Pop.Up – Airbus Pops Up with Another VTOL Commuter

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Aircraft Components, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

What will Pop.Up next?  We’re floating away, being carried skyward by PAL-V’s, JetPack’s 12-rotor machine, e-volo’s 16-rotor design, and even Hoversurf’s four-rotor flying donor-cycle. At least a half-dozen other varieties of VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) commuter machines are coming at us with bewildering speed.  If nothing else, the competing visions of future aerial transport show some kind of deeply felt need to escape the surly bonds of earth, or at least its eternal gridlock. Airbus has already played one hand, showing its cards with Silicon Valley-based A3 (A Cubed) and a vehicle looking like a combination of NASA’s X-57 Maxwell and Joby Aviation’s S2.  It pulled another card from its sleeve this week at the Geneva Auto Show, unveiling its Pop.Up concept vehicle, conceived with ItalDesign. Pop.Up is a carbon-fiber pod that can be attached to self-driving wheels, a railway or Hyperloop link, or lifted by an eight-rotor autonomous drone carrier.  An artificial intelligence platform will determine the best …