Collaboration between JetX and Node Air on a modular air/ground transport system.
Node Air asserts that the logistics for people and goods will function better with detachable pods that can connect to air or ground vehicles as necessary. The means of carrying do not necessarily have to be the means of movement. To realize its mission, it has partnered with JetX.
Nike Air’s modular transport system moves VTOL drone-style airframes or land-based EV carriages using cargo and passenger pods that click into place. Air Node
The concept has been presented before, most notably by EmbraerX in their Pulse concept. The majority of air travel, however, involves ground transportation at both ends, thus each flight requires the transfer of passengers and cargo from a ground vehicle to an aircraft and back again.
Why not leave them in a cabin or cargo pod that can simply and rapidly link to both ground vehicles and air vehicles where they are?
In this scenario, a pod, similar to the skateboard-style EV chassis REE has been developing, would arrive at your home to pick you up. You would be transported by way of this chassis, which has built-in motors, batteries, steering, and control systems, over land to a takeoff location. A huge drone would land on top of this.
Node Air intends to land the VTOL aircraft directly atop the EV chassis.
The airframe would secure the pod from above after the ground chassis released it. It would fly you to your destination using its own batteries, drop your tiny pod off, and then transport you there using another land chassis. a three-leg journey that you can complete without getting off your growing posterior. Maybe you could drop the pods onto rail carriages for extremely effective long-distance transport without the nuisance of traffic.
Node Air, a Florida-based corporation, claims to be working to realize this vision and is obviously unconcerned whether doing so requires appropriating the logos of other organizations. All of them receive branded renderings on the Node Air website, including Amazon, DHL, and the UNHCR Refugee Agency.
Now, Node and another Floridian business JetX are working together “to design a new modular concept aircraft using JetX Vector Thrust Propulsion.” It’s not quite War and Peace, so we might as well copy and paste the rest of the press release.
We are interested to know DHL’s thoughts on the utilization of its branding. Also, Node Air Amazon
They made the mistakes, not us. It reads, “New aircraft are incorporating the best of both worlds, Integrating Node Air modular transportation system with the best propulsion ever.” In this emerging business, the outcome “will be something utterly new, unexpected, distinctive, and revolutionary.”
Astute observers may recall from April of last year, JetX is all about non-tilting thrust vectoring technology. It suggests ways to modify fixed fans with flaps, rotating systems, cascade vanes, buckets, and other devices so that the thrust from these fans can be “bent” to point downwards. These ducted fan propulsion units can be either bladed fans or those strange “bladeless” varieties that Jetoptera is working on. As a result, you may create an airplane with fixed propulsion banks that can transition from hover to cruise flight without physically tilting.
If we were a little dubious about the JetX concept last year, this somewhat imaginative partnership between two businesses that are long on renders but short on accomplishments and money, it doesn’t help. We don’t see how switching to an experimental propulsion system (which becomes much less efficient the closer it gets to vertical lift) can help Node Air if its modular transport notion is having trouble taking off with massive, effective multirotor designs.
For eVTOLs, JetX suggests non-tilting, thrust-vectoring propulsion systems
Likewise, if JetX hasn’t managed to get so much as a drone off the ground with its propulsion systems, we fail to see the wisdom in spending tiмe developing a modular transport system that makes things so much more complex, and needs to be certified both for autonomous road and air use if it’s to function.
Still, these two companies sure know how to pump out a funky render. So we look forward to some slightly cooler-looking images – and perchance a video if pockets run deep enough – in the coming months. We won’t be holding our breaths for an end product, though.
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