A new racing sport should see the light of day in 2022: electric multicopter races. Initially piloted via remote control, these 'flying cars' will soon be driven by real pilots on board the vehicles. The promoters of the future championship have already announced the appointment of Bruno Senna, who has already raced in F1 competitions, as ambassador and development pilot.
The future of motorsports may be up in the air. Literally. At last that's what the organizers of Airspeeder are betting on, as they present what is being touted as the first competition of flying vehicles with a pilot on board. Forget drone racing flights and competitions (FPV), which consist in piloting the machines at a distance. Here we are talking about vehicles with real pilots at the controls. But before you get too excited, keep in mind we'll have to wait a little bit.
This outlandish-seeming project came to life a few years ago in Australia. However, it was not until 2021 that the first flights took place, piloted remotely. Since then, the first pilots involved have already been training in the simulator before soon being cleared to climb aboard.
The machines involved, built by Alauda Aeronautics, are electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) multicopters, each designed to accommodate one pilot. In terms of performance, they are equipped with 8 electric motors allowing them in theory to reach 160 km (and even 200 km/h without a pilot on board) and to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 3 seconds. One current drawback is that its batteries can currently only enable a very short flight time, between 5 and 20 minutes. Thus for future races, organizers envisage quick pit stops in order to swap these out as quickly as possible and thus enable races that aren't always very short in duration.
The goal of organizers is to hold a first race this year, but without pilots to start with. The pilots involved are set to be equipped with haptic suits for the occasion, just to feel the sensations they will experience later on board. For competitions with pilots inside, it will be necessary to wait a little longer, both because it will be necessary to conduct further and repeated tests on the aircraft and in order to find settings and terrains suitable for this type of race.
In the long run, Airspeeder plans to organize real "Star Wars"-style races. In any case, the arrival of Bruno Senna in the launch team should help to publicize this outlandish project, which remains in the prototype phase for now.
Find out all about Airspeeder.
Discover the piloting of the eVTOL on board the simulator: https://youtu.be/HLszWd5knGM
