May 29, 2018

It's the 21st Century. Where the Hell is my Flying Ca...Oh.

The Cormorant (formerly known as the Air-Mule) has been in development off and on for over 15 years and we've covered it a few times before.  However, it does appear that it is now well past the vaporware stage.


This is a drone designed with battlefield supply, medivac and, on the civilian side, parcel delivery in mind. It also has the option of attaching waldos to remotely do repairs in high places beyond the reach of a cherry picker. 

http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/files/Cormorant2.jpg

A direct development of this carrying passengers as a drone air taxi is called the City Hawk and is expected to be in service in municipalities where it is not outlawed by hysterical luddites by 2022. 

http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/images/Photo_Apr_16__17_27_231.jpg

 There is also a larger crewed version as well. That is still in development. It has potential for applications such as air ambulance, air fire truck,  helicopter tender for very small ships and , of course, flying van or limo. 

http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/images/x-hawk_b_civil.jpg
http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/images/x-hawk_c_military.jpg

The Cormorant and its derivatives seem similar in conception to the old Piaseki Air Jeep, but various refinements and advances in things like precision fly by wire and proximity alert technologies look to make the concept much more practical in the close quarters the shrouded props make possible.   


Unlike a SOME of these proposals, this seems to have real potential and is actually flying. 

http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/images/SukabuHelicopterHat.jpg.png
Art (sans text) by Sukabu

So start saving your money now, because the future is almost here!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:10 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 247 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Picture #1, the teleoperator's going to wear a VR helmet just for fun, I guess.
Picture #2 -- four seats wide?  The scale seems off somehow.

Posted by: Rick C at Tue May 29 11:21:57 2018 (Q/JG2)

2 In one of my stories, a fighter jet is named a Cormorant. "Because all the other cool bird names were taken."  

Posted by: Mauser at Tue May 29 19:23:25 2018 (Ix1l6)

3 A million beaurocrats will read this post and see nothing more than "OMG the safety violations!  The rights infractions! Ban it with fire before someone starts breaking rules!"

Posted by: Ben at Wed May 30 13:17:45 2018 (osxtX)

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