It would exceed 400 kilometers per hour.The Jetpack Aviation company tested its flying motorcycle prototype, a speeder in the best Star Wars style, and now hopes to put it on sale.It is the VTOL Speeder, which can reach an altitude of 4,500 meters and exceed 482 kilometers per hour. Its value? It would go beyond $ 380,000.
This aerial motorcycle is conceived as a vertical take-off and landing plane powered by a jet. Its purposes range from simple entertainment to a vehicle for rescue missions.
“Right now we’ve found it can take off, climb, turn,” said David Mayman, CEO of Jetpack Aviation. “It can be held in a stable displacement using LiDAR. Nice and precise ”.
“It drifts a bit slowly right now, maybe one foot for five minutes, but you can give it a decent push with a pole and it wobbles and then back to where it was,” he highlights.
What is Jetpack Aviation’s VTOL Speeder like?
The company’s P1 prototype uses an aluminum chassis. It is anticipated that, as well as working in an unmanned version, the manned one will go slower so that the pilot can see and breathe safely.
Meanwhile, the P1.5 version will feature a smaller frame, with carbon fiber body panels. A fully formed body and small removable wings are expected for the P2, according to the Daily Mail.
“We have potential end users in the United States Marine Corps who want to be able to fly, for example, more than 400 kilometers,” says Mayman. “To do that, you would need a large wingspan of up to five meters.”
“Sometimes you just want to fly the chassis, so it has to be modular and adaptable to the field,” he stresses. “For very long-range work, it is possible to use a wet wing with an additional fuel-filled bladder.”
It would use jet fuel, diesel, or kerosene. Net zero carbon fuel is expected to be adopted in the future.
According to the Jetpack Aviation portal , they only plan to build 20 recreational speeders, for civil use. Future production will only be for military and government entities.
The origin and evolution of the company
Jetpack Aviation has been working in the personal micro vertical take-off and landing industry for 10 years.
Their headquarters are in Los Angeles, California, and there they build the “safest, smallest and fastest possible VTOL devices,” according to their history.
