The merger is also set to accelerate Astro’s passenger carrying Alta and Elroy programmes. Robinson said the figure is based on the low-cost hybrid power system and efficient forward flight over regional (i.e., 100+ mile) ranges.Ĭompetitors Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation are expected to charge about $3.30 and about $3.00 per seat mile for their services respectively.Ī recent merger with autonomous vehicles company Astro Aerospace has meant Horizon will have the resources to build a larger prototype in the next few months, according to Robinson. When carrying four passengers over 100-mile trips (average) at 220mp/h (350km/h), Horizon estimates $2.75 cost per seat mile for the customer. “In general, other research corroborates this demonstrating anywhere from a 15%-26% operational cost savings over a helicopter, ” he added. Robinson told Revolution.Aero the figures were much lower because the vehicle uses an internal combustion engine as opposed to a turbine. These figures include maintenance costs spread over a reasonable operational year (about 400-500 hours) and fuel costs.
Where a helicopter might cost about $1000/hr to operate (we will exclude the amortised costs of the airframes, even though Cavorite X5 will cost less per unit), we are about 15% of that so about $150-$200 per hour.” Robinson said: “I like to point simply to the aircraft’s variable operating costs. Horizon has projected the operating costs involved to fly the Cavorite X5 in a number of different models. It has now completed 200 test flights with its subscale prototype. The Cavorite hopes to carry passengers over 280m/h (450 km/h) over a 310-mile (500 kms) range.Ĭavorite X5, a machine with a “special wing system” designed to spend “99% of the time like a normal aircraft”. Those two things make a lot of aerospace engineering sense.” Because one, you return to normal aircraft mode and two, you’re carrying gas on board. “ They say, ‘No wonder you guys can go as far as you can go. Gas has 40 times the energy density,” said Robinson. “We get a lot of push back until people realise it’s hybrid electric. The eVTOL is powered by an electric motor coupled with a conventional gas burning engine. “The hybrid electric power system allows us to save a huge amount of battery weight,” he said. Horizon’s solution lay in the way birds fly: “long, efficient, low drag, normal wing-borne lift”. And then throughout the entire mission they have very high drag, very slow configurations.” Robinson said: “Most eVTOLs carry around a lot of batteries for that vertical take-off and landing portion. He once built an aircraft from scrap metal and has an eye on manufacturing anything he designs, said Brandon.Ībout two years ago, the company started working on the Cavorite X5, a machine with a “special wing system” designed to spend “99% of the time like a normal aircraft”. Robinson flew before he learned to walk – at six-months-old – and went on to fly F-18s for the Canadian Air Force.īrian Robinson, Brandon’s father, has always been a mechanical engineer. His grandfather was a war pilot and father is the co-founder and lead engineer of Horizon. The vehicle has been designed to carry four passengers and one pilot.īrandon Robinson told Revolution.Aero he has always been an aviator. Horizon is targeting long range, regional air travel. Some 120 years later, Canada-based startup Horizon Aircraft is calling its five-seater eVTOL the Cavorite X5. His character Dr Cavor in the 1901 novel, The First Men in the Moon, invented a gravity-defying substance called cavorite. There is no doubt that science fiction writer HG Wells was ahead of his time.
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