Carter Air Taxi
Carter Aviation Technologies
Wichita Falls, Texas, USA
www.cartercopters.com

The Carter Aviation Technologies Air Taxi is a winged, forward propeller and helicopter/auto-gyro electric vehicle designed for urban mobility.

The vehicle’s drive train will power a 13.7 m vertical propeller for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) and four horizontal propellers on the 12.75 m fixed wing which will counter rotor torque through differential thrust for hover accents and landings. The four propellers can then use forward thrust when the vertical rotor will go into an auto-gyro mode and slow to 100 rpm as the Air Taxi can reach speeds of up to 281 km/h. It has a weight of 1,996 kg (including a 599 kg battery pack) and a 499 kg useful payload for a total weight of 2,495 kgs.  The craft is electric although a hybrid gas turbine option will be developed to extend the vehicle’s range and open additional markets.

It can carry one pilot and five passengers (a two pilot, four passenger, variant is possible for training purposes). The auto-gyro would function like a parachute (even at very low altitudes) for emergency landings coupled with extreme energy-absorbing landing gear.

The Carter Air Taxi will be used primarily for urban mobility and shorter passenger hops. It was designed to meet the specifications of the Uber Elevate mission.

An earlier version capable of powered hovering and a swivel tail-rotor to provide anti-torque was announced at the 2017 Uber Elevate Summit. At the Vertical Flight Society’s Annual Forum in May 2018 Carter unveiled a new configuration removing the swiveling tail in favor of the four electric motor-driven propellers on a longer wing.

Carter employed a rotor noise expert to analyze the noise signature to meet Uber’s stringent noise requirements. The aircraft will barely exceed normal background noise for people below.

Jaunt Air Mobility, a start-up company founded in May 2018, announced it had acquired rights to use the Carter technology at the Vertical Flight Society’s 2019 Autonomous VTOL Technical Meeting and Electric VTOL Symposium in an effort to become part of the Uber Elevate program.

Carter Aviation Technologies displays its Air Taxi at the VFS’s Annual Forum 74

Specifications (May 2018)

Cruise speed
175 mph
281.6 kph
Gross Weight
5500 lb
2494.8 kg
Empty Weight (w/o batteries)
3080 lb
1397.1 kg
Battery Weight (300 Wh/kg)
1320 lb
598.7 kg
Useful Load
1100 lb
499 kg
Seating 1 pilot + 5 passengers 2 pilots + 4 passengers
Wing Span 42 ft 12.8 m
Rotor Diameter
 45 ft 13.7 m
Fuselage Length
39.4 ft 12 m
Peak Lift/Drag
13+

Resources

Tags:

Carter, Vectored Thrust, Initial Design, 6 Passengers, Electric/Batteries, Piloted, VFS Member