This Hoverbike Is Basically a Giant Quadcopter Drone

Hoverbikes aren’t yet ready for your daily commute, but in pushing to get closer to that point UK-based company Malloy Aeronautics has perhaps made the next-best thing: a drone version. Drone 3 is a functioning drone in its own right, but it’s also a 1/3-sized scale model of MA's real, human-sized Hoverbike.

The Hoverbike has been in development for years, but the drone showcases the latest design shift to a quadcopter model, much like many of the existing consumer drones on the market. The company originally built the drone as a proof of concept for the real thing, but as they had a lot of public interest in their scale models, they realised it would make the perfect reward for their new Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to further develop the actual Hoverbike.

motherboard.vice.com...

I saw a couple of prior articles on hoverbikes, but none that mentioned this one. There's a kickstarter campaign included in the link in case you want to get in on the action (at least I hope there's action). Don't get your hopes up thinking there's actual footage of the vehicle in action, the videos just show a scaled down version of the bike. Seems like a interesting enough design though with the overlapping blades.

When i see prototypes like this i always wonder if they are scams, so if the 1m version lift 5 kg, does that means for 100kg you need a 20m one?

a reply to: technical difficulties

Hey QQ.... are you the same guy that's online catching out pedo's with Skype? if that's you, good job

Even with the mini-version, that would be incredibly useful for throwing a tow-line to someone who is in difficulty in the water.

The human size version looks amazing, but it does look like it would need some kind of windscreen and canopy for the pilot to handle direct sunlight and bad weather.

This is excellent. As soon as they have a human version I'm all over this.

a reply to: technical difficulties

I've had a concept in mind that is similar to this, but the pilot sits underneath in a reclined position, and it has three rotors instead of four. The rotors would be closer together and the CG would be under them, making it more stable. I had envisioned it being powered by a small turbine engine.

Looks cool but those blades sure seem vulnerable to damage easy...