Take A Look At The Prototype Of X-Hawk Israeli Hover Car

This is a prototype for an unmanned flying vehicle named the “Mule”. This hover car was designed by the Israeli firm “Urban Aeronautics” who also designed a larger, manned version called the “X-Hawk”.

The X-Hawk is an experimental platform that uses ducted fans and fly-by-wire concepts to achieve the goal of being an easy and safe to fly aircraft in a typical urban environment. This kind of environment puts the helicopter at a disadvantage when it comes to safety issues because its rotating rotors can easily hit objects in its vicinity. The X-hawk solves this with a ducted fan design while maintaining all of the desirable VTOL capabilities. The hover cars were designed primarily for military and civil rescue operations as they are far more agile in confined airspaces than a helicopter and there are two versions of the vehicles, accordingly.

“We are developing vertical takeoff vehicle that unlike helicopter does not have a big exposed work overhead, so all the rotors of this vehicle are contained inside the fuselage. This enables it to fly in very confined spaces such as cities, woods canyons and many other places where helicopters cannot reach,” says Rafi Yoeli, President and CEO of Urban Aeronautics.

Traveling at speeds of up to 155 MPH (248 km/h), the X-Hawk will be able to carry up to 12 people. At the time of writing (2014), an unmanned prototype was being tested. Urban Aeronautics expects the first commercial release to take place before 2020.