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e-volo

18 rotors and up: E-volo shows personal helicopter prototype

HANOVER, Germany--Enough with the cutesy little quadcopter drones.

Instead of pint-sized four-rotor aircraft good enough to experiment with swarm dynamics or to carry small cameras, German startup E-volo is building an 18-rotor model that can carry a human passenger. It's the latest attempt to realize the dream of the flying car.

The Karlsruhe-based company plans to begin selling its VC200 in 2015, said Jeromin Schwenk, a student with the Karlsruhe University of Applied Science who's one of about 60 people working on the project.

"It's going to be the personal aircraft for everyone," Schwenk said, … Read more

Take to the skies in your personal multicopter

You might think aviation experts would dismiss this eccentric aircraft, which has no fewer than 16 propellers, but some are taking the Volocopter very seriously.

Built by Germany's E-volo, the unclassifiable thing recently received the Lindbergh Prize for Innovation at the Aero-Friedrichshafen 2012 airshow.

The Volocopter is a 175-pound, electrically powered vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) craft that has redundant propellers for safety. E-volo says it's very easy to control, with simple joystick steering. Could this be the personal transport of the future?

"We believe that the development of the Volocopter holds significant promise to radically change short distance transportation," said Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles Lindbergh. "It has a long development path ahead, but if this innovative design reaches the commercial market it will dramatically change the way we move about the planet." … Read more