Hoverbike: Pentagon taps Maryland firm to help develop flying motorcycle

It’s not quite the flying jetpack we’ve been promised, but a half-helicopter, half-motorcycle personal flying machine could soon be the new face of drone technology.

A British firm has just won a key Pentagon contract to develop the single-seat “Hoverbike” — the latest attempt to revolutionize military transportation and disaster relief, but one that may also provide a jolt for the consumer market as well.

The Department of Defense announced last week that one of its engineering companies, Belcamp, Maryland-based SURVICE Engineering Co., is teaming up with Malloy Aeronautics, based in England’s Berkshire County, to begin developing Hoverbike prototype technology.

“Our role as a DoD engineering consulting firm is to look for new technologies that can be introduced into the military,” said Mark Butkiewicz, SURVICE’s manager of Applied Technology Operation. “We identified the Hoverbike a couple of years ago and we’ve been following it ever since. One thing led to another and we established a partnership and pursued military funding to take the Hoverbike to the next level.”

Maryland Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, attending this month’s Paris Air Show, was on hand to hail the announcement, which included a new joint U.S. office next to the state’s Aberdeen Proving Grounds to do more developmental work. A prototype of the Hoverbike was on display at the Paris show, the aerospace industry’s annual showcase.

Developers are calling the Hoverbike, which attracted key financing through a Kickstarter crowd-funding drive, “the world’s first flying motorcycle,” but it’s also supposed to be a valuable tool to militaries. It can be used to transport troops over rough terrain, move supplies or even function as an overhead surveillance tool.

But Mr. Butkiewicz said one of the more overlooked capabilities of the Hoverbike is its potential to serve isolated disaster relief zones after earthquakes, floods and other extreme weather events that normal emergency responders usually have difficulty accessing. A lone rescue worker could fly into inaccessible areas to deliver medicine and food.

“A lot of people wrap themselves around the military aspect, but the Hoverbike was originally designed and developed for those kinds of applications,” Mr. Butkiewicz said.

“When you think about hurricanes and natural disasters, where they have a hard time getting personnel and evacuating responders, or you simply don’t have the resources or enough pilots or vehicles at your disposal, there’s a role for the Hoverbike. I think that’s something that is near and dear to Malloy Aeronautics and one of the reasons why they got into the business,” he added.

(A video of the Hoverbike in action can be seen at https://www.hover-bike.com/MA/media.)

Hoverbike advocates are touting the new aircraft as a cheaper and safer alternative to regular helicopters and drones, which are more costly to run and are built without human protection rotors. Developers also said that the craft — which resembles an electronic drum set with a seat in the center, with four horizontal rotors providing lift — can maneuver in tight spaces much more effectively than bulky helicopters. It can even be folded up and packed into a bag the size of a small suitcase.

The original Hoverbike was built by Chris Malloy in his garage in Australia, according to the company’s website. What started out as a hobby quickly become an international commercial enterprise. In July 2014, Mr. Malloy started a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, a crowd-funding platform where online users can donate to various causes, pledging to raise roughly $47,000 to put the Hoverbike on the market and improve its development. By the end of the fundraising period, he had raised over $100,000.

Mr. Butkiewicz predicted the Hoverbike will be on the market in about three to five years, but “it could be sooner if additional funding is available.”