Fly with Talaria!

The main four struts of the landing gear will be a custom made composite structure of carbon fiber with honeycomb core. When combined with the damping piston, the entire system can absorb a 12g impact so the pilot experiences less than 3g, low enough to prevent injury. We’re looking forward to testing this technology as we prepare for flight tests this Fall. 

We believe that after this competition, personal air mobility will change the future of urban transportation. Personal air mobility means that anyone, anywhere will have the opportunity to take to the skies. This will include on-demand air taxis, delivery services or bird’s-eye-view tourism attractions. Compact flying also means that otherwise unreachable locations become more accessible. Our device could be used in rescue missions, and could replace costly and cumbersome helicopters. It could also be used by the agricultural industry or by filmmakers.

In the future, we plan to improve our design to eliminate emissions and reduce noise as much as possible, preparing it for urban deployment. Moreover, we plan to integrate an autonomous control system into the vehicle enabling everyone to use the device without any pilot training. Imagine the possibilities!

Our design as depicted in the picture is called the Hermes I. The name comes from the Greek mythology. Hermes was the messenger of the gods and seen as the protector and patron of the roads and travellers. You might know him as the guy with the flying sandals. Those are actually called Talaria, the name of our project. With our device we would like to improve the way we travel to work, friends or family or maybe even to the grocery store. It will be able to carry one person for 35 kilometres as fast and silent as possible. But you might wonder how fast is fast or how silent is silent. Our maximum speed will be 34 m/s (122 km/h) or just as fast as a cheetah! The noise the device will make will be around the 84 dB, which is equal to the passing of a truck. That’s not too bad for something that flies, isn’t it? We will have coaxial rotors that will have to keep us in the air. This will be combined with electric thrust-vectored control fans, which will give us the ability to make all manoeuvers we want to make. The rotors will be powered by a 3-cylinder inline 2-stroke engine which will run on unleaded 93 octane auto fuel. This might sound impressive, however don’t be fooled, this is the same fuel you put in your car. The only difference is that we will premix this with oil. You might wonder how big will your device be? The diameter of the rotors will be approximately 2.4 meters, which is as much as the wingspan of a large bald eagle. The height is 1.98 meters, so be careful when the rotors are turning. The maximum take-off weight of the vehicle is around 250 kilograms (including passenger). Which is 5 times the weight of an emperor penguin.