Forgot … near Airshow center, I came upon the Airbus kiosk. Walking in to see what that weird looking ‘thing’ they were displaying was, I was greeted by a young man who was eager to talk about the “Vahana.” It’s a dual tilt wing, eight motor autonomous single person people mover (as long as you and your stuff don’t weigh more than 200 lbs). Yars would love it.
I like to talk technical so I started asking questions. It has eight 35KW motors … two per wing and side. Doing the math, that’s 375hp. (Imagine what an airplane with a 375hp engine could do.) I asked how many could fail. Answer: one or two IF they’re on opposite sides. I asked about endurance. Answer … are ya ready … 20 minutes. Well, maybe EAA could buy a few and replace those noisy Bell 47’s with 'em. OR … you could call one up if you needed to get to the other side of Airventure in a hurry. Unless you’re trying to scare birds away, not much use beyond that, I’d say. Maybe the Vahana could take me to Valhalla, though?
As I walked out, the young man thanked me for asking questions and hands me a key tag that said Airbus on one side and – are ya ready – “Charge Before Flight” on the other. I may frame that one down in my Man Cave. I wonder if Airbus knows that the NASA Maxwell has 14 motors?