More evidence that if your'e to advance electrical transport, your locations of choice are either the US in one direction, or China in the other. In the former a fellow GoFly finalist of ours recently raised $205,000 by means of regulated crowdfunding (for US-registered companies only) with an idea that might alternately be considered as either as futuristic ~ or as ludicrous, depending on your point of view ~ as our own.
Accordingly I dip my toe into the UK's crowdfunding pool with a review of perhaps its largest site: where "eVTOL" is not even considered a valid search term, defaulting as it does to "VTOL" and producing only the above selection. Entries to left and right belong to the same project ~ more on that later ~ and what is clear is that few people in the UK are exercised by the state of roads in Africa or the adverse effects thereof.
TU523 was not a moniker I would have chosen either, hinting that its proprietor has no background in aviation, where it would automatically be connected with Tupolev... maybe that was the idea? Considering the market analysts in London knew even less, it wouldn't really matter and might explain why it's the only entry in the beauty parade that persuaded anyone to part with cash.
Helium's offering demonstrates that the average punter is not so much interested in materials or assembly as in the lived experience. Essentially the same as Jetson's One, the only difference lies between a bald chassis on one hand and the promise of sailing over Tuscan hills with pasta, sex and sunshine in mind.
I'm not going to say too much on the remaining pitch as the guy lives close by. Suffice it to say that it features a selfie, and the promise of joining its subject in low-Earth orbit in a "flying boat enabled by VTOL technology".
(And I don't just like it, Mister Rahman, I love it!).
