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- CES has all kinds of whacky things, like this little transport flying helicopter Helix thing, with eight rotors, an 8-kWh battery, and a range of 20 miles.
- Starting price is $190,000, with first deliveries June 10.
How many flying car/flying whatever companies have we seen come and go over the many years since Paul Moller first showed the Skycar on the cover of every magazine ever published in the last 50-some-odd years? Plenty.
Nonetheless, if CES is as much about dreaming what’s possible in the future, wouldn’t it be cool to have your own single-seater heli-looking carbon-fiber-composite flight bottle?
The little bean-shaped Helix features banks of four electric rotors front and rear, eight rotors total. Helix calls the propeller array “a tilt aircraft with fixed rotors and tandem wings.” The nifty media kit doesn’t say whether the banks of rotors rotate for forward flight like a micro Marine Corps V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor craft.
The Helix is 13’5” long, 13’7” wide, 5’3” high and it has 33.13 square feet single wing area. The craft weighs 348 pounds empty and can carry a pilot that weighs up to 220 pounds and stands 6’5”.
Look how happy you’ll be!
It has an 8-kWh battery good for a range of 20-plus miles with a 20% reserve. It uses 245 Wh/mile. Recharging from 20% to 100% takes 75 minutes at a 50-amp Level 2 charger and 4.5 hours at a 15-amp 120-volt Level 1 charger.
Cruising speed is 55 knots or 63 mph, maximum climb rate is 500 fpm, maximum descent rate is also 500 fpm. Maximum static thrust is 960 pounds. It’s controlled by a joystick with fly-by-wire controls.
For safety it lists “triple modular redundancy,” though that isn’t defined. We’ll ask and add it later. If one of the eight rotors goes out, it’ll keep flying. It can’t fly in winds over 20 mph or when it’s raining. And when you’re done flying it folds up into a 16-foot trailer.
Best of all, no pilot’s license required! Like the ICON A5 amphibious plane we flew several years ago, the Helix is classified by the FAA as an ultralight, so as long as you don’t fly over congested areas and stay away from airports, you’re good to go!
Want one? It’s $50,000 to “secure a Helix production slot and forecasted ship date.”
Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed Ford, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.
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