24, November 2013
BERLIN: The world's first green helicopter which is noiseless and emission-free has been successfully tested in Germany.
The two-seat prototype of the 'Volocopter', by the company e-volo, made its maiden voyage on November 17 in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The Volocopter is an environmentally friendly and emission-free private helicopter. Instead of one combustion engine, eighteen electrically driven rotors propel it.
The flying machine looks something like a helicopter but it is quite different and is intended to be a future answer to the greening of noisy, vibration-heavy helicopters as we know.
Billed by its makers as "the world's first green helicopter," the emission-free Volocopter is a vertical take-off and landing manned aircraft, with features that set it apart from conventional aircraft.
"There are already numerous requests for the Volocopter from around the world," said Alexander Zosel, managing director of e-volo.
The multiple flights of Volocopter lasted several minutes reaching the nearly 22 m high ceiling of the dm-arena, including a number of smooth takeoffs and landings, the company said on its website.
"Rich and incredibly quiet sound, absolutely no noticeable vibrations in the flight, convincing structure with a great, new spring strut landing gear, and an extremely calm rotor plane," said Zosel.
"Not even the HD video cameras secured to the exterior carbon ring of the rotor plane captured the least vibrations," the company said.
"Such vibrations are a large problem for normal helicopters. The vibrations together with the deafening noise have lead to much discomfort on passenger flights in helicopters," e-volo managing director Stephan Wolf, said.
Due to the complex structure of the Volocopter in carbon lightweight design, it was not possible to simulate the expected vibrations in the laboratory.
Published by: The Economic Times