Electrafly brought its personal urban air mobility (UAM) concept vehicle this week to the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) Xponential convention in Chicago. The single-seat air-bike design uses hybrid propulsion with a JetCat turbine-generator (70 pounds of thrust) mated to batteries that power four to eight electric motors in a modified quadcopter design.

Salt Lake City-based Electrafly began unmanned flights in September and hopes to begin manned flights within six months, according to Brett Muir, the company's production director. Muir said Electrafly continues to work on the aircraft’s control systems and aims to have the aircraft FAA certified under Part 103 (Ultralight) and in production within two to three years. Electrafly has not officially set a price for the aircraft, but Muir noted that similar products were priced in the $300,000 to $400,000 range. 

The basic airframe is mostly carbon fiber and weighs approximately 40 pounds without pilot, fuel, or batteries, Muir said, and is designed to be flown by occupant/pilots weighing up to 200 pounds, although Muir said the design could be scalable to accommodate larger pilots. Performance targets are for a forward speed of up to 50 mph, a service ceiling of 5,000 feet, and a flight duration of 20 to 30 minutes.

“We haven’t done significant forward flight testing,” Muir admitted. On production aircraft, the electric motors will tilt forward and the thin wings attached to the spars will double as control surfaces. Its wings also will be foldable to make storage easier.

The tilting motors and wings will allow the vehicle to fly forward in a level pitch attitude versus the nose-down profile most quadcopters must use, Muir said. “A traditional drone pitches [to a] nose-negative angle to fly long distances—it’s inefficient. We actual hover, and in forward flight, we pitch level and use the wings to create lift. There’s also the thrust from the turbine. That takes the burden off the fuel and battery system,” he said.

The Electrafly vehicle is being designed with a triple-redundant flight control system and joystick-like hand controls that mimic traditional drone inputs, after rejecting a more complex system that would have coupled pilot/occupant body movements such as directional leaning to provide aircraft directional control. Muir said that the company is currently evaluating whether or not to include a ballistic parachute in the design. 

Electrafly currently has a small core group of four employees working on the design, assisted by outside contractors. Muir said the company is entirely self-funded.