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News Link • Transportation: Air Travel

Cavorite X7 makes history with first fan-in-wing transition flight

• New Atlas

Horizon Aircraft just made aviation history, becoming the first eVTOL to achieve a stable wing-borne flight transition using a fan-in-wing design with its "large-scale" Cavorite X7 demonstrator. The best part is that this particular aircraft is meant to be just that, a conventional aircraft – that just happens to be able to take off and land vertically like a helicopter.

It works by having 14 fans embedded within the wings. Five per main wing with a pair in each forward canard. Horizon designed a clever patented mechanism that allows the wing surfaces to slide open for vertical lift from the battery-powered fans, and slide closed as the X7 transitions to forward winged-flight, like a normal plane, with a gas-powered turbine engine powering the rear push-prop.


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