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The United States Air Force has big plans for the Hexa “flying car”, if recent and future tests are any judge.
The Hexa is an electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) wingless multicopter. It is developed by LIFT Aircraft, a Texas-based company. In May, the Air Force will start testing the “flying car” that was designed for the commercial market to be used in military missions, including rescuing troops, delivering cargo and conducting security checks over an airfield.
In late March, one of the flying cars was loaded on a HC-130J and was transported from Ohio to Texas. This was a test to prove that eVTOL aircraft fit to be transported by U.S. military cargo planes.
The initial test was with a single eVTOL, while a C-130H could carry up to four Hexa platforms, with newer C-130J models potentially able to transport five or six at a time.
The first eVTOL prototype was unveiled in February 2021, and the first production units were delivered to the US Air Force for testing and air-worthiness certification.
The Hexa isn’t exactly a flying car, it’s better described as a multi-rotor drone, which is considered an ultralight aircraft that doesn’t need a pilot’s license to fly.
Such eVTOL capable of landing without a runway could be used to ferry troops and supplies needed to stand up operations, while also providing a platform for crisis response. The Hexa will undergo tests for all of these.
Right now, Hexa’s abilities are limited and geared toward the commercial recreation market. The aircraft has room for one person and can fly for about 10-15 minutes and cover a range of 10-15 miles, depending on the payload. A person can learn to fly Hexa quickly because many of the flight systems are automated, but Lift plans to develop a fully automated version.
In the future, the platform could potentially serve as an armed overwatch aircraft to protect ground troops.
Even in its current, limited capability, the Hexa could be useful. While it can’t carry as much weight as required to satisfy certain logistics missions, it could transfer smaller cargo.
eVTOL platforms with quiet electric engines and simple sustainment footprints could become key to the Air Force as it figures out how to operate away from large airfields, a concept known as agile combat employment, or ACE.
There is already a big eVTOL market with multiple projects created in the USA, Germany, China, Russia. The Asia Pacific eVTOL aircraft market is projected to grow at the highest rate over the next ten years, primarily due to increased investments to develop urban air mobility.
In a war situation against China or Russia, it is likely that US bases in Europe would quickly be destroyed, for a while or permanently. In response, the US Air Force wants to be able to shift to a disaggregated style of fighting, where discrete packages of aircraft are temporarily deployed to smaller airfields across the globe that may not have large runways or established amenities.
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The aircraft has room for one person and can fly for about 10-15 minutes and cover a range of 10-15 miles, depending on the payload.
Riiight. But first, the soldiers will need to lose some weight. Otherwise the flight time would be no more than 5 minutes for about 500 yards.
Plus personal arms and a military back pack etc etc, and the range is even more limited. Combine this with their opponents electronic warfare, and the ‘personal battle taxi’s’ will have grave problems.
After the airports will be destroyed they will launch whole BS like of this semi-flying craps.
How long would they take to re-charge with a ‘personal ‘ solar panel ,I wonder :)
Fully developed, it has countless non-military applications, why they insist on using anything and everything as some kind of weapon even when it’s clearly sucks for military?
Exactly. Well said.
Free money from the gov.
It wouldn’t pass military grade – like what are you going to use it for that a helicopter can’t do? Also, there are helicopter drones.
“Also, there are helicopter drones” That’s a most perceptive comment.
The solution to all US and NATO military supply is to outsource it to Amazon Prime :)
I reckon this contraption is being floated as some kinda escape pod for senior ZOGbot officers and high value civilian personnel… once the base is getting overrun, delicate regime criminals can climb aboard and be spirited away to safety while low-level grunts are left to their own devices.
“Why has Russia merged Sukhoi and MiG corporations into one?”
Russia has merged the country’s two main aviation companies Sukhoi and MiG into one massive holding. It’s to be called ‘Division of Battle Aviation’ of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). …. post as the head of the company was given to MiG CEO Ilya Tarasenko. https://www.rbth.com/science-and-tech/333632-why-has-russia-merged-sukhoi-and-mig
Is that a good or a bad thing ?
The way I see it, good, even great (in short term). They will make great savings by reducing everything that doesn’t have to be doubled… Specially for air-force maintenance will become simpler ,less time consuming and obviously much cheaper ( with unified models of one aircraft designer) They will join all advantages of different design experiences into one and have best solutions from both design bureaus at their disposal. They can put best engineers from Sukhoi and MiG on the most advanced models… MiG-41 will be produced with contribution of invaluable experience of the Sukhoi team (from SU-57 design) The only feeble point is: In the distant future they might become less vigorous because of absence of direct competition (domestic competition obviously). So, in the future, there will be only one type of the fighter aircraft in production.
could be useful for logistics on battlefield