The VTOL industry is gaining more and more pace, with both startups and industry giants investing in this new concept that’s supposed to represent the next generation of transportation in the not too distant future.
But there’s one thing everybody noticed: all these aircraft look like flying machines coming from the future and have little in common with the typical airplane design everybody knows.
French company Ascendance has designed Atea, a new VTOL based on a project not necessarily new but which is now getting closer to reality with a series of improvements.
First and foremost, as anyone can see in the photos included in the gallery, Atea looks like a plane. So while at first glance it might be hard to create a flying machine that can take off and land vertically, all while using the design of a conventional plane, Ascendance has found a way to make it happen.
It’s all thanks to three fans that are placed on the rings and in the front of the fuselage, all of which work together to allow the VTOL to take off and land effortlessly.
The parent company, which is co-founded by four people who previously worked in the E-FAN team at Airbus, says the magic continues in the propeller area, as the designers have come up with a smart hybrid approach. A regular propeller is installed on the front of the plane for simple horizontal flight, which makes sense given the airplane-inspired design, while an electric motor will take care of everything else, including the fans mounted on the wings.
Unfortunately, the French firm hasn’t shared all details of its new aircraft, but it already promised figures that sound impressive. As compared to a traditional helicopter, the new VTOL would be able to cut emissions by as much as 80 percent, all while sporting impressive efficiency.
Needless to say, the project is still in the concept phase, and while an ETA as to when it could go out for testing isn’t available, it shouldn’t take too long to make it happen, given that the VTOL revolution has started.
