You can see it at What The Future from CNET on Facebook. It’s called the Hoverbike Scorpion 3 by Hoversurf, and it will supposedly be for sale in a few months for $60K. Current model goes up to 43 mph and runs for 20 minutes between charges. Here’s a Youtube video.
The Facebook video says that you don’t need a license to operate this in the US. But I thought that you had to get some kind of permission from the Feds to fly even a regular small drone in most places, let alone one of these things. What are the real-life limitations to using one of these things to, say, commute to work every day, assuming you can get there in one battery charge cycle?
By the way, I wouldn’t want to be flying that in a warehouse like the youtube guy, it looks like a handy recipe for decapitation if you don’t know what you’re doing.
To me, a drone is an unmanned flying vehicle, controlled by a remote pilot. It certainly appears that the pilot of that vehicle is sitting on it, working the controls.
Perhaps I don’t understand the use of the word “drone”.
Not a very impressive video. The rider seems to be concentrating very hard to just make it go a bit forward. Sure, it can improve.
Yes, it’s a recipe for decapitation for all the people that are near it. I see a situation where it is being flown/ridden in a park, people gather to watch, and you can’t land the thing.
It looks like they’re claiming it meets the requirements of FAR Part 103, meaning they claim you can fly it as an ultralight vehicle in the US. While the speed and fuel requirements do come under that I’d have to know the weight of the vehicle to be sure. Yes, you can fly Part 103 compliant ultralights without a license or registration in the US. However, where and when you can fly them is limited - you could NOT legally use this to commute to work in a city. They’re pretty much restricted to rural areas and wilderness.
One major real life limitation I see is that this thing would have a glide profile of a brick, only worse, if there’s a power failure. If anything goes wrong you are totally screwed if you’re at any significant height. Don’t fly higher than you’re willing to fall.
The whole thing looks cool but damn dangerous to me - I’d want to keep it low to the ground if I was on it. I mean, I flew amateur-built aircraft and ultralights for several years but this thing just looks unsafe to me from a “lose an engine” viewpoint.
For those not familiar - if I recall that’s anywhere from about 100-200 feet off the ground down to around 10, when you start having a reasonable chance to survive the impact. Note I said survive - severe injuries could still ensue.
I’d fly it maybe 2-3 feet off the ground, and I’d want a kill switch in case something went seriously wrong at that “altitude”.
I was intrigued that he seemed to demonstrating using a tiny hat switch at the top of each joystick. Didn’t look very practical with the motorbike gloves.
I’m hoping to have shuffled off what mortal coil I have by the time we see multiple flying cars (or hoverbikes, or whatever’s next) that could crash into pedestrians.
I don’t trust people to drive in TWO dimensions. THREE will be deadly.
The word “drone” of course only applies to the general style of the thing, with the rotors on each corner.
I was thinking more about whether one could actually buy one of these next year and fly it back and forth to work (after learning to make it go and stop, of course). Suppose you got good enough that you could fly it at around 30 feet, along streets above the traffic, and able to go over or under overpasses as needed. Would it be legal?
I wasn’t much thinking about its airworthiness, to tell the truth, although I do see **Broomstick’s **point.
I am positive I have seen something really similar to this, but flown over a body of open water. That seems like a far safer application of the vehicle. In the early days of aviation, seaplane designs were often in situations where flying over water was preferable to flying over land. Surely a seaplane version of this drone could also be developed, and it would have, to put it simply, a larger margin of error, provided that the pilot not fly too high and that some kind of safety mechanism/dead-man’s switch would stop the propellers from mangling the pilot’s body if he were thrown from the riding position.
I’m unsurprised, though impressed nonetheless, to see these vehicles come to fruition, and I’m sure that in the coming decade, they will become even more common. After all, if you compare where drones were 10 years ago vs where they are now, the results speak for themselves. If someone like Elon Musk gets involved with the development of these things, I foresee them being perfected and refined both in terms of safety and speed.
You could fly it under the Part 103 regulation, but as I mentioned before, doing so over urban areas would be prohibited. Well, OK, you could get special permission to do so, but based on the past experience of friends who did so (a group of ultralight pilots flying to Meigs Field in Chicago) this will require a lot on your part when you go to the FAA to ask “pretty please”. They’ll probably want you to have a radio on board to communicate with air traffic control (there are handheld aviation radios that would do), might want you to be a licensed pilot of some sort for the occasion, a detailed description of your route and emergency planning. In the past, this has been approved for one-time events. I don’t think they’d OK a daily commute.
You could built it as a kit aircraft and license it as an amateur-built experimental. It would then require that you be a licensed pilot (at least Sport Pilot), but it would give you a bit more ability to fly the thing around. However, since it does not have an Officially for Aircraft Certified Engine you still would not be allowed to fly it over urban areas (anything “densely populated”). If you assembled the aircraft yourself you could fly it with just a minimal license but if you were NOT the builder (because such amateur-built craft can be sold to a third party) you’d need a multi-engine rotorcraft rating which is expen$ive.
Note that the above applies to the US, other countries have their own rules about these things.
So no, even if doing so would be totally cool, you’re not going to be able to use it to fly to work. Unless you work in a pretty rural area of the country.
