Airspeeder completes first full flights of its Alauda Mk3, with uncrewed eVTOL ‘Grand Prixs’ to begin later this year

Air­speed­er, the world’s first rac­ing series for elec­tric fly­ing cars, has made his­to­ry today (Thurs­day) with the first full flights of its remote­ly-pilot­ed Alau­da Mk3.

The flights took place at undis­closed test loca­tions in the deserts of South Aus­tralia, under the obser­va­tion of the coun­try’s civ­il avi­a­tion safe­ty author­i­ty (CASA). Through­out the devel­op­ment process, the Alau­da team has worked with the reg­u­la­tor to ensure com­pli­ance to all required pro­ce­dures while devel­op­ing robust safe­ty pro­to­cols.

The suc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion of these flights mean uncrewed elec­tric fly­ing car ‘Grand Prixs’ will take place at three inter­na­tion­al loca­tions in 2021, which will soon be revealed. This news fol­lows on from Air­speed­er announc­ing a time­keep­ing and engi­neer­ing part­ner­ship with IWC Schauffhausen ear­li­er this week.

Matthew Pear­son, Founder of Air­speed­er and Alau­da Aero­nau­tics, said: “Noth­ing dri­ves inno­va­tion like rac­ing. The world is ready for advanced air mobil­i­ty and we are proud to make his­to­ry by intro­duc­ing the world’s first rac­ing series for fly­ing elec­tric cars. Air­speed­er and EXA rep­re­sent the future of motor­sport and a com­pelling and exhil­a­rat­ing show­case of the poten­tial of elec­tric fly­ing cars as this generation’s defin­ing mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion.” 

EXA will be Airspeeder’s first rac­ing series. Up to four teams with two remote pilots per team will com­pete in  three indi­vid­ual events across the globe through this year. They will race ‘blade-to-blade’ over loca­tions inac­ces­si­ble to tra­di­tion­al motor­sport. Audi­ences will tune-in through glob­al streams avail­able on-demand. This approach reflects the chang­ing require­ments of glob­al audi­ences, in par­tic­u­lar a gen­er­a­tion native to stream­ing and the abil­i­ty to inter­act direct­ly with the con­tent gen­er­a­tors they fol­low. 

EXA will also remain the prov­ing ground for the Air­speed­er crewed rac­ing series, pro­vid­ing a vital tech­ni­cal test-bed for teams and the per­fect space to devel­op pilot skills. This means Air­speed­er is able to draw its pilots and crew from a wide range of back­grounds, includ­ing eSports as they can under­take the nec­es­sary train­ing on the dynam­ics of an elec­tric fly­ing race car in a remote envi­ron­ment. In lega­cy motor­sport terms, EXA will take its place as the feed­er series for crewed Air­speed­er races in the forth­com­ing Alau­da Mk4.   

A pre-sea­son will soon be announced and take the form of an inter­nal drag-race style com­pe­ti­tion between two dis­tinct ‘works teams’ drawn from with­in Alau­da. These final test events will serve as an impor­tant tech­ni­cal and strate­gic shake-down before exter­nal teams are invit­ed to prove their com­pet­i­tive edge against the cre­ators of the sport. Pilots will remote­ly con­trol their Speed­ers in races across elec­tron­i­cal­ly gov­erned, Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty enabled sky-tracks.

Pear­son added: “EXA deliv­ers on the promise of a future first shown in sci­ence fic­tion. We are proud to intro­duce a sport that rede­fines what humans and machines can achieve togeth­er. These his­toric first flights are just the start and we are all excit­ed to begin a momen­tous new chap­ter in motorpsort’s rich lega­cy.”   

The Alau­da Aero­nau­tics Mk3 EXA race-craft are remote­ly pilot­ed by high­ly skilled women and men. They take a seat in a sim­u­la­tor envi­ron­ment that mim­ics the dynam­ics and ergonom­ics of the Mk3 cock­pit envi­ron­ment.

From there they con­trol the vehi­cle in exact­ly the same way as a pilot locat­ed in the cock­pit with fin­ger-tip com­mands sent instant­ly to the phys­i­cal Speed­er as it plots a series of cours­es dic­tat­ed by elec­tron­ic sky-tracks. Each Alau­da Aero­nau­tics Mk3 is pre­sent­ed to teams with iden­ti­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tion, mean­ing it is pilot skill and team strat­e­gy that will deter­mine race-win­ners. This will ensure the close com­pe­ti­tion tra­di­tion­al motor­sport fans crave. 

Phys­i­cal tele-robot­ic avatars named ‘The Avi­a­tors’ sit with­in the cock­pit envi­ron­ment of the Mk3. They have been designed to rep­re­sent the frame of human pilots. This will pro­vide engi­neers with crit­i­cal data and infor­ma­tion on the effects of high speed rac­ing, rapid turn­ing, accel­er­a­tion and decel­er­a­tion on the human frame. This will accel­er­ate Airspeeder’s pro­gres­sion  to human pilot­ed races which are sched­uled in 2022. 

Every Air­speed­er race includes rapid pit stops. To facil­i­tate this, Alauda’s engi­neers have devel­oped an inno­v­a­tive ‘slide and lock’ sys­tem for the swift removal and replace­ment of bat­ter­ies when on the ground. Intense inter­nal com­pe­ti­tion between in-house pit-crews has dri­ven the pit­stop time down to just 20 sec­onds, which is entire­ly com­pa­ra­ble with any form of ground-based lega­cy motor­sport. This is expect­ed to con­tin­ue to fall. For con­text, a For­mu­la 1 pit­stop used to take more than a minute. 

Pear­son said: “The Alau­da Aero­nau­tics Mk3 is the world’s first per­for­mance eVTOL craft. It is the result of the very best minds work­ing with focus to accel­er­ate a mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion. Rac­ing will take this a step fur­ther and we can­not wait to com­pete with elite teams to show the world the dynam­ic poten­tial of these incred­i­ble per­for­mance race-craft.”  

At max­i­mum pow­er, the craft deliv­ers 320kW and with­out a pilot, weighs just 130kg. It can lift a weight of more than 80kg, prov­ing the via­bil­i­ty of the pow­er­train for pilot­ed races. Accel­er­a­tion from 0–62mph takes 2.8 sec­onds and the Speed­er can climb to 500 meters. 

A Speed­er can also turn with extra­or­di­nary speed when com­pared to a tra­di­tion­al fixed wing air­craft or heli­copter. The Mk3 vehi­cle has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 3.5, which exceeds that of an F‑15E Strike Eagle (thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.2), one of the most advanced fight­er air­craft in the world. 

The rapid hair­pin turn­ing poten­tial achieved through an octo­copter for­mat has been com­pared to that of a For­mu­la 1 car, gen­er­at­ing up to 5Gs, with the added capa­bil­i­ty to manoeu­vre ver­ti­cal­ly. 

The engi­neer­ing team has devel­oped an advanced car­bon fibre struc­ture, car­ry­ing strength and weight-sav­ing ben­e­fits. Indeed, there is an obses­sion at Alau­da with shed­ding grams to gain crit­i­cal sec­onds in per­for­mance. A Mk3 con­sists of a car­bon fibre chas­sis and advanced inte­gral­ly stiff­ened skin which allows for the com­plex shapes of the fuse­lage while pro­vid­ing struc­tur­al integri­ty of the vehi­cle under extreme rac­ing con­di­tions and manoeu­vres. 

The vehi­cle bat­ter­ies have been re-designed result­ing in 90 per cent more capac­i­ty with only a 50 per cent increase in weight over the ear­li­er Air­speed­er con­cept vehi­cle. The design of the bat­tery mod­ules also pro­vides for an excit­ing strate­gic lay­er to the Air­speed­er rac­ing events. 

Pow­er deliv­ery pro­files can be changed by ground-crews to respond to the dif­fer­ent require­ments of the elec­tron­i­cal­ly gov­erned sky-tracks that Air­speed­er pilots will fol­low.

Air­speed­er employs a sys­tems-based approach to safe­ty. This means that no sin­gle oper­a­tional fail­ure can lead to loss of the pri­ma­ry func­tion of the vehi­cle, which is con­trolled flight. 

Dur­ing flights, all sys­tems are mon­i­tored on the ground through a state-of-the-art teleme­try sys­tem. This means that ground­crew are imme­di­ate­ly aware of issues and can take appro­pri­ate action to bring the craft to ground safe­ly. 

Pri­ori­tis­ing safe­ty is also inher­ent to the archi­tec­ture of the vehi­cle. The octo­copter lay­out ensures sta­bil­i­ty in the event of rotor fail­ure or break­age, while the car­bon fiber struc­ture of the Speed­er has been engi­neered for over­all struc­tur­al integri­ty. 

The Mk3, which will be oper­at­ed by an expert remote oper­a­tor from the ground, fea­tures a suite of tech­nolo­gies and engi­neer­ing ele­ments nev­er before seen on an eVTOL air­craft. These inno­va­tions will be val­i­dat­ed in this key uncrewed prov­ing phase and include sophis­ti­cat­ed col­li­sion avoid­ance sys­tems that cre­ate a ‘vir­tu­al force­field’ around the craft to ensure close but ulti­mate­ly safe rac­ing.