Alef Aeronautics is an automotive and

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot ...

company based in the United States. Since 2015, it has been developing and promoting a proposed

flying car A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles which drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term "flying car" is also sometimes u ...

intended to take off vertically and tilt sideways to fly like a

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

History

Alef Aeronautics is a US company founded on April 6, 2015, by Jim Dukhovny, Constantine Kisly, Pavel Markin and Oleg Petrov. The company initially relied on financing by its founders. It obtained further

seed investment Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' s ...

from

Draper Associates Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ),

in 2017, followed by further investment rounds in 2018 and 2020. Notable investors include Draper B1, Impact Venture Capital, Strong VC, and

Luis Scola Luis Alberto Scola Balvoa (born April 30, 1980) is an Argentine former professional basketball player and current executive who currently serves as the chief executive officer for the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) team Pallacanestro Varese. ...

Model A flying car

The Alef ''Model A'' is a proposed novel design for a flying car. It is intended as a personal ground vehicle which would also be capable of vertical takeoff and forward flight. Envisaged as all-electric (

eVTOL An electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft is a variety of VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft that uses electric power to hover, take off, and land vertically. This technology came about thanks to major advances in elec ...

), type, the planned flight range is approximately 110 miles (180 km), and almost twice that at 200 miles (320 km) as a ground vehicle. The Alef design utilizes hub motors for land travel, while for flight it incorporates eight motor-controller-propeller systems providing distributed electric propulsion, covered by a continuous mesh upper surface to allow airflow during vertical flight. The Model A employs an unusual transition between vertical and forward flight modes. Once airborne, the vehicle tilts sideways, such that the right and left sides of the car become the top and bottom wings of a

for forward flight. At the same time, the

spherical A sphere () is a geometrical object that is a three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three-dimensional space.. That given point is the ...

cabin rotates and swivels sideways so that the occupants are still sitting upright and facing forward in the direction of travel. Alef intends to have the Model A certified for road use as a “low speed vehicle”, limited to 25 miles per hour.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://alef.aero/ Automotive companies of the United States Aerospace companies of the United States Aircraft manufacturers of the United States American companies established in 2009 Electric aircraft Manufacturing companies based in California Companies based in San Mateo, California Roadable aircraft Urban air mobility