Edea 22/2 Squid

Edea 22/2 Squid
Edea
Thüringen, Vorarlberg, Austria
www.edea.at

Simon Etlinger, inventor and founder of Edea based in Austria, has created several versions of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft for the Phase I, II and III of the GoFly Prize contest. He completed the Phase II GoFly Prize competition with this aircraft. Etlinger is looking for investors to create an Urban Air Mobility VTOL aircraft and bring it to market for serial production.

The Edea 22/2 Squid is a hybrid-electric VTOL concept design which was made into a 1/8th sub-scale hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft. It is powered by fuel cells to generate electricity to power the electric motors for its counter-rotating fans. Fuels cells provide the aircraft with no emissions. The aircraft has not flown to date. The design is based on the U.S. based Hiller Flying Platform. This aircraft could be switched over to an all battery power source once solid state batteries provide a high enough battery density for an aircraft of this type.

With its VTOL capability, Etlinger sees this aircraft mainly for cargo transportation, firefighting and other uncrewed missions. For cargo transportation, a sling load could be attached to the aircraft for remote controlled flight or autonomous flight. For firefighting, a water hose could be connected to the aircraft to fight fires in hard to reach areas or could carry a firefighting bucket (shown). The uses of an uncrewed hybrid-electric or all electric VTOL aircraft is only limited by the user themselves.

The inventor does recognize that the Squid aircraft could be used as a personal air vehicle for Urban Air Mobility with a passenger sitting over the ducted fans but he sees this as problematic due to way the aircraft has been designed. However, if used as a personal air vehicle, an emergency parachute would be located behind the seat.

As this is a sub-scale aircraft which has never been flown, there has been no cruise speed, cruise altitude or cruise range estimated for the Squid. However, we do know that pitch and yaw control, for forward, backwards, side to side and up and down flight is accomplished using changes in propeller speed and movable flaps having two degrees of freedom.

If you look closely, there are chevrons located beneath the aircraft, these are to reduce noise when flying, hypothetically, just as many jetliners have chevrons in the rear of their jet engines nacelles to reduce noise. However, for the Squid eVTOL, this has not been tested in the field to verify if these chevrons would reduce its aircraft noise.

The Squid has fixed landing struts and is small enough to land in a parking space, driveway or landing pad.

The Edea 22/1 Jay was entered into Phase I of the Boeing’s GoFly Prize contest. For Phase II, the Edea 22/2 Squid was entered. For Phase III of the contest, Etlinger entered the Edea 22/3 Kamino aircraft. All three Edea GoFly Prize contest entries have been completely different VTOL aircraft designs. It has been reported that 3,700 innovators from 103 countries have participated in Boeing’s GoFly Prize contest.

Specifications:

• Aircraft: Hybrid-electric VTOL for cargo or eVTOL possibly for personal use as well
• Capacity: Cargo or heavy-lift drone for various applications or for 1 passenger
• Propulsion: 2 ducted counter-rotating propellers
• Electric motors: 2 high performance motors
• Power source: Fuel cells
• Steering: Pitch and yaw control, forward, backwards, side to side, up and down is accomplished using motor speed and flaps
• Landing gear: Fixed landing struts
• Safety features: An emergency parachute is fitted to the aircraft

Resources:

• Edea website
• Simon Etlinger LinkedIn
• Article: GoFly Enters Phase II, Vertiflite, July/Aug. 2018
• Article: GoFly Hits 40, Electric VTOL News, Feb. 6, 2019
• Article: AHS Supports GoFly!, Vertiflite, Nov./Dec. 2017 
• Article: Flying Solo: GoFly Advances Single-Passenger Air Mobility Solutions, Vertiflite, May/June 2019
• Article: GoFly Inspires Innovation, Vertiflite, May/June 2020
• Article: GoFly Teams Prepare to Fly Again, Vertiflite, Nov./Dec. 2020