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Bartini (two passenger concept design)

Bartini concept design aircraft flying

 

Bartini  (two passenger concept design)
Bartini Aero, Inc.
Cupertino, California, USA
www.bartini.aero

In 2015, Ilya Khanykov, CEO, founded Bartini Aero, Inc. in Moscow, Russia. The company's goal is to design and manufacture a comfortable and highly maneuverable hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) passenger for advanced air mobility (AAM). The company plans to construct manufacturing plants in markets that are in demand of their aircraft. Components for the aircraft will be made by both Bartini Aero and will also purchase components from other suppliers from around the world.

The team of more than 40 people includes specialists in aeronautics, aviation engineering, airspace integration, manufacturing, and urban planning. The company is also in collaboration with Italdesign (Turin, Italy) for industrial design and manufacturing.

Bartini Aero unveiled its hybrid-electric VTOL passenger concept design in July 2017. The company's first slogan was “Weird to think of in 1985. Easy to hop on in 2020.” Vladimir Salatov, CTO, stated he was inspired by the movie, Back to the Future, for the Bartini Aero aircraft project. (The founding date of the company is from Bartini's LinkedIn's web page.)

The company is named after the Soviet aircraft designer Robert Ludvigovich Bartini who was pioneer of amphibious aircraft and ground effect vehicles. Bartini was one of the most famous engineers in the Soviet Union. According to one website, the "Bartini Effect" is the increase in thrust created by mounting co-axial counter-rotating thrusters within a nacelle. The company's aircraft is frequently called the Bartini Flying Car.

Bartini originally announced they would be building a two and four passenger VTOL aircraft with the capability of using either a hybrid-electric or all electric propulsion system. No picture of the two passenger Bartini has been made available to the public. However, the two passenger Bartini flying car might have been a scalable aircraft and and looked very similar to Bartini's first four passenger VTOL aircraft as shown above. The expected size of the aircraft would be a sedan-sized aircraft capable of landing in parking lots.

The Bartini Flying Car concept design is two passenger VTOL tilting-multicopter aircraft for advanced air mobility (AAM) that has the option of being powered by hydrogen cells or using battery packs. The aircraft will be piloted at the start of air taxi service and will eventually be flown autonomously when autonomous flying technology has matured. When piloted, there will be one pilot and one passenger. When autonomous technology has matured, the aircraft will carry two passengers and no pilot will be needed. The aircraft has four rotating ducts and each duct has two counter-rotating variable-pitch propellers inside each duct.

When powered with hydrogen fuel cells the estimated cruise speed of the aircraft is 186 mph (300 km/h), a range of 342 miles (550 km) and has a flight time of two hours. When powered with lithium batteries, the cruise speed is 186 mph (300 km/h), a range of 93 miles (150 km) and has a flight time of 30 minutes. The company expects the aircraft to allow passengers to cross most cities in the world in about 15 minutes.

The company has stated that ducted fans provide an additional 30% thrust, provides higher thrust, lower drag, and increases the physical safety of passengers and ground crew, and lowers the noise of the aircraft. The propellers work independently of each other and the tilting ducts work independently of each other as well. The front ducts are attached to the lower portion on the side of the fuselage and the rear ducts are attached to the upper portion on the side of the rear of the fuselage.

The interior was designed with a luxury car-like design with two bucket seats beside each other. The aircraft has gull-wing doors for ease of entry and exiting the aircraft. The safety features include multiple redundant systems and the aircraft will detect other aircraft and avoid them and also fly around prohibited areas.

Bartini revealed a new design for their flying car in 2020 and there has been no word from the company if they will make the two seat concept design VTOL aircraft as shown on this web page.

Specifications:

  • Aircraft type: Hybrid-electric or all-electric VTOL passenger aircraft
  • Piloting: 1 pilot (in the future will be autonomous)
  • Capacity: 1 passenger
  • Cruise speed: 186 mph (300 km/h)
  • Range with batteries: 93 m (150 km)
  • Range hydrogen fuel cells: 342 m (550 km)
  • Flight time with battery packs: 30 minutes
  • Flight time with hydrogen fuel cells: 2 hours
  • Ducts: 4 tilting-ducts
  • Propellers: 8 ducted propellers
  • Electric Motors: 8 electric motors
  • Power source: Lithium batteries or hydrogen fuel cells
  • Fuselage: Carbon fiber composite
  • Windows: Panoramic wrap around windows allowing forward, left, right visibility for spectacular views with a solid roof above the passenger compartment
  • Landing gear: 4 fixed landing legs
  • Safety features: Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP), provides safety through redundancy for its passengers and/or cargo. DEP means having multiple propellers (or ducted fans) and motors on the aircraft so if one or more propellers (ducted fans) or motors fail, the other working propellers (or ducted fans) and motors can safely land the aircraft. There are also redundancies in the sub-systems of the aircraft.

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