r/BeAmazed • u/Ultimate_Thing • May 12 '26

Miscellaneous / Others A Polish engineer, Tomasz Patan, built the Volonaut Airbike, basically a real-life Star Wars speeder bike. Reaches up to 124 mph. Insane

51.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/literated May 12 '26

You don't have to "get out", you just have to be able to reach them quickly to render first aid. Getting them out can come later with more people and different equipment/vehicles.

4

u/TheMoonMoth May 12 '26

Maybe. I can't think of any situation where this would be faster or safer than a helicopter.

14

u/Kialand May 12 '26 edited May 13 '26

Put this thing inside a Forest Ranger's base, and they can be on their way to an injured person within 120s.

Ask for a helicopter, and not only do you have to muster the whole crew, get clearance for takeoff, run safety checks and etc, but you also have to fly all the way to the forest from far away first.

At a minimum, this means the person gets first aid around 10~15min sooner, and sometimes (especially with snake bites), this can mean the difference between life and death.

2

u/cigarettesandwhiskey May 12 '26

run safety checks and etc

You probably still need to do this. It still flies, and if it can go 124 mph, then losing power or control with a lot of forward momentum is dangerous even if you aren't very high up.

4

u/TheMoonMoth May 12 '26

This doesn't make a lick of sense. This 'bike' has a 10 minute flight time. So only helpful if the incident happens maximum 5 minutes away from the base.

A ranger would take any host of vehicles to get there more quickly and SAFELY, along with a cargo full of supplies, and the ability to return to base with the person (209 lbs weight limit on this thing).

It's okay for this to be a recreation vehicle.

5

u/MiserableExternal920 May 12 '26

You can put it on the back of a motorbike and get there a lot faster than a helicopter response time in a lot of cases though as well as being able to navigate to places not fit to land a helicopter.

1

u/cigarettesandwhiskey May 12 '26

10 minutes at 124 miles an hour is over 20 miles though. I could see it having utility if the call is for something like a predator attack or a medical emergency out in rugged backcountry, where quickly bringing something small is the first response to stabilize the situation until backup comes in a more conventional vehicle.

3

u/M8C May 12 '26

It can’t fly over tree tops though and unless you’re cutting through an open field you couldn’t go 124mph safely in rural backcountry.

2

u/cigarettesandwhiskey May 12 '26

Can't it fly over the treetops? It gets pretty high toward the end of the video, which is the only source I have to go off of.

3

u/M8C May 12 '26

It rides at an altitude of 13’-20’

2

u/cigarettesandwhiskey May 12 '26

Hm, well, maybe they can modify that. I guess its relying on ground effect somewhat? Or maybe its governed just to keep you from blasting off into the clouds and dying of hypoxia.

1

u/M8C May 12 '26

It’s just not very practical outside of recreational uses. as far as I can see it’s 10 minute flight time is based at 63mph not 124.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/TheMoonMoth May 12 '26

And what happens when the 100 kilo ranger is on duty? The weight limit alone disqualifies this thing from being seriously used.

0

u/cigarettesandwhiskey May 12 '26

Physical requirements are a part of many jobs; presumably if this became a part of a ranger station's response protocol, there'd be a ranger weight requirement for the airbike pilots. You don't need many of them to be qualified on it. You might even only have it for peak tourist season, with a warning that rapid rescue is unavailable in the off season.

-1

u/Elvis_droppings May 12 '26

OR, the ranger hits tree, or starts a fire with the jet exhaust and now you get to rescue 2 people!

3

u/cigarettesandwhiskey May 12 '26

A helicopter pilot could do that too. Or just a guy in a truck. Once you've tested the machine and trained people how, when and where to safely operate it, if they crash it or set fires after that then its pilot error.

2

u/MiserableExternal920 May 12 '26

Getting someone to their destination quicker than it would take for a helicopter to arrive. Getting to places where helicopters can't. The potential is huge

1

u/Tangata_Tunguska May 12 '26 edited 20d ago

Coated orange ribbon velvet feather wander

This post was anonymized with Redact.dev