Coming from an Austrian start-up, FlyNow promises a fleet of electric helicopters that will transport guests around a 600-hectare site in Riyadh during World Expo in Saudi Arabia in 2030. This ambitious FlyNow e-Copter plan came from FlyNow co-founder and COO Yvonne Winter, this news was also shared by Saudi Arabia Holding Co. CEO Mohammed AlQahtani via LinkedIn. The announcement says that there would be thousands of miniature e-copters available for visitors to go from one place to another during The World Expo. At the moment FlyNow is building manufacturing facilities in Saudi Arabia to kick-off the production of these heli-pods.
There will be two models for e-Copter, a single-seat, and a double-seat, where these models can fly for about 30 minutes on a single charge and up to 31 miles of range. As an emission-free vehicle, e-Copter can reach up to 81mph, even though there’s high possibility it won’t run that fast at the expo. The two-seater model can accommodate around 441 pounds of load.
Sleek and simple, both designs don’t use traditional tail rotor, the vessels are fitted using two coaxially stacked rotors where they turn in opposite directions to balance out torque. These rotors make less 55 decibels of noise at an altitude of 490 feet, meaning they are as loud as conversation between two people. FlyNow e-Copter uses an automatic flight system (AFS), it cruises along a fixed route and follows a flight plan. It is also possible this autonomous helicopter selects their own flight path and make adjustments as necessary in real-time.