A startup with a patent on what it calls a personal aircraft – which resembles a flying car – is moving into a building at the Hollister Municipal Airport.
Zee.Aero has signed a five-year lease to rent Building 19, formerly the main Hollister airport office, for its work on the personal aircraft on which it gained a patent in August 2013.
The self-proclaimed stealth startup coming from Mountain View – company representatives did not respond to the Free Lance before publication – is aiming to build a battery-powered personal aircraft with a combination of rotors, like those on a helicopter, and wings. The patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists the aircraft at 15 to 20 feet from front to back and another 15 to 20 feet in wingspan. That patent, though, portrays varying designs with larger and smaller sizes – with one concept showing the aircraft fitting, parked, in a space between two cars.
Airport Director Mike Chambless, who could not be reached before publication, first broached Zee.Aero’s intentions about moving to the Hollister airport back in April during an airport commission meeting. Since then, he has provided updates about building renovations to airport commissioners. The city did some preparation work, and Zee.Aero has continued renovating the structure, Chambless has reported in recent meetings.
“They don’t really want to brag about what they do,” he said at the April meeting, according to a video of the commission gathering. “I can tell you it’s an aircraft manufacturing company. They’re bringing about 15 jobs down here and they’re well funded.”
Zee.Aero employees could not be reached at the airport building, as they were not fully moved in yet as of early this week, according to an employee in the airport office, which has relocated next door to Building 20 in order to accommodate Zee.Aero.
On the Zee.Aero patent, the personal aircraft inventor is listed as Dr. Ilan Kroo, a Stanford University professor of aeronautics and astronautics. Kroo took a leave of absence in 2011 to start Zee.Aero, according to a Stanford web page.
Look back for more on this story.
Patent Abstract for Personal Aircraft
“A safe, quiet, easy to control, efficient, and compact aircraft configuration is enabled through the combination of multiple vertical lift rotors, tandem wings, and forward thrust propellers. The vertical lift rotors, in combination with a front and rear wing, permits a balancing of the center of lift with the center of gravity for both vertical and horizontal flight. This wing and multiple rotor system has the ability to tolerate a relatively large variation of the payload weight for hover, transition, or cruise flight while also providing vertical thrust redundancy. The propulsion system uses multiple lift rotors and forward thrust propellers of a small enough size to be shielded from potential blade strike and provide increased perceived and real safety to the passengers. Using multiple independent rotors provides redundancy and the elimination of single point failure modes that can make the vehicle non-operable in flight. “
Source: Personal Aircraft Patent
Claim 1 of 12 on Patent:
An aircraft comprising: a fuselage; a forward wing coupled to the fuselage and located forward of a center of gravity; an aft wing coupled to the fuselage and located aft of the center of gravity; a first mounting boom extending from a port side of the fuselage via a first plurality of struts; a second mounting boom extending from a starboard side of the fuselage via a second plurality of struts; a first plurality of lift rotors, each rotor mounted on the first mounting boom between the forward wing and the aft wing on the port side of the fuselage and configured to produce an amount of vertical thrust independent of levels of vertical thrust produced by the other rotors; a second plurality of lift rotors, each rotor mounted on the second mounting boom between the forward wing and the aft wing on the starboard side of the fuselage and configured to produce an amount of vertical thrust independent of levels of vertical thrust produced by the other rotors; and a first propeller coupled to a port side of the aft wing and a second propeller coupled to a starboard side of the aft wing.
Source: Personal Aircraft Patent
