First Manned Iteration of Flying Racer

Based in the southern Australian city of Adelaide, Alauda Aeronautics is a manufacturing and technology concern pursuing a unique and intriguing syncretism of aerospace and motorsports. The company was instrumental in the conception and creation of the EXA Racing Series—an electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) flying-car racing series in which manned, electric-powered multicopters compete in a synthesis of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and motorsport.

The invention of the automobile in the late 19th Century liberated humankind from the tyranny of distance and time, and changed forever the eyes with which man gazed upon an Earth over which his innate cleverness had granted him awesome and terrible agency. More importantly, the advent of the motorcar heralded the rise of motorsports, and introduced humanity to the intoxication of speed.

More so than practical need or consumer demand, car racing hastened the evolution of the automobile from Benz’s Motorwagen and Ford’s Quadricycle to the former’s AMG One Hypercar and the latter’s Le Mans-winning GT.

The notion of a human-piloted, flying-vehicle racing series was pioneered by Alauda Aeronautics founder and CEO Matt Pearson, who developed a prototype quad-copter eVTOL racer in a Sydney, Australia warehouse, and successfully flew the thing in December 2017.

Pearson’s eVTOL racing aircraft have since been vastly improved upon, and form the basis of the EXA Series—which is currently refining the formula and format upon which future crewed eVTOL racing will be predicated.

The latest and most highly-sophisticated iteration of the eVTOL racer is Alauda Aeronautics’s Airspeeder Mk4, a breathtakingly swift, dazzlingly nimble machine with a top-speed of 196-knots. The 2,094-pound Mk4 is powered by a 1,340-brake-horsepower Thunderstrike Hydrogen Turbogenerator that feeds electrical power to the vehicle’s batteries and motors. The turbogenerator comprises in part a 3D-printed combustor developed for the rocket engines peculiar to the orbital space industry. Subject combustor, according to the boffins at Alauda Aeronautics, "keeps the hydrogen flame temperature relatively low" which reportedly reduces nitrous oxide emissions. So powered, the Mk4 has a claimed range of 163-nautical-miles

Diverging from the convention of simple tilt-rotors, the Mk4 maneuvers by dint of a "unique gimballed thrust system" commanded by an "artificial intelligence flight controller" which individually adjusts the lightweight, 3D-printed gimbals on which the contraption’s four discrete rotor pairs are mounted. The proprietary architecture imbues the Mk4 with the exceptional straight-line velocity and precise maneuverability essential to close-action racing.

Alauda CEO Matt Pearson remarked: “We, and the world, are ready for crewed flying car racing. We have built the vehicles, developed the sport, secured the venues, attracted the sponsors and technical partners. Now is the time for the world’s most progressive, innovative and ambitious automotive brands, OEM manufacturers and motorsport teams to be part of a truly revolutionary new motorsport. In unveiling the crewed Airspeeder Mk4 we show the vehicles that will battle it out in blade-to-blade racing crewed by the most highly-skilled pilots in their fields.”

Alauda Aeronautics’s Airspeeder Mk4 is due to be publicly unveiled at the Southstart innovation festival on 7th March 2023.

FMI: www.alauda.aero