[beamatronic]

I've been following e-volo for several years. I think they have a winning design here, unless there is an obvious design flaw I am not seeing.

[davidcoronado]

They have such a cool concept. Safer, cleaner and user friendly controls for a Helicopter alternative. I do hope they increase the flying altitude so it can meet the FAA guidelines (500 ft) of flying in congested areas (town/cities).

[mrep]

This article says it has a maximum altitude of 2000m: http://insideevs.com/e-volo-volocopter-vc200-electric-multir...

[perilunar]

Obvious design flaws:

1. it's really ugly

2. can't glide if the power fails

[simonjgreen]

All helicopters have to be able to land after an engine failure to be certified. Google autorotor

[FabHK]

This is not a helicopter. With the volocopter design, up to 4 of the 18 rotors can fail and you can still fly/control/land, and for contingencies there is a ballistic rescue chute.

[davidcoronado]

There is a Parachute installed incase if any engines fail.

[fulafel]

Helicopter glide property is important because most are single engine. You could easily put several independent motor + battery partitions in this one.

[FabHK]

Indeed. The 18 rotors in two concentric circles (6 in the inner, 2 x 6 in the outer) are each driven by an independent engine, and they're operated by many power trains that supply rotors on opposite sides. So, if a rotor fails (or actually up to 4), no prob, still controllable for expedient landing. If a power train fails, same.

[devdoomari]

but then, wouldn't fuel efficiency go down?

[fulafel]

This is electric, the batteries are already just big bunches of small cells. Partitioning those won't appreciably affect battery performance.

[vacri]

Adding to simonjgreen's comment, helicopter pilots routinely train for power-free landings, and do them more often than fixed-wing pilots do.

[votingprawn]

Those "power-free" landings require a collective pitch rotor system.

The volocopter appears to be direct drive fixed pitch so it wouldn't be able to autorotate.

It also presumably relies on counter rotating rotors to cancel out the torques, so loss of motors may require other motors to be shut down to prevent undesirable yaw.

I remain somewhat skeptical of these being practical beyond 5-10 minute fun flights around a field, but good luck to them.

[Semiapies]

Feh. I think it looks fine, especially in flight.

Power is the real issue.