Post by bulldog on Aug 9, 2023 14:00:54 GMT 1
Called in to Kemble last Thursday on way to a wedding in Somerset. Amazing how wives believe us when we say the road takes us past a particular airfield!!. Went round to cafe area first for a coffee. there was a great deal of activity and loads of well dressed people hanging around by the fence outside. Waiting in queue to get a coffee the lady kept saying are " you with vertical group" No idea what she was on about but everyone kept nodding yes. I looked up vertical group on Google and it says it's a bio tech firm. So conference I assumed.
It stopped raining so I took my wife outside to watch the PC12 doing circuits.,then it reverse parked. I thought she would be impressed but no. No pleasing some people. Then a couple of minutes later a fire engine came from area of hangars being followed by what turned out to be the Vertical Aerospace VA-1X electric air taxi thing. well I was impressed as I didn't think they actually existed yet. They towed it on to the runway, stopped all other flights. Then a bit of earwigging by me as what must have been a leader of the group of people said it would take off, fly/hover along the runway and then land. Then second time it sounded like they were going to try different engine settings.
Wow I thought , I was well impressed apart from anything else I will get the first pictures of this aircraft on the NWAN forum.
Because it is electric of course it is not like a "normal" aircraft/ helicopter where you "start " the engines. The rotors just silently started going round. When it revved up to take off was actually quite noisy. Suspect if the (imho) daft idea of all these things flying around as taxis starts there will be a lot of noise in the sky. Anyway went forward as you can see a few hundred metres, landed turned off. Fire engine came out and it was towed back to hangar. Lives in hangar near the 727. Presumably the fire engine is in case the electric batteries burst into flames. Going to be a nuisance if you buy one and need a fire engine with it!!.
So here are some pictures, new to me and I have never seen anything quite like it. Annoyingly only had my I phone so not the best but reasonable.
G-EVTL Vertical Aerospace VA-1X
IMG_2837 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2839 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2840 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2841 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2842 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2845 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2846 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2846 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2852 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
No idea what sort of helicopter this is!
IMG_2855 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
IMG_2856 by Clive Harden, on Flickr
It stopped raining so I took my wife outside to watch the PC12 doing circuits.,then it reverse parked. I thought she would be impressed but no. No pleasing some people. Then a couple of minutes later a fire engine came from area of hangars being followed by what turned out to be the Vertical Aerospace VA-1X electric air taxi thing. well I was impressed as I didn't think they actually existed yet. They towed it on to the runway, stopped all other flights. Then a bit of earwigging by me as what must have been a leader of the group of people said it would take off, fly/hover along the runway and then land. Then second time it sounded like they were going to try different engine settings.
Wow I thought , I was well impressed apart from anything else I will get the first pictures of this aircraft on the NWAN forum.
Because it is electric of course it is not like a "normal" aircraft/ helicopter where you "start " the engines. The rotors just silently started going round. When it revved up to take off was actually quite noisy. Suspect if the (imho) daft idea of all these things flying around as taxis starts there will be a lot of noise in the sky. Anyway went forward as you can see a few hundred metres, landed turned off. Fire engine came out and it was towed back to hangar. Lives in hangar near the 727. Presumably the fire engine is in case the electric batteries burst into flames. Going to be a nuisance if you buy one and need a fire engine with it!!.
So here are some pictures, new to me and I have never seen anything quite like it. Annoyingly only had my I phone so not the best but reasonable.
G-EVTL Vertical Aerospace VA-1X
IMG_2837 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2839 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2840 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2841 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2842 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2845 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2846 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2846 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2852 by Clive Harden, on FlickrNo idea what sort of helicopter this is!
IMG_2855 by Clive Harden, on FlickrIMG_2856 by Clive Harden, on Flickr