Orca eVTOL 急救医疗飞行器 by Soma Varga, Zsolt Koltai and Akos Matyus

Orca eVTOL 急救医疗飞行器 by Soma Varga, Zsolt Koltai and Akos Matyus is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 A' Design Award 铜奖 in 航空航天与飞行器设计 Competition Category.

铜飞行器· 2021

Orca eVTOL 急救医疗飞行器

by Soma Varga, Zsolt Koltai and Akos Matyus

Client: Orca Aerospace

A' Design Award 铜奖 Winner in 飞行器 Category

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The Design

About Orca eVTOL 急救医疗飞行器

Orca eVTOL 是一款具备电动垂直起降能力的急救医疗飞行器。该机型由单人驾驶,可搭载三人,采用碳纤维复合材料制造。七台由锂电池供电的独立电动机提供动力,同时提升了安全性。翼展为12.45米,机身长度为8.1米。电动机可在数秒内启动,而涡轮发动机则需要预热时间。固定翼飞行使其巡航速度高于旋翼飞行器,患者因而能更快获得救治。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 铜奖

Orca eVTOL 急救医疗飞行器是 A' Design Award 铜奖得主，这是授予以创造力、独创性和敏锐见长的杰出设计的极具声望的认可。铜奖得主是技艺娴熟、创意惊人的作品，印证了其设计师丰富的经验、想象力与机智。预计Orca eVTOL 急救医疗飞行器将成为一件备受推崇、令人钦佩且被珍爱的物品，兼具显著的专业性与创新性。这件赢得 A' Design Award 铜奖的设计融入艺术、科学、设计和技术领域的最佳实践，并因注重细节而出类拔萃。Orca eVTOL 急救医疗飞行器出色地满足需求，触动渴望，迷住情感，并吸引好奇心。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: The Orca eVTOL is a vertical take-off and landing aerial vehicle equipped with electric propulsion. The single piloted Orca has been designed to compeete with current emergency rotorcraft by transporing patients at higher speed, lower operational cost and incerased safety due the installed 7 independent electric engines and advanced aerodynamic design. The possible range of the carbon composite aircraft with three person on board and with current battery technology is up to 120 km.
Dimensions & Packaging: The wingspan of the Orca is 12.45m, its length is 8.1m with an overall heigth of 2.4m.
Tags: VTOL, electric propulsion, emergency medical services, aircraft, battery propulsion
Production Technology: The proposed concept uses high performance carbon fibre composite materials, common in aerospace industry. The integrated electric motors have already a proven background in motorsport and run entirely on lithium-based batteries.
Design Challenge: The most challenging part of a VTOL design is to combine design methodology of fixed wing aircraft and rotorcraft, two different regimes of aviation that are well documented when investigated separately but is still full of unknown obstacles when treated as a single regime. Having to run engines effectively while hover and during levelled cruise flight introduced energy management challenges.
Research: The design of the Orca eVTOL started with setting the flight performance requirements such as minimum range, payload, and cruise flight speed. All these emerged from a typical flight profile for a rotorcraft used in emergency medical operations. After deriving the strict performance requirements, a major effort was made to design an easy to operate yet safe aircraft architecture. This resulted in a so called three-surface aircraft with top positioned main wing and with axisymmetric fuselage.
Inspiration: The concept of the Orca electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) was designed to challenge the current rotorcraft market used in the emergency medical services. With continuously advancing battery and electric engine technology, the concepts of eVTOLs became feasible. In the airborne medical services, introducing electric propulsion and winged aircraft concepts, the response time can be significantly reduced. All this to help avoid fatal outcomes of such situations.
Project Duration: The time required to design the Orca eVTOL from the first sketches to this stage covered six months. The design team has its headquarter in Pécs, Hungary.
Operation Flow: When alarming the rotorcraft medical services, the gas turbine engines of the rotorcraft have a warm-up time. This can mean up to 3 min before the take-off. With electric engines all this is reduced to seconds only. Due to the flight speed limits placed on the helicopter’s rotating blades, the wing borne flight of the Orca allows a higher maximum cruise speed. All these reduce the time form the emergency call until the treatment of the patients and the transfer flight back to the hospital.
Patents: Patented. Patent No.: 008215388-0001 issued by the European Union Intellectual Property Office. Patent holders: Soma Ádám Varga, Zsolt Koltai, Ákos Matyus.
Team Members: Soma Varga
Ákos Matyus
Zsolt Koltai