Public safety concerns will be one of the biggest challenges to overcome for the emerging urban air mobility sector, according to Vertical Aerospace’s engineering team.
Kurt Clement, Advanced Aeronautical Engineer, said reassuring the public that the new aircraft would not only be safe, but would also provide a more comfortable means of travel would be key.
“We’re not just selling aircraft, we’re trying to sell an idea, and that idea is that there is a better way to travel. The way that we’ve tried to do that is by providing a decent level of comfort and also a little bit more room than you would typically expect to find in a smaller aircraft as well as having larger panoramic windows because when you’re flying above your city everyone’s going to want to look out of it.”
Applying simulation knowledge to the real world
Clement said that the new aircraft were more complex but new technologies such as augmented and virtual reality had introduced new ways of working. He added that these had helped designers to “see” the aircraft were building it. Clement said greater simulation capabilities was helping improve the aircraft’s safety and design features:
“One of the main concerns that the public has is what happens if you lose power to a rotor. One of the flight tests that we performed on the X2 concept was to fly forward at high speed and then kill a
motor.”
“Unless you’re looking at a data trace, you can’t actually tell when the motor is killed and that just speaks testament to the fact that we have an immense amount of simulation capability where
we’re able to accurately predict these things then take that knowledge from the simulation and apply it into a real world.”
“Part of our goal that Vertical has is continuing to build upon what we’ve done before going from our X1 to our X2 and then to our X4. Now you can see how we’ve taken some of the best elements of each of those designs and carry them forward and continue to build. to where we’ve identified that we need a wing in order to be able to take advantage of cruise flight.”
“It’s our responsibility and our mission to be the future of air travel.”
