UFOs Over China: The eVTOL Revolution Taking Off Far from Area 51
Right! Today we're going to venture into the realm of the futuristic, absurdly, wonderfully bonkers world of electric vertical take-off and landing machines, or eVTOLs for those who can't be bothered with the whole shebang. It's a wild, wild west out there, with all sorts of baffling contraptions, but we're about to look at a new specimen that's just come out of China. It's so exciting, you'd swear you're dreaming.
Picture this: a UFO-inspired eVTOL that not only flits around like a hyperactive dragonfly but can also perform the majestic act of landing on water. It's like a spaceship and a duck had a baby. This whimsical flying machine revealed at some show-and-tell event in Shenzhen, is currently preoccupied with giving sightseers the time of their life and occasionally showing off in performances.
Who are the mad scientists behind this levitating marvel, you ask? A band of brainboxes from Beihang University and Northwestern Polytechnical University, that's who. They've spent over three years stuck in their labs to bring this dream to life.
So, let's dive into the specs of this airborne oddity, shall we? It's fitted with twelve – count them, twelve – propellers. It can zoom around at the altitude of a decent-sized skyscraper (about 200 meters up) for a breezy quarter of an hour. Speed-wise, it does a fairly stately 31 miles (50 kilometers) per hour - you won't win a race against a decent bike, but then again, the bike can't fly, can it? And in case you're feeling lazy or adventurous, you can switch between having the machine do the driving or taking the wheel yourself. And this is hardly the only oddity in the Chinese eVTOL circus. There's this other madcap creation, a single-seater flying thing that's been engineered to break apart and put itself back together again. It's like a Transformer that got a degree in aviation.
Then there's XPeng AeroHT, who is determined to make flying cars a thing. They had a go at a test flight over the Yellow River in their X2 model. How very Back to the Future of them.
And let's not forget Ehang. They're going a bit more traditional, trying to build an autonomous aerial vehicle that's a bit closer to a standard helicopter. They've even managed to convince the Indonesian airline, Prestige Aviation, to pre-order a hundred of their EH216 models.
Volkswagen Group China, not to be left out of the flying circus, trotted out their first eVTOL prototype last July, a machine called the V.MO. It's, well, disappointingly conventional, really. Looks just like a helicopter.
The future of flying is here, and it's electrifyingly eVTOL. It's not in the secretive corners of Area 51, it's in the bustling streets and high-tech labs of China.
So, if you're tired of your normal, land-locked vehicles and you're feeling a little adventurous, maybe it's time to look up. China's definitely got you covered in the eVTOL department. So, buckle up, look to the sky, and let's fly.
Yours truly,
Captain Electro
