Will UFO Reports Increase When The Australian Built 'Hoverbike' Takes To The Air?

Friday, June 01, 2012

Will UFO Reports Increase When The Australian Built 'Hoverbike' Takes To The Air?

Australian built Hoverbike prepares for takeoff

By Darren Quick
www.gizmag.com
6-8-2011

Adventurous motorcyclists might be familiar with the thrill of getting airborne at the top of a rise, but the Hoverbike is set to take catching some air to a whole new level. With a 1170 cc 4-stroke engine delivering 80 kW driving two ducted propellers, the inventor of the Hoverbike, Chris Malloy, says with its high thrust to weight ratio, the Hoverbike should be able to reach an estimated height of more than 10,000 feet and reach an indicated airspeed of 150 knots (278 km/h or 173 mph). At the moment these are only theoretical figures as the Hoverbike hasn't been put through its paces yet, but Malloy has constructed a prototype Hoverbike and plans to conduct real world flight tests in a couple of months.

By day, Malloy works in the mechanical design of airborne and ground based hyperspectral sensors at an optical engineering company in Australia. But after work and on weekends Malloy has spent the past two and a half years slaving away in his garage working on his Hoverbike. His efforts were prompted when his helicopter instructor likened a Robinson R22 light utility helicopter to an airborne motorbike. Disagreeing, Malloy set about building something closer to an actual flying motorbike.

The result is a prototype Hoverbike that seats a single pilot on a Kevlar reinforced carbon fiber with foam core frame in between two horizontal spinning propellers constructed from Tasmanian Oak with a carbon fiber leading edge. Instead of the complicated swash plate setup found in single rotor helicopters, the Hoverbike employs the same basic flying principles as a tandem-rotor Chinook helicopter. As with the Chinook, the counter-rotating rotors cancel out each other's torque reaction, eliminating the need for an anti-torque vertical tail rotor and increasing the efficiency of the vehicle. . . .