Image via Aerofex
Anyone who has seen the Star Wars movies knows the yearn to fly on a high speed hover bike through the forests of Endor or across the dunes of Tatooine, but what if that dream may finally come true? Unfortunately you won’t be able to fly as smoothly as the ones in the movies, but Aerofex’s model has the potential for anyone to fly it without pilot training due to its intuitive controls.
Aerofex’s design originates back to the 1960s, but their model is different since they have managed to fix the previous issues of stability and roll overs with a new mechanical system that consists is controlled by two bars at the knee level that allow the vehicle to respond to the pilot’s leaning movements and natural sense of balance. “Think of it as lowering the threshold of flight, down to the domain of ATV’s (all-terrain vehicles),” commented Mark De Roche, founder of Aerofex and an aerospace engineer.
Image via Aerofex
Some applications of the vehicle could be allowing border patrol agents to go about their duty quickly without pilot training or allowing a physician to visit a patient in a rural area without roads. Aerofex does not plan on initially developing and selling a human version of the hover vehicle and instead plans on using the vehicle as a test platform for unmanned drones. Basically they would serve a robotic workhorses that could carry loads of crops in an agriculture field or serve as a supply carrier in a search and rescue mission.
Although the hover vehicle wouldn’t be as efficient as a robotic helicopter, but it has the advantage of being smaller and more safe near humans due to its enclosed rotors. Current human testing is going on in the Mojave Desert in California and flight testing is limited to a height of 15 feet and speeds of 30 MPH, but due to cautionary measures not necessarily technical limitations. Let us know what you think of the hover vehicle in the comments section below and watch a video of the vehicle in flight here.
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