Normal ducts tend to deform and have tip clearance issues. Placing the fans in the wings means short ducted fans have to be used, so there are potential structural issues. In a normal mission the batteries would be recharged for the landing phase, and then there would be a 20-30 minute turnaround time to charge the batteries on the ground,” Robinson said. “The idea is that by the time you get to the destination you have recharged the cells from the IC engine for the most part. That also fits with the operational concept, where there is another mechanism to recharge the cells on the ground. Because the design is hybrid, lithium-sulphur is too fragile, and the cycle life is too low for us.” “We are currently designing the packs for the wings with lithium-ion cells, nothing too fancy, to give high discharge rates and rugged operation. The batteries can be smaller than a straight VTOL design, with an energy density of 150 Wh/kg as they are designed to be used with the forward propulsion to provide lift straight after the aircraft leaves the ground. The fans in the wings are individual units with their own battery and controllers, which means shorter cables than having a wiring harness throughout the aircraft. Instead the vertical fans are used to extend the glide to get the aircraft to safety. However, a redundant electric motor would have to run at 1900 rpm to get the aircraft to safety in the event of the failure of the main engine. The propeller runs at 1900 rpm from the IC engine running at 3800 rpm for peak efficiency. That decouples the engine and the electric motor and can be used to recharge a bank of batteries that are used to power the motors that provide the vertical lift. This runs through a 2:1 reduction drive to an electric motor on the same shaft as the propeller. The forward propulsion comes from a conventional V8 gasoline engine from General Motors that generates 700 bhp. Quadcopters can carry a lot vertically but spend a lot of the mission paying for that vertical capability.” It has to return to a normal configuration for 99% of the time. Then we looked at the most efficient way to fly. “Our design started as a normal aircraft and we were looking to get it in and out of smaller areas. “This is fundamentally different from other eVTOL aircraft,” said Brandon Robinson, CEO of Horizon Aircraft. The high-wing canard design has six motors in each wing and two each in the front canards. The Cavorite x5 eVTOL fan-in-wing platform is designed with a redundant gas/electric powertrain to enable safety certification for carrying up to five people.
Horizon Aircraft has developed a hybrid electric vertical take-off (eVTOL) aircraft with safety at the heart of its design (writes Nick Flaherty). Horizon, a company developing a unique eVTOL design, has publicized continued progress by releasing photos of a half-scale prototype of its Cavorite X5 aircraft.T he Cavorite x5 hybrid eVTOL is powered by a gasoline V8 and 14 electric motors Horizon’s Cavorite X5 is an especially unique eVTOL in that it features in-wing lift rotors. According to the aircraft’s design thinking, this will allow for extremely lowered drag in forward flight as compared to aircraft that position their lift rotors externally. In forward flight, the leading and trailing edges of the wings close together to cover and lock over the in-wing rotors. Effectively, this will will allow the aircraft to look and fly completely like an airplane once in cruise mode, without suffering from top speed limits due to drag from external propellers as seen in other eVTOL designs. The aircraft also will utilize hybrid-electric propulsion rather and an all-electric system, increasing its range and payload capabilities. Overall, the aircraft uses what is known as a ‘lift and cruise’ design, meaning that its in-wing rotors will lift it vertically before being propelled forward for cruise by a larger rear-facing propellor. This ‘lift and cruise’ design is utilized by many of the top aircraft on the market, including Wisk’s Cora. The current prototype of the aircraft, featured above, features a 22-foot wingspan, a length of around 15 feet, and weighs in at about 500lbs.
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