~~
moocowduckquack
To be fair, people who get involved in developing green tech these days are
fairly likely to have bought solar panels, especially given the price of them.

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pierlux
More videos on YouTube while their side is hammered:
[http://www.youtube.com/user/forschungsbuero](http://www.youtube.com/user/forschungsbuero)

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shittyanalogy
With what looks like a collection of interesting new-technology and innovation
it's kind of sad to see them marketing it as

    
    
      It's electric. Greeeeeeeeeeeen.

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Zoomla
A plane is much greener

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spajus
ROFLcopter was first - it runs on plain text :-)

