HOVERBIKE

$1015

There seems to be no time to rest for the designers of innovative transportation modes. From foldable bicycles, electric skateboards, heavy drift trikes and eco-friendly motorbikes to super-fast ’green’ cars, affordable luxury yachts and surfboards made from recycled materials, the creative playground seems to be constantly expanding with more and more brilliant ideas finding their consumer target crowd. And now the industry’s even getting onto a whole new level, quite literally – we bring you the Hoverbike, a vehicle of the future that looks like the offspring of a motorcycle and a helicopter.

Designed by London inventor Chris Malloy after years of research, engineering, testing and development, the Hoverbike is a hovercraft that works similarly to a quadcopter, only with a much more rugged exterior and simplified control panel. A smaller-scale alternative to one-man helicopters, the Hoverbike drone flies at low altitudes so it can be used for everyday tasks such as cattle mustering, precision farming and cargo transport (120 kilograms of load), as well as for specialized missions such as search and rescue, first-response emergency services and logistic support in areas hit by natural disasters. Made with highest user safety in mind, the Hoverbike does equally well either manned or unmanned, and it sports four large propellers operated by means of control vanes, a patent-pending offset. decent-sizing platform area and overlapping rotor blades for reduced weight.

Hoverbike on kickstarter

And although it’s going to take a while to complete the assembly procedures and test this original flying motorbike, get the necessary aviation authority approvals and certificates, kick off mass production and eventually bring the airborne vehicle to the global market, the engineering team behind the Hoverbike has good news for all hovercraft enthusiasts: right now, Malloy and his team are looking to sell their 1/3rd scale drone on Kickstarter, and it looks like it’s just as fun as the real-life original.

“This drone was originally built as a proof of concept for our latest full-sized Hoverbike prototype. After testing the 1/3rd Hoverbike, we realized that it had lots of features that made it a fantastic drone, not only this – selling this scale Hoverbike to the public would allow us to raise funds to continue the development of the manned version,” Malloy says on Kickstarter.

Hoverbike

Built from foam core enveloped by durable and lightweight materials including carbon fiber, Kevlar and aluminum and fitted with a set of frame LEDs managed by a programmable microcontroller, the 1/3rd Hoverbike drone sports 4.8 kilograms of maximum payload capacity and has a special central bay for easy transport of small objects. By inserting cameras in the payload, you can also use your Hoverbike drone to have some remote piloting outdoor fun and even take actual footage of the flight. Weighing as few as 2.2 kilograms, the 1/3rd drone can be neatly folded up and packed inside a padded carrying bag for easy portability and minimal spatial footprint. Plus, together with the 1/3rd Hoverbike, you can also get your own Cyborg Buster, a 1/3rd scale human CAD model suitable for 3D printing which you can mount on the hovercraft when test-flying your drone. As the model comes with a head slot especially shaped to house a Go-Pro camera, you can also use it to capture some hovercraft aviating videos for professional purposes or just scare the bejesus out of your nosy neighbors.

In the box with 1/3rd Hoverbike drone “bare bones”, you get:

  • Frame,
  • 4 Motors,
  • 4 Propellers,
  • Macro Micro board and built-in LEDs,
  • Fully assembled and flight-tested drone (you just need to hook it to your radio).

But that’s not all, as Malloy’s team decided to throw in a few handy extras for added fun, too, including:

  • 4 ESCs,
  • 2 Batteries (6Ahr),
  • Flight Controller (Pixhawk).

Versatile, robust and easy to operate, the 1/3rd Hoverbike drone promises loads of super-safe aviating fun for you and your hovercraft-enthusiastic friends or kids, so make sure you get your hands on one ASAP. Who knows – with sufficient project funding, you may actually get to test the full-scale original some day soon.

And if you just love the innovative hovercraft transportation solutions, you should check out another piece featured on Jebiga, the Aero-X Hoverbike which sports a four-wheel gear with castoring aft wheels, two fixed-pitch carbon fiber propellers, an intuitive pilot interface and dual-position control bars for safe and pleasant low-altitude flights. watch the video below

Hoverbike blue prints


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