An uncrewed aircraft lifted into a tethered hover in Charlestown in late September, powered by four electric ducted fans with an unusual arrangement. Their drive acts around the rim rather than through a conventional central shaft.
The test marked the first flight demonstration of MagLev Aero’s HyperDrive magnetic-levitation propulsion technology. Each of the aircraft’s four Tempest propulsors combines a ducted fan with the company’s rim-drive system. MagLev reported the milestone in October.
The arrangement changes where the machinery turns the fan. Instead of transmitting power through a shaft at its centre, the drive acts around its circumference. The tethered aircraft brought four of those propulsors together in a lifting platform, moving the programme from individual propulsion development to an aircraft-level demonstration.
The tether kept the test within a constrained operating envelope. It demonstrated lift in that configuration, not an untethered flight programme, a commercial range or sustained operations carrying a useful payload.
So will temperature data, a propulsion system must manage heat while delivering power, not merely produce enough thrust for a brief demonstration. Neither measured thermal performance nor endurance results accompanied the published account.
MagLev’s propulsion concept is intended to offer a quieter alternative for electric aircraft, but the hover announcement did not provide independently measured noise results or a like-for-like efficiency comparison with conventional propulsors. The flight establishes an early engineering milestone; the performance case remains to be demonstrated through a broader test programme.
MagLev has put its rim-driven fans to work together on an aircraft. Four Tempest units supplied the lift for the tethered test, giving the company a flying platform on which to develop the next stage of HyperDrive.