Electrafly Developing Turbine Hybrid Personal UAM | Aviation International News

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Electrafly Developing Turbine Hybrid Personal UAM

Electrafly hopes to have its hybrid personal vehicle in production within three years.

Electrafly's personal urban air mobility vehicle uses hybrid propulsion with a JetCat turbine-generator mated to batteries that power four to eight electric motors in a modified quadcopter design. (Photo: Mark Huber/AIN)

By Mark Huber • Contributor

May 1, 2019

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.

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