Lazareth Teases a Transforming Hoverbike

AlphaAtlas

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French car and bike maker Lazareth just teased a flying, turbine powered "hoverbike" that can transform into a motorcycle. No, I wouldn't believe them either, and many were skeptical of the company's claims back when they showed off renderings of the LMV 496 years ago, but they uploaded a live demonstration as proof. The contraption reportedly uses 4 96,000 RPM JetCat jet turbines to lift itself off the ground, and only weights about 308 lb while making as much as 529 lb of thrust. However, what isn't clear is how the bike is powered in "road" mode, or if the prototype's wheels are even powered at all. New Atlas seems to think there's some kind of electric drive train, and I wouldn't be surprised if the turbines were used to drive the car in road mode. Jet turbines have been used to make ridiculously high power motorcycles before, but as far as I know, this is the first one that can fly with them.

Check out a video of the jet hoverbike here.

Lazareth has hover-tested the bike on tethers to a height of 1 m (3.3 ft), with his brave and lightweight girlfriend Vanessa at the helm... The Lazareth team will be bringing the Moto Volante to Gitex in Dubai this October, and will launch pre-orders there at a price of 496,000 Euros (approx. US$560,000). La Moto Volante joins Jetpack Aviation's Speeder as the only two jet-powered flying motorcycle concepts we've seen to date. Mind you, the Speeder is much more of a single-purpose vehicle without any road capability, and as such we'd expect its flight dynamics to be superior and less compromised. But Lazareth's got a full size prototype in the air that's also road-certified, so congratulations to the Lazareth team for building what must be acknowledged as a ground-breaking multi-mode vehicle.
 
So they don't show that it can move forward in the air, and also they don't show it landing from the hovercraft setting. I'm torn, it's an impressive feat, but still I'm not impressed.
I don't expect that actual forward movement and landing would be a significant challenge over what they showed. It's essentially a quad copter. I am curious on how fast it blows through fuel though. I can't imagine it having a long endurance.
 
But this...this is nothing new? It lifted off the ground, went up a few feet with a 99 pound woman piloting/riding the thing and went straight back down? This proves what exactly? What am I missing from this breakthrough? Multiple teams have done this with the drone concept many years ago? Believe me I always want this sort of thing to succeed but they all turn out to be the Homer car. The Tesla is the only next generation vehicle I can think of that actually reached some sort of mainstream applicability.
 
With few exceptions (like mid-20th century Peugeot industrial design or the Eiffel tower), the phrase "french engineering" doesn't inspire the sort of confidence required to mount a rocket bike.
 
So basically it turns into a drone that hovers really well with cables holding it in place and nobody sitting on it. Neat!
 
Now they need to test the hover function with a regular sized North American guy as the rider and not some 100 lb. featherweight woman.

The other question I have in my mind is "Why?" I mean, you can drive it down the road, sure. But can you hover down the road? Probably not... pretty sure there's gonna be some law against that, not to mention hovering down a road in traffic would bring about its own hazards. Can you instantly take to the skies to fly over traffic jams and get to your destination quicker? Not if they are only aiming for this thing to hover. So what's the point?
 
Everyone knows that the first flying motorcycle is going to look like this:

maskcondor2c.jpg
 
Now they need to test the hover function with a regular sized North American guy as the rider and not some 100 lb. featherweight woman.

The other question I have in my mind is "Why?" I mean, you can drive it down the road, sure. But can you hover down the road? Probably not... pretty sure there's gonna be some law against that, not to mention hovering down a road in traffic would bring about its own hazards. Can you instantly take to the skies to fly over traffic jams and get to your destination quicker? Not if they are only aiming for this thing to hover. So what's the point?

because switching your motorcycle into hover mode while you wait for your order in the McDonalds drive-through signals to all the other rednecks that you are the shit.

Only alpha rednecks need apply
 
It's basically nothing at all, with turbines pushing it up. Put enough thrust on a brick and it will fly

Cables holding it steady, cables on the rider/driver/operator/"visual enhancer."
 
My guess it that something like this will never be street legal due to the 140dB sound it produces plus it looks like it controls like a dream - not. The pilot probably weighs 75 lbs. and is breathing a mixture of O2 and He. If your'e gonna burn kerosene, i'm gonna put my money on Richard Browning and his Gravity Industries, Iron Man jet pack.
 
We can all criticize away, but we need more of this shit, to make other companies up their game and make something better
And then SOMEDAY, something will come out that can do the things
 
We can all criticize away, but we need more of this shit, to make other companies up their game and make something better
And then SOMEDAY, something will come out that can do the things
Until humans can demonstrate they can drive properly and not smash up stuff and kill themselves and each other while on the ground, I have no faith that any good will come out of allowing them to tackle yet another axis of travel. Even with the most advanced AI to aid/guide/control things, someone will find a way, whether on purpose or not, to F things up royally.
 
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