Around age 12, David Mayman tried to build a helicopter from fence posts and an old lawn mower.
Needless to say it didn’t go well. His device did not fly and he had to repair the fence.
“I was raised in a way that I think challenged me scientifically… I was always told that nothing is impossible,” he says.
He may have been a little ahead of the curve during his childhood in Sydney, but as an adult, Mr. Mayman has built innovative machines that actually fly.
After selling his online listing company, Mr Mayman developed a jetpack, which he flew around the Statue of Liberty in 2015.
But since 2018, he has been working on a different kind of project, which he believes will have more commercial opportunities.
He is called the Speeder and his new machine will be like a flying engine. It will take off vertically, fly at high speeds, but be compact enough to fit in the back of a pickup truck.
Speeder is just one of many flying machine projects currently underway.
There are currently hundreds of EVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft in development, with engineers hoping to create a new era of low-cost, silent air transportation.
But Mr Mayman’s machine is very different from those planes. Instead of being powered by batteries and electric motors, its Speeder uses four small jet engines that run on jet fuel.
That may seem like a step backwards in technology, but for the customers Mr Mayman has in mind, liquid fuel alone will do.
He says the military, emergency services and the offshore energy industry want a fast, compact aircraft that can carry significant weight.
You need jet fuel for that, because it stores 20 times the energy of batteries for a certain weight. Or in other words, to provide the necessary power, batteries would be too heavy.
“If you want to carry a certain load, and you want that aircraft to have a certain range and a certain speed, the only way to do that with current technology is with turbine engines.” Mr. Mayman explains.
Speeder’s idea came from working with the US Navy, which was interested in a jetpack for use by the Navy’s special forces, the Seals.
“As is so often the case in aviation, you start with one set of specs, and pretty quickly you end up with a completely different set of specs,” he explains.
“They initially wanted something that could carry a payload of 95kg, not far into the project that turned into almost 135kg. And they wanted it to be possible to literally train someone in 10 minutes,” said Mr. mayman. say.
None of that was possible with his existing jetpack product – something bigger and easier to fly would be needed, so the Speeder project was born.
Some of the jetpack technology was useful on the new project, but much of it had to be developed from scratch.
To simplify things, while on the jetpack the direction of thrust is mechanically controlled by the pilot on the Speeder, the angle of the four jet turbines is controlled by an electronic flight control system.
The most important part of that system is custom software that understands the physics of the four very powerful jets. This means that when the pilot takes off or turns, the Speeder can tilt its jets to make that happen.
Mr Mayman says owners don’t necessarily need a pilot’s license, as the Speeder’s flight control systems do a lot of the work to keep the plane stable.
“It’s basically AI (artificial intelligence) — if you want to call it that — that understands what the vehicle needs… so it can instruct the engines to wind up or wind down,” Mayman says.
It’s that aspect of artificial intelligence that interests Sajal Kissoon, a research assistant in gas turbine technology at Cranfield University’s aerospace center.
“The important factor for this [the Speeder] is the use of AI to aid control. This in itself is very exciting progress,” she explains.
“What if the Speeder has to deal with unusual weather conditions, unusual wind conditions or an unusual maneuver by the pilot? I think AI is essential to aid control,” added Ms. Kissoon.
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Mayman is hopeful that the Speeder will eventually be used to carry cargo. Remotely controlled or autonomously, he thinks that there will mainly be demand from the armed forces or emergency services.
With a top speed of about 200 mph and a flight time of up to 60 minutes, Mr Mayman says it can get essential supplies for the military or emergency services where they need to be very quickly.
In cargo mode, where it’s remotely controlled, it can go even faster, maybe at 500mph and carry 450kg.
Being compact and able to fly in all weather conditions, it thinks it can be more versatile than a helicopter.
But before you get too excited at the prospect of getting off the bus and hopping on a Speeder to work, Mr. Mayman says you’re unlikely to be flying through cities.
“We’re making noise, we’re incredibly powerful, we’re incredibly small. I don’t think within the urban air mobility space there is necessarily a need for an aircraft that can be as big as your kitchen table.”
Crucially, many more tests need to be done before the Speeder is delivered to a customer. A third full-scale prototype (the P2) is being prepared for flight at test distance about two hours east of Los Angeles.
There will be plenty of room there to put the Speeder to the test.
An important phase will also come at the end of next year, when the company hopes to start the certification process. The company estimates that will take 12 months.
If all goes according to plan, the Speeder could go on sale in late 2024 or 2025, though the military may be able to fly it earlier, Mayman said.
Unsurprisingly, all of his engineers want to be the first to fly the machine into the desert, but Mr. Mayman keeps that excitement to himself.
“It’s pretty much the main reason they work here. So I’ve got a long line of people waiting to test this thing. But I’ll rank,” he says.
And hopefully for Mr. Mayman he won’t have to fix fences this time.
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