Whisper Aero's Silent Revolution: Transforming Aviation with Ultra-Quiet Tech
Attention thrill-seekers and tech enthusiasts, start your engines and prepare to be blown away, or rather, not blown away. Because that's the point, isn't it? Whisper Aero, a company that you could say is as silent as a librarian with laryngitis, claims their electric aircraft propulsion systems are more like a cat sneaking past a sleeping dog, 20% more efficient, and 100 times quieter than anything else on the market. And we're not talking just about drones and planes here, but possibly even eVTOLs like Xpeng’s AeroHT X3. Yes, I know it's a mouthful, it stands for electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles - like a helicopter, only more sci-fi and less 'nam.
Their tech is so fancy, they've got this bonkers-looking concept plane that would make even Q from James Bond raise an eyebrow. You see, the urban drone symphony, akin to a swarm of angry bees, is something nobody wants on a daily basis. But Whisper Aero says, hold on a minute, we've got you covered. They've raised 40 million dollars and even seduced some military guys with their promises of the quietest electric propellers ever made.
For a company that has 'shhh' as its motto, they've been rattling quite a few cages for some time. Their secret weapon? An electric ducted jet that's as efficient as an Olympic runner and as quiet as a church mouse. Imagine a fan, not your usual kind though, but one that resembles an overly enthusiastic porcupine with an impressive number of strong, stiff blades, all huddled together for strength, spinning at a calm, sensible pace. This baby can emit a frequency over 16,000 Hz, which is like the sound a bat makes when it realizes it's left the oven on – out of human hearing range.
What's even more interesting is, it's not so high that it'll send your dogs running for the hills. As per Mark Moore, the co-founder and former NASA chap, “We’ve had five dogs in physically close proximity to our fan tests, and they don’t react at all to them." Dogs, mind you, dogs. No guarantee for cats, or your neighbor's pet parrot though.
Now let's talk about how quiet this tech actually is. Whisper's little 6-inch fan apparently becomes inaudible from 200 feet away if there's a background noise level of about 30 decibels, which is roughly the sound of a whisper (pun absolutely intended). When they compared it against some commercial products on the market, this tiny little beast was 100-500 times quieter than other ducted fans and 100-1,000 times quieter than open propellers.
I'm not Stephen Hawking, but when you talk decibels, a difference of 10 is actually a tenfold increase in sound intensity, which actually means double the perceived loudness. But let's not split hairs here, the point is, it's quiet. Like, really, seriously quiet.
They launched this whispering wonder at the 2023 Aviation Forum, along with a model of a concept plane named "Whisper Jet." It's a rather peculiar-looking bird, almost resembling Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity. It's designed to seat a pilot and nine passengers and fly up to 200 miles at speeds reaching 288 mph on battery alone. And if you slap on a hybrid system, you could extend that range to 500 miles.
Don't get too excited, though. Whisper isn't planning on building planes. They're more like the guys selling the supercharged engines rather than the whole car. But they are confident that their propulsion system will work wonders for STOL aircraft, drones of all shapes and sizes, and possibly even eVTOL air taxis like the SkyDrive SD-05.
In the realm of electric aircraft, where noise is considered a nuisance and efficiency is king, this technology could very well be the game changer. It'll be interesting to see how this 'silent but deadly' tech performs in real-world applications and who decides to hitch their wagon to Whisper's whisper-quiet stars. So, while you sit back, relax, and enjoy the silent flight, remember, in the world of Whisper Aero, silence isn't just golden, it's electric.
Yours truly,
Captain Electro
