Pivotal Blackfly landing yesterday

Posted by jamcultur@reddit | WeirdWings | View on Reddit | 41 comments

This is the Pivotal Blackfly landing at Filoli in Woodside, California, yesterday. It looks like I'm too close, but I was actually at a safe distance zoomed in on the Blackfly. It looks like it is a lot of fun to fly, but it's very expensive, and can only fly for 20 minutes before it needs to be recharged. Current prices are $190,000 to $260,000, depending on options.

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No-Print2829@reddit

Came here to read the weedeater comments. I wasn’t disappointed.

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petrx@reddit

Blade Runner

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workahol_@reddit

I never understood why it was called "blackfly" until I watched this with the sound turned on.

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Ih8Hondas@reddit

Your comment made me turn the sound on and holy shit I hope these things never catch on now.

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urfavoritemurse@reddit

Honestly a terrible fucking racket. Just imagine these flying around your favorite outdoor trails, national parks, camp sites, or even over your neighborhood. Hopefully never catches on like you say.

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veggie151@reddit

I really want to see this with toroidal props on it. The sound difference is really notable

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mechanical-being@reddit

If they were naming it based on how it sounds, "landscaping crew" or "weedeater" would be more appropriate.

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IlluminatedPickle@reddit

I'd probably go with widowmaker based on how it lands. That was fucking rough.

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jamcultur@reddit (OP)

The fact that it is made of carbon fiber might also be a factor.

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StfuBob@reddit

How does he see where he supposed to land?

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jamcultur@reddit (OP)

It has a rear-facing camera.

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immortalis_umbra@reddit

Got to sit in it a few weeks back, it was actually quite comfortable and the pilot explained the controls which seemed very intuitive. Can be flown left handed or right handed.

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verbmegoinghere@reddit

Clear. The lack of a landing gear will greatly reduce cost and maintenance

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jamcultur@reddit (OP)

It also reduces weight, which is important since they want this to qualify as an ultralight.

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YogurtclosetJumpy770@reddit

Fucking Mad Max shit...no thank you.

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mcnabb100@reddit

I’m sure these have all kinds of redundancy built in, but it sure seems like you would be in for a bad time if you lost propulsion.

Planes glide and can do dead stick landings. Helicopters can autorotate.

Even if this thing can glide the landing bit seems like it would be emotionally distressing lol.

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Chemieju@reddit

It has 2 props per wing, i'd assume it could still fly or at least fall with style if it lost one or two.

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jamcultur@reddit (OP)

It has a ballistic parachute, so if you had a serious problem, you could pop the chute, which would lower the whole plane to the ground slowly.

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waldo--pepper@reddit

What altitude would be the minimum for the parachute though? Five hundred feet? If a fault happens below minimum a bad day is a certainty.

I am not being too much of a safety nut. Life is short. And there is plenty that will kill you. May as well have some fun while we are here.

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predictorM9@reddit

Probably less than 500 ft but the domain of operation of the parachute is something super important, max speed, attitude limits etc

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cpt_morgan___@reddit

“How do you want it to land?”

“I don’t know, just fucking crash?”

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dice1111@reddit

All landings are just a controlled crash.

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righthandofdog@reddit

I assume there is some kind of giant glass cockpit screen that gives you a downward facing camera for a landing. Because backwards vertical with zero forward via is full of nope for me

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CptnHamburgers@reddit

backwards vertical with zero forward via is full of nope for me

Convair XFY Pogo has entered the chat

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righthandofdog@reddit

exactly and the danger of landing is part of why that didn't go forward. this dude doesn't even have gear, it just settles and falls over. that seems sketch.

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Hellothere_1@reddit

Modern electronic control systems make that much less of an issue though. These days even pretty cheap quadcopters are able to hold their position against external influences to a pretty tight degree without human input.

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righthandofdog@reddit

I'm more worried about hitting power lines, flag poles, fences, bystanders, etc. That stuff happens with helicopters already and their visibility is one hell of a lot better than landing by rear view camera.

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jamcultur@reddit (OP)

You are correct. There is a rear-facing camera for landing.

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thegentlenub@reddit

I legit thought that was a seagull for a second

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kaiwikiclay@reddit

The ol “flop and stop”. You gotta appreciate the simplicity

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vonHindenburg@reddit

Huh. Why add the weight and complexity of a rotating wing when you can just rotate the whole craft? Interesting design.

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jlobes@reddit

The props are mounted on the wings. If they were fixed for forward flight and didn't rotate it would need to sit on its tail to take off and land.

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vonHindenburg@reddit

Did you watch the videos? That's pretty much what it does. The hemispherical belly allows it to sit at a normal attitude when powered down, but then rotate to a near tail stand for takeoff or landing. The low-mounted forward wing and high-mounted rear one mean that differential thrust gives them sufficient pitch control to rotate at pretty much zero airspeed.

Maybe it's not quite true VTOL (and, if it's powerful enough to hover, it'd be uncomfortable to do so in for any length of time), but it's near enough not to matter.

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jlobes@reddit

Yeah, and it's only capable of taking off because the props and wings tilt upwards. If the props faced forward it would have to sit on its tail like a Convair Pogo.

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