Kittyhawk to Close Doors, Open Another

Dean Sigler Announcements, Electric Powerplants, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

While Eviation’s Alice is drawing adulation for its initial test flight, Kittyhawk, a one-time front-runner and pioneer is quietly closing down.  A vision of Larry Page, Sebastian Thrun, and Ilan Kroo, Kittyhawk brought us several approaches to personal green flight, with a heavy emphasis on intuitive control and automated flight.  One of its many approaches lives on, though, through sister company Wisk. Blooper Reel Kittyhawk’s earlier efforts look somewhat like an aeronautical blooper reel, one of those montages of early flying machines that evoke laughs when shown as preludes to more serious stuff in movie theaters.  Kittyhawk, though, avoided crashes and humiliation. The firm explains its history: “Kittyhawk was founded in 2010 by autonomous car pioneer Sebastian Thrun with the backing of Google co-founder Larry Page to explore the frontier of then-new eVTOL aviation.” From Zee to Kittyhawk Originally founded as Zee Aviation, Kittyhawk was secretive, with only glimpses of its potential aerial vehicles surfacing as “spy shots.” The ZP-1 …

Zee?  Kitty Hawk? Cora?

Dean Sigler Announcements, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Different Names, Different Configurations Zee, One of two aircraft companies funded by Google founder and CEO Larry Page, has been a highly mysterious business.  Its web pages mostly gave discrete job descriptions for those willing to sign up for a mostly undefined mission.  Occasional glimpses of patent drawings, spy shots of a multi-rotor craft in Google’s Mountain View, California parking lot came into view, and later, in-flight shots of other, different looking craft came from Hollister, California. Kitty Hawk, the other company funded by Larry Page, seems to have subsumed Zee and produced a 12-rotor, single-propeller aerial taxi about the size of a Cessna 150, but capable of vertical takeoffs and landings and seamless transitions to forward flight.  A white example has flown at Hollister airport and a yellow version at a field in New Zealand. An Almost Epic Journey The intellectual, physical and geographical journey of this craft is almost epic, and seems to have resulted in a 13-motored …

Larry Page’s Flying Car(s)?

Dean Sigler Hybrid Aircraft, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

A3 backed by Airbus, EHang 184 from China, and Zee from Larry Page (head of Google) – Silicon Valley seems an unlikely source of aeronautical breakthroughs, but several entrepreneurial outings from Airbus, Chinese startups, and Zee.Aero, led by a secretive Larry Page, have interest growing.  A pair of recent flights by Zee’s craft in Hollister, California have generated coverage – and speculation. Larry Page’s Two Companies It turns out Page has a second company, Kitty Hawk, taking yet another path toward electrified flying cars with something like a large quadcopter – not unlike the eHang 184.  Neither Zee.Aero nor Kitty Hawk is affiliated with Google, both funded out of Page’s largesse.  One theory is that his two companies, the first started by noted aerodynamicist Ilan Kroo and the second headed by Sebastian Thrun, will engage in a friendly competition to create the best device for future development. Considering the secrecy, or perhaps because of it, a few recent flights by …

Unique, From A (for Aerodynamics) to Zee

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Ilan Kroo, according to his biography page, is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, an advanced cross-country hang glider pilot, and designer of the Swift flying wing hang glider, unmanned aerial vehicles, a flying Pterosaur replica, America’s Cup sailboats, and high-speed research aircraft.  Currently on a leave of absence from Stanford, he has started Zee Aero, “a bay area start-up company focusing on bringing new technologies to civil aircraft.” Zee Aero, on its first of five sparse web pages, proclaims, “We’re creating an entirely new aircraft,” a heady claim considering the lack of supporting descriptions or illustrations.  But other sources have been made available, including Zee’s patent applications, which show a slim tricycle-gear fuselage surmounted by variously drawn structures holding eight upward-facing propellers and two propellers in the tail, apparently to push the whole assembly along. KGO television sent a news crew to Zee’s Mountain View headquarters, and broadcast nice views of the secure building in which …