VoloConnect the flying taxi that helps you travel faster
Two German billionaires Alexander Zosel and Stephan Wolf, founded an airline company, namely Volocopter. It focuses on making multi-motor helicopters powered by electricity. And now it works on building a commercial helicopter-shaped air transport specially designed for flying taxis. Its flying taxi is “VoloConnect”.
Volocopter has launched an unmanned flying taxi similar to a drone to transport passengers around the city. Their flying taxi can seat 3 to 4 passengers. Furthermore, it can travel within a range of 100 kilometers.
So, the passengers can get suitable for traveling around the city. In addition to avoiding road congestion, this air transportation can also reduce air pollution.
Design and features
VoloConnect has the appearance of a hybrid design. The way it takes off is similar to a helicopter, which flies vertically. The VoloConnect has 6 propellers. Those are parallel to the fuselage and connected directly to the two wings.
It is equipped with 6 electric motors, 2 big fans on the right and left, and 3 wheels. The wheels are pull-able when taking off and out when landing. Similar to the airplane wheel system, when take-off, the wheels enter into the airplane chart. When landing, the wheels reappear to hold the aircraft’s load and stop the plane when it lands.
The company says the flying taxi has a flying speed of around 180 km/h and a top speed of 250 km/h.
Florian Reuter, the CEO of Volocopter, said that this flying taxi would help people move quickly within the city for long distances. However, the location is still around the city. It means that if we live in the city of Jakarta, this flying taxi service only covers the city of Jakarta.
Volocopter said it would start its commercial operations in Singapore in 2023. It also said that if there are already 1,000 paid reservations for this flying taxi. The flight test duration is 15 minutes.
