Can you answer something though? You say in the interview that you tilt the "engines" to eliminate other, take off and landing only engines, BUT IN THE NEXT SENTENCE YOU SAY "here are our engines just for taking off and landing" It doesn't really make sense, no?
Also, sure, you have enough battery packs to "tolerate" failures, but you guys know what happens when GIANT battery packs fail right? Have you tested the insulators ability to eat up a multi cell failure in the same area?
@@ArcherAviation I first heard about you guys when Trent Palmer toured your facility a couple years ago. You've made a lot of progress since then. Hopefully you can get a certified aircraft taking passengers soon.
@@poiu477 It’s simple: They need 12 engines for hovering and 6 engines for forward flight. If these were all either vertical or horizontal, you would need 18 engines. By tilting 6 of them, you need only 12 in total.
As a kid who grew up watching scott manley and is now pursuing a masters degree focusing on vtol and rotor dynamics this is the perfect full circle moment
As a kid who grew up reading Janes All The World Aircraft in the 60's, I saw too many of these concept-planes/choppers/etc. eventually come to nothing. Hiller's flying platform, Custer's channel-wing, all had their look-and-feel vibe that this one has. The more _conventional_ the airframe appeared and behaved the more likely it would become successful. The exceptions were very rare.
Not doing vtol and rotor but also master in AE and Scott has been a great motivator during all this time. Great to hear others are also in a similar situation. Scott, your channel is awesome and motivates us all.
I love these factory walk-throughs. Scott would be the perfect industrial spy, he digs right into the details and the parameters any the hows and whys, really engaging to watch.
I see this kind of stuff all the time. Being an automation FSE means being in factories of all types. Everything from packaging, manufacturing, and food production/processing. It's absolutely fascinating, and one of the reasons i really like my job. Every place is just a little bit (or sometimes a LOT) different than the last. I can and have just stood and watched a machine work, because all the fiddly bits moving in concert is mesmerizing.
What a refreshing unrehearsed, non-PR style greeting - the kind that you get from someone who is there for the product, not just to sell it. Awesome stuff.
This will never make sense economically and I agree that they're exactly like Tesla in the sense that they make exaggerated claims on which they will never be able to deliver.
I think we can safely say that anything involving operational process and safety systems was done in the worst possible way by OceanGate. When I saw the Coast Guard inquiry and heard that they were logging their position by hand onto paper and then transcribing into Excel spreadsheets to calculate position fixes, it blew my mind.
The concept has been around for some time now, they tried them on GA aircraft and were unironically called Q-tip props. They're still around on some aircraft today, but didn't deliver near the performance or quieter operation that they promised. There was a measurable improvement, but marginal, unfortunately. The blade tip was overly simplistic and made presumably with a vague understanding winglet aerodynamics, so it fell short of its potential. We could theoretically design a much better blade tip modeling them after the slight upward winglet designs seen on modern air racers, but scimitar shaped blades are the better option when it comes to efficiency and sound. Scimitar blades are analogous to what swept wings did for early jet aircraft, allowing them to fly closer to transonic and supersonic regimes with less compressibility and retaining good lift with transonic shockwave formation. The curved leading edge when looked at in a radial perspective delays shock formation to a higher airspeed, so the prop can be longer without suffering from shockwave formation that kills lift and robs power at higher speeds (really the limiting factor in the top speed of racing aircraft). It can be seen best on expensive/big aircraft with turbine engines running more than five blades, an example being the most recent 8 bladed prop on the C-130. You can see the same design on some newer helicopter rotors as well, the AH-64 Apache being a noteworthy example. Eurocopter made a pretty radical design a while back with great results (you can read more about it by searching "Blue Edge Rotor"). The combination of a scimitar and a blade tip similar to the Blue Edge would be an absolutely fantastic prop if realized.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper I'd imagine the engineering on scimitar blades gets far more complex when varying the pitch. I've seen them on the ATR-72s & elsewhere, but I've never understood how they handled that. Even with small variations in pitch, the outer part of the blades would seem to capture far, far more air than the inner part, leading to a very uneven distribution of thrust force along the blade, far more than on a straight blade. I'd think that would cause quite a bit more fatigue near the prop hub due to the blades torquing forward from that effect, and torquing aft during reverse thrust. Do you know how this was addressed? A simple matter of better materials science? A more extreme taper toward the blade tips?
No offense to anyone but I just cannot imagine Scott getting along with Elon at all - and I'm also pretty sure ELon wouldn't allow a tour of Starbase without being in charge.
Thanks for the look around. They have a lot going into this project. They're a pretty creative group. Hopefully, the aircraft has continued success and finds a market. Sometimes, that's the hardest part. All the best.
Scott, good report. Also: an even more likely first market than those in the U.S. “who have more money than time” are higher-density areas like Japan, where there are fewer airports and noise is even a bigger issue. - Dave Huntsman
You'll still need a pilot's license to fly it, which is the reason all the previous flying cars failed. Those are hard to get, and very expensive to try.
I went to a test flight for Joby a couple of years ago. They're in the same area and pretty interesting set up. The aircrafts pretty remarkable to see flying as its almost silent.
0:22 that awkward greeting 🤣and looking the overlaid aircraft 😃. Also it caught my attention that he says "yah" for yaw (8:26). Great video as usual, thanks.
I’m loving all the in-depth looks at these aerospace startups you have done lately 👍 (Probably a crappy way of describing them but I hope folks get the drift!)
Imagine learning the controls of a new aircraft with one of the aircraft's creators clinging to the outside of the cockpit while explaining how everything works
A sport/acrobatics mode on that could pull some pretty crazy stunts if the fly by wire wasn't so locked down. I'm sure it's not a priority, but it'll be fun when somebody decides to actually see what this sort of airfame can do for an airshow.
Full aerobatics routine would give you 5 to 10 mins of flight time before the batteries ran out. You can see it now on the ground with electric hyper cars - full throttle and the batteries last 10% of the cruise time.
@@zorbakaput8537 Still, it might be a good idea to have that mode as an option in case abrupt maneuvering is necessary to avoid traffic or other unexpected issues. I don't like the idea of limiting pilot control to what the manufacturer considers reasonable.
@@beenaplumber8379thats essentially already what any modern airliner design does. there's limits to what the software will allow the pilot to do, because it knows best. ...see "MCAS" /s
Fantastic walkthrough Scott, keep em coming! I’m amazed that the battery tech is still using individual cells wired in parallel and series. The weight for each cell can must be considerable. Surely there is a better way to do this.
I bought 100 shares of Archer Aviation about a year ago. I'm 74, so I'm mostly an income investor, but I will occasionally buy 100 shares of selected start-ups, just to follow technology that I find interesting. Recently, I have been selling short expiration date, $5 put options on competitor Joby Aviation. I want to buy 100 shares, but want to pay less than $5/share.
Your observation about controlling six degrees of freedom with four axes was spot on. I would have expected them to use rudder pedals and separate altitude translation control. They need to appeal to existing pilots without too much counterintuitive behaviour required.
I think it makes sense if you consider that some of those 6 axis you shouldn't be directly controlling anyways (depending on which phase of flight), that's the job of the fly by wire. For example: In hover flight, you shouldn't be controlling the pitch and roll directly, you have yaw and 3 translation axis only (total of 4), and the fly by wire does the pitch and roll. And in forward flight, you have pitch, roll, yaw and power only, like a normal fixed wing aircraft, so you shouldn't be able to touch the translation controls anyways, just like how you don't have translation controls on a fixed wing.
Hello, it's Scott Manley here. Today I am in the garbage compactor on the Death Star. . . Hello, it's Scott Manley here. Today I am standing below the Saturn V at T minus 20 seconds. . . .
So interesting to see the approach to redundancy, eg. two separate windings in a motor. This is an exciting aircraft obviously made with care. With all the new smaller electric airframes being developed I wonder what the skies will look like in ten years.
Very standard in aviation. Remember piston engines in aircraft have dual magnetos for the same very reason. You lose a bit of power but the engine is still running. Same thing with independent control systems like hydraulics.
One of the issues not addressed here will be the development of an advanced air traffic control system that can coordinate and sequence all of these VTOLs to keep them separated in flight. During rush hour if everyone needs to fly to the airport at the same time there will be a requirement for automated systems that are able to handle these high traffic loads to make point to point travel possible and safe.
@@bernieschiff5919 I can imagine problems with this due to the lower energy capacities if the need to loiter during peak times goes up. Planes often have ample fuel to loiter for considerable time.
@@bernieschiff5919 Special class B corridors (like VFR corridors) where they slow down and maintain separation without radar service, maybe using vehicle-to-vehicle systems? That would require no changes from ATC if this becomes a thing, like an air taxi to the main airport.
I hope you see this Scott, very offtopic. Searched but no luck.. do you have a video on nav balls specificly? I get lost on advanced spaceflight FDAI's 😬
"Scott, I've just picked up a fault in the AAE-35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in within 72 hours." Hal, I'm feeling a wee bit peckish, would you make a sandwich for me? "I'm sorry Scott, I'm afraid I can't do that."
I need this asap. If you want to fly out of LAX, the last 30 miles to airport take from 1-3 hours depending on how lucky you are Getting on one of these and skipping that last 30 miles and covering it in 15 minutes walking directly into the airport gate area will be amazing. NYC airports are even worse when it comes to surface traffic around airports
Cameraman not doing the best job, but I actually like to see more in this format. Scott looks very natural interviewing in this style, he should have a cameraman more often.
It may look goofy, but believe it or not, this is what peak aerodynamic performance looks like XD Im only half joking. Using so many smaller propellers along the wing instead of fewer bigger ones has a ton of advantages. In horizontal flight, they can provide augmented lift by accelerating air over the wings faster. This is something numerous jet engine prototype aircraft have attempted to achieve, but never really make it into production because distributing jet engine exhaust along an entire wing is rather difficult. Electric motors by contrast are some of the most power dense engines on the market, meaning small motors can drive propellers all over the aircraft in packages far smaller than any other equivalent power engine. So EVTOLs are proving to be the first vehicles that augmented lift wings are actually practical on. And, as a VTOL... Look, people have tried to make VTOLs as redundant and safe as planes or helicopters. They generally just arent. Engine failures can be catastrophic for VTOLs. EVTOLs brute force the problem by simply using many many smaller motors instead of couple bigger ones. Any one, or even multiple, motor failures will not catastrophically affect the flying perfomance improving the odds of making emergency landings. And probably the biggest reason for these designs is that smaller high performance electric motors already exist in decent quantities on the market... And electric aircraft are fairly easy to scale by simply slapping more motors onto them, rather than developing bigger ones. As I said, theres a lot of benefits to doing many smaller electric motors, and not a lot of drawbacks.
Yes the battery automation was fascinating. I would expect in the next few years we will be transitioning away from lithium to other technologies with better safety, energy density and recharge rates so it will be interesting know if they have any plans for different battery technologies in future. I expect this company would be an earlier adopter of new batteries because all those battery parameters are especially critical for aviation.
Love your "factory tours"/"hands-on interviews"´. One minor thing: If you wanna do that more often, you might wanna put some effort into stabilizing the camera(guy) somehow a bit more.
21:30 Scott: (paraphrased) "I assume you done tests to see what happens when batteries fail." Tom: "Yeah, we can go and take a look at some of it if you'd like." Scott's Brain: "I play Kerbal Space Program! OF COURSE I WANT TO SEE EXPLODEY THINGS FAIL!" Scott (smiling ear to ear): "Sure!" Come on Scott, just say what your brain is thinking next time. We'd all understand because we're thinking it too.
@@kukuc96 Since the seem to be 2-bladed, the could still reduce drag by rotating the propellers so the tips are aligned with the airflow direction, no?
@@tiagotiagot If they had positional control on them, but I don't think they do. It doesn't serve any other purpose, and they probably figured out how much drag the windmilling is and decided it's not significant enough to design any mitigation to it. Otherwise it would be folding, or variable pitch, or something else.
I'm so glad Scott started flying this model with a simulator instead of a real plane... :) Are you going to be ok...going back to your ice powered plane? Glitchy mountains?... You want me to fly? The 3rd function on both sticks is controlled by auto functions. You flew through the planet...that's so Star Citizen.
Have you looked into BETA? They are regularly flying with people on board. I would be interested to see you tour their facility. I could get you in there if you were interested.
I would've loved if you could ask them why they decided on a 12 engine layout. My guess is that its either from power density of the size of "engine" or something to do with redundancy.
The fundamental problem of VTOLs is that you want a giant, helicopter-sized rotor for hovering but a regular propeller-sized ones for forward flight. Splitting up the swept area of a helicopter rotor into lots of smaller props means you can switch off the rear motors in forward flight, which solves part of the problem. Also if you only have two rotors (like the V-22) they have to be so big that they can't be horizontal when you're on the ground. I suspect that lots of small motors also makes the thermal engineering much easier, as they have a higher surface area to volume ratio.
Started flying Radio Control Helicopters in the 80's, got into the Fixed Wing A/C and went back to College for my A&P. There's good reason that Full Scale (real) A/C still use NiCad's vs NiCd or Lithium's. However, the R/C industry was taken over by Electric powered A/C starting in the late 80's. R/Cers always had access to the Best Lithium manufacturers & Chargers, so performance was always pushed as far as you could. My only point here is, after all my experiences w/ R/C and Commercial A/C, I've used or worked on every Engine type made and Electrics are the most reliable by far. When Battery energy density gets to the point where they can compete w/ the Jet fuel powered A/C, that's all we're gonna see after that, Electric Airplanes.
I'd like to know more about the forward flight mode. I see it has ruddervators on the v-tail, but does it have ailerons? How is roll accomplished in forward flight?
I really hope this catches on, I imagine if the range and speed gets upgrades over the years, this will be the best way to do short hops to Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, Monterrey, Napa, etc. This thing is so easy to fly I could imagine there being an autonomous air taxi service too. This is the first time I ever looked at a "flying car" and felt it was not only realistic, but also natural.
It’s a very interesting design. I do hope they rethink the fly-by-wire system a little, I feel like the issue with having an system compensate automatically is that if it’s in fact a sensor that fails it could be a VERY bad situation unless there is an incredibly efficient way to notify the pilot that this is taking place and how exactly the system is trying to compensate. Fly-by-wire of course is likely what enables this to work well at all but it’ll always make me worry when interfacing the pilot as a fault protection mechanism isn’t given as much time as the automation. The LAST thing you want is the system to suddenly decide the yaw is off even though it isn’t and then implement an unnoticeable or unoverridable ‘correction’ mid-flight. Mind you I have to assume they have a handle on that but…I also assumed Boing did too.
I'm most fascinated by the fact they switch control scheme mid-flight. What he said about translation on the ground with the left stick made no sense to me, unless it also takes off as a normal airplane? I think i understand why they did it, but somehow i feel like it's one of those things people become afraid of. Also wonder what it will look like if the batteries become lighter and engines more powerfull/efficient in the future, could we see full ACRO mode 1 person race drones one day? What kind of advantages could you get from full ACRO mode if any, just fascinating. let's hope this one succeeds first though lol.
Kinda sounds like in hover-mode it's a like a Mode 3 transmitter, with Level and Altitude Hold flight mode; and then it crossfades into something a little different with some heavy fly-by-wrire autopilot kinda thing in airplane-mode, but I'm a little confused exactly what controls were really doing besides left stick horizontal controlling roll with heading kept stable by the autopilot/FC, and the right stick horizontal being setup for coordinate turns.
Very cool. I wonder if they could use the props not used in horizontal flight to regen the battery packs? Also although it is a test vehicle I also wonder about the limits on weather conditions for flight? Thanks for a great video 👍
Presumably it’s more efficient to be used as STOL than VTOL? Is that how they’ll actually end up using it. Also the rear rotors are spinning when it’s in level flight -isn’t that parasitic drag? Why don’t they stow them fore aft? Good vid
My guess is that the 30 seconds of STOL flight out of a 30-minute flight time doesn't really make much difference to the total power usage, but it does make a lot of difference to the convenience.
@@waynerussell6401 It's not traditional windmilling. The airflow is largely in the plane of the lift prop discs. Certainly not 0 drag, but also probably some lift (like an autogyro). And any stowing mechanism is even more complexity that can fail.
I heard a story of a WWII flying boat flying over Greenland unwittingly land on the snow, and the pilots being very startled indeed when the engineer banged on the outside of the windscreen.
Look up how they used to train single seat helicopter pilots before simulators. To get a Type Rating in something like the Kaman K-max they’d bolt a seat for an instructor on the outside of the cockpit temporality…
Hm, so the hover controls are setup like a Mode 3 RC transmitter? Did I get it right? That's not the most common for multirotors, is it? Any reason for that?
Landing in salt water with that many batteries… those could become pyrotechnically exothermic when salt water ingresses unless those insulations are water tight (they said that it burns through to vent gas out the manifold so it could be sealed before venting so).
When you simulated a wing with more lift and pivoting the six rear engines to "pusher" position for straight and level cruise, what led you to discard that configuration? It seems it would be faster and more efficient.
