Rafi Yoeli () is an Israeli pilot, inventor, designer of two 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 ...

Tactical Robotics Cormorant The Tactical Robotics Cormorant, formerly AirMule or Mule, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) codename Pereira (shapiyriyt; ': Dragonfly), is a flying car unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built by Tactical Robotics Ltd., a subsidiary of designer Rafi Yoel ...

), and CEO of Urban Aeronautics Ltd., which he founded in

Yavne Yavne () is a city in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel. In 2022, it had a population of 56,232. Modern Yavne was established in 1949. It is located near the ruins of the ancient town of Yibna (known also as Jamnia and Jab ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

in 2000.

Early life and education

Yoeli was born in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

, circa 1950, and later served as a reserve

officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...

in the

Israeli Air Force The Israeli Air Force (IAF; , commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial and space warfare branch of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Indep ...

. He attended

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public university, public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 by Jews under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the coun ...

Career

Following his Israeli Air Force service, Yoeli joined Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd., then was with

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

for 18 months. In 1989, Yoeli founded Aero Design & Development Ltd (AD&D, Ltd.), acting as managing director. In 2001, he started his own company in Israel, Urban Aeronautics, to develop "robots and flying machines." During the 2000s and 2010s, Yoeli designed and tested the

, formerly AirMule or Mule, a

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

(UAV), built by Tactical Robotics Ltd., another subsidiary of Urban Aeronautics Ltd.

Designer

Yoeli envisioned a hovering vehicle similar to helicopters, but with rotors below the cockpit and passenger seating above it. He developed a plan for a flying rescue vehicle that, while still able to hover, would not have the restrictions that

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s have, due to

rotor ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers. To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was initially made up primarily of WWII-era syst ...

s, enabling his flying car to work in crowded terrains as in a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

, where rescue would normally be much harder or impossible. Though initially designing a flying car modeled after a

sports car A sports car is a type of automobile that is designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as Automobile handling, handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving, and Auto racing, racing capability. Sports cars originated in ...

; Yoeli realized that a car modeled after a

rescue Rescue comprises responsive operations that usually involve the saving of life, removal from danger, liberation from restraint, or the urgent treatment of injury, injuries after an incident. It may be facilitated by a range of tools and equipm ...

vehicle would sell more successfully. Urban Aeronautics Ltd. was founded to officially develop the concept of the Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk. In an interview with Swedish

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

Aftonbladet (, lit. "The evening paper") is a Swedish language, Swedish daily tabloid newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. It is one of the largest daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. History and profile The newspaper was founded by Lar ...

''; Yoeli stated that his flying car, the X-Hawk, would be developed for both

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

and civilian

personal Personal may refer to: Aspects of persons' respective individualities * Privacy * Personality * Personal, personal advertisement, variety of classified advertisement used to find romance or friendship Companies * Personal, Inc., a Washington, ...

use. The flying car was scheduled to be available to consumers in 2020, at a cost of about $3.2 million

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

References

External links

*, Urban Aeronautics Israeli inventors Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{Israel-engineer-stub