Orca eVTOL 緊急醫療飛機 by Soma Varga, Zsolt Koltai and Akos Matyus

Orca eVTOL 緊急醫療飛機 by Soma Varga, Zsolt Koltai and Akos Matyus is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 A' Design Award 銅獎 in 飛機設計 Competition Category.

銅飛機· 2021

Orca eVTOL 緊急醫療飛機

by Soma Varga, Zsolt Koltai and Akos Matyus

Client: Orca Aerospace

A' Design Award 銅獎 Winner in 飛機 Category

584,797
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #112394

Visit Site View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Orca eVTOL 緊急醫療飛機

Orca eVTOL係一款具備電動垂直起降能力嘅緊急醫療飛機。呢架單一機師操控嘅飛機可以搭載三個人,機身採用碳纖維複合材料製造。七個獨立電動馬達由鋰電池供電,提供推進動力之餘,亦增加咗安全性。機翼展長為12.45米,機身長度為8.1米。電動馬達可以喺幾秒內啟動,而渦輪引擎就需要暖機時間。有翼飛行令巡航速度比旋翼機更高,令病人可以更快到達醫療機構接受治療。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 銅獎

Orca eVTOL 緊急醫療飛機是 A' Design Award 銅獎得主，這是授予以創造力、獨創性和敏銳見長的傑出設計的極具聲望的認可。銅獎得主是技藝嫻熟、創意驚人的作品，印證了其設計師豐富的經驗、想像力與機智。預計Orca eVTOL 緊急醫療飛機將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的物品，兼具顯著的專業性與創新性。這件贏得 A' Design Award 銅獎的設計融入藝術、科學、設計和技術領域的最佳實踐，並因注重細節而出類拔萃。Orca eVTOL 緊急醫療飛機出色地滿足需求，觸動渴望，迷住情感，並吸引好奇心。

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