MACA, a French startup based in southeast France, unveiled its
Carcopter, a hydrogen-powered flying Formula-1 at
CES 2021 last week. Founders Thierry de Boisvilliers, and Michael Krollak, both veterans from Airbus Helicopters, aim at creating a Formula 1-type competition for flying cars to accelerate innovation in the zero-emission VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) market while generating revenues from the racing business.
The idea to design a race VTOL vehicle came to former fighter pilot Thierry de Boisvilliers and former Airbus Helicopters executive Michael Krollak while working at Airbus, an aerospace and VTOL innovation leader. A NEW PAGE OF THE AERONAUTICAL HISTORY IS BEING WRITTEN TODAY, AND WE WANT TO BE PART OF IT, SAID DE BOISVILLIERS. During my conversation with the Carcopter designers, I learned that MACA is supported by
CES delivers some real winners each year, but it also has a rich history as a breeding ground for weird technologies.
In years past, the show has yielded peculiarities such as cell phone radiation-blocking underwear, a waistline-monitoring smart belt, and a vending machine for fresh loaves of bread. It s hard to forget Charmin s 2020 RollBot, a robot that can bring you a spare roll of toilet paper when you run out (strangely foreshadowing the great TP shortage that came just months later).
Despite being all-digital this year due to the coronavirus, CES 2021 offered no shortage of oddities. On the list of strange new innovations is a poop-analyzing toilet that offers dietary advice, smart perfume you can customize from an app, and a headless robotic pet meant to soothe your angst. And it only gets weirder from there.
Yes, GM Showed a Flying Car at CES!
It’s just a computer simulation, but still, flying car!
It was just a concept, but CES is just virtual this year.
Other carmakers have shown VTOL aircraft studies.
We are all suckers for flying cars. Just like jet packs, moving sidewalks, and robot servants that laugh at our jokes, flying cars offer limitless possibility, a huge leap over the mundanity of everyday life, and a science fiction-like view that the future has finally arrived. And at CES flying cars are now almost a requirement.
Flying car in this case means eVTOL, or electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing craft, basically a more efficient helicopter. Last year at CES Toyota announced a nearly-$400 million investment in eVTOL maker Joby Aviation, a company that appears to be not only still in business but on its way to making something that flies by 2023, according to the Joby website. The year before that it was Hyundai that had a magnificent multi-rotor eVTOL thing on its show s
Indian Army signs a $20 million contract with ideaForge to procure SWITCH UAV
MUMBAI, India, Jan. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ The Indian Army has signed an approximately $20 million contract for undisclosed quantities of a high-altitude variant of ideaForge s SWITCH UAV which will be delivered over a period of 1 year. ideaForge has been awarded this contract after it emerged as the only vendor that qualified the operational requirements in an evaluation done in real-world conditions, for a fast-track procurement. The contract marks a strategic shift in the Indian defence procurement process as the Indian Army goes on an aggressive modernization drive. It has also cemented ideaForge s position as India s largest manufacturer of drones for defence, homeland security and industrial applications.