Who has never dreamed of flying like a bird, without the noise of an engine disturbing the tranquility of the sky? Whisper Aero, an emerging startup in the field of aeronautics, claims to have created electric motors for aircraft that are 20% more efficient and one hundred times quieter than anything else on the market.
I'll rephrase that: Whisper Aero may be about to fundamentally change the face of aviation.
Drones and eVTOL: from promise to problem
Drones and eVTOL (vertical take-off and landing aircraft) are increasingly becoming a reality of our daily lives. But there is a problem, and a significant one: the noise.
A drone constantly buzzing overhead can quickly become a nuisance. For this Whisper Aero has raised $40 million in funding (and other substantial military funding). The mission? Do not rumble: whisper.
Silent flight engineering
The technology behind this promise is a highly efficient and ultra-discreet electric propeller jet. Inside the Whisper propulsion unit, there is a “propulsion disk”: essentially a fan with an unusually high number of stiff, sturdy blades.
Thanks to this large number of blades, Whisper claims to have moved the "blade passage frequency" beyond 16.000 Hz, making the noise produced inaudible to the human ear. And to other ears? But fear not, animal lovers: Mark moore, co-founder and CEO of Whisper, assures that these flights will be silent even for dogs.
A flight into the future
These multi-bladed fans, Moore says, can spin “much, much slower than any propeller or turbine.” Additionally, Whisper says it has demonstrated rotor efficiencies up to 92%, “even with fan diameters of 6 inches (15 cm).”
Not just engines, however. To give an idea of the possible applications of its engines for silent flight, Whisper Aero also presented a scale prototype called “Whisper Jet”. It is a plane that looks like it came out of a science fiction film: it can carry a pilot and nine passengers. Up to 322 km (200 miles) on a single battery charge, and speeds up to 463 km/h (288 mph), with a normal runway take-off and landing. With a hybrid system the range could be extended to 800 km (500 miles).
With lower noise and higher efficiency, Whisper may have found the key to the future of electric aviation. While waiting to see where this technology will lead, we too remain silent.
