Markets

(cont.)

Personal Transport

To be successful in this market place, Horizon believes the Autocopter has to be, 1) much easier and safer to fly than a conventional helicopter, 2) almost as convenient to use as a car for significant journeys, in dangerous environments or in massively overcrowded cities, 3) climate friendly, and 4) easily shared. 24hr operation and long range were seen as being important parts of the specification in this regard.

In terms of assisting owners, Horizon Helicopters would set-up a remote pilotage service for ferrying the machine between owners, to and from service centres and possibly also to have it refuelled. It’s even possible that the owner could do the remote pilotage. Finally, very low and easy maintenance requirements to make ownership attractive and inexpensive.

Urban Air Taxi

Success in this market is seen by Horizon to be dependent on, 1) a high aircraft productivity, with the ability to fly many sectors between refuellings, 2) low cost of operation, 3) low environmental impact (carbon-net-zero power, no emissions such as NOx and particulate carbon, low noise) and 4) the lowest possible probability of an accident. To varying degrees, the Autocopter design addresses all of these in a competitive way. Probably the most difficult one to quantify is the probability of an accident. In heavily built-up areas accidents to the present generation of helicopters are mostly caused by engine failure, mechanical failure, pilot error, bad weather and collision with the ground or high buildings. The Autocopter addresses these statistics by using three engines, combined with an ability to land even with total power failure, triple-redundant semi-autonomous flight control and power generation systems, combined with a flight management and navigation system with terrain avoidance including close range obstacle avoidance using LIDAR.

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