Airspeeder carries out the world's first eVTOL drag race in Oz

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By Matthew Griffin Future Transport 13th January 2022

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Any time anyone creates a new vehicle invariably someone wants to race them and create a new sport.

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Around four months after sharing footage of its flying car’s first test flights in Australia, Alauda Aeronautics has now announced that they’ve carried out the world’s first eVTOL drag race, albeit with no humans onboard after a pair of remotely piloted Airspeeder Mk3 aircraft were flown down an aerial drag strip as part of pre-season preparations ahead a full blown F1-style air race series which is slated for later this year.

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I first caught wind of their ambitions back in 2017 with the startup outlining a plan to “usher in the era of urban air mobility” by “fostering innovation through high-speed and high-risk aerial racing.”

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The most recent test flights saw the Mk3 Octocopter take to the air over a South Australian desert for the first time, and these vehicles are no slouches. They can fly from 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) in 2.8 seconds and are designed to reach altitudes of 500 m (1,640 ft).

The world’s first ever eVTOL drag race

The latest outing for the Mk3, the latest generation, saw two of them pitted against one another in an aerial drag race, each piloted by a team of Alauda Aeronautics engineers.

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The course was a short one, at just 300 m (984 ft), but saw the pair rise to an altitude of 15 m (50 ft) and the leading craft reach a top speed of 155 km/h (96 mph), with Team Bravo leading Team Alpha across the finish line.

Eventually the fully fledged Airspeeder race series will see up to four teams each with two pilots who will race the aircraft “blade-to-blade” around an electronically governed Augmented reality (AR) enabled “sky track.” These will be hosted at different locations around the world and streamed online, and according to Alauda, are still scheduled to kick off this year.

Source: Alauda Aeronautics

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, multi-award winning Futurist and named Futurist of the Year 2024, has been described as a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath. One of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts Matthew is the 15 times author of the blockbuster "Codex of the Future" series, and is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer and mentor, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, Dow, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.