M200X

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been struggling to find some cool stuff to post about Freedom Motors this week – mostly I’ve been doing paperwork related to our fundraising and its totally boring and I can’t even talk about it.  So what else to share?

Today I thought I would just blog briefly about the Neuera.  I have shared this video in the past on FB, but it is one of my favorites.  It is raw footage of the M200X taken by the media during it first public test flight, in 1989.  No audio, because in those days the audio engineer ran around with his own equipment and it was added to video later.

The M200x was the prototype craft developed to test the Rotapower engines and a stability system.  The stability system was a custom designed analog electrical system that managed all 8 engines.

The modern Neuera design which Moller International has been working on makes many updates to this earlier design.   Originally the M200X was just a prototyping platform, but there was a lot of interest in the design for practical uses, like Search & Rescue, Border Patrol and Agriculture.  So, the M200X was brought back to life as the Neuera.

In the new design, each engine has it’s own ECU and a Avionics system package that manages the orientation of that one engine.  The engines all operate independently to maintain stability on that one axis (vertical Y).  Throttle and directional controls are used to bias the engine systems for flight control (up/down, left/right, forward/back).  Yaw is controlled by redirection vanes under 4 of the engines (although, this will go away in the production version).  Also, the M200X was very noisy.  The Neuera will be much far quieter because it will use a far more powerful exhaust and muffling system.  (And even quieter once we adapt compound engines).

This video has a couple different view points, but I really like the shots toward the end, with the camera giving a wider angle and more close in telephoto shots.  You get a real feel for how high Paul was flying the M200X that day.  You will also see a few points where the M200X pulls against the tether – the crane operator had to continually adjust the length of the line to prevent it from getting too slack or too tight – but once in a while Paul pulled against the line, and you can see the M200X re-level itself.  Keep in mind this was an analog control system –  no flight computers.  Those appeared later in the Skycar M400 prototype.

Just for fun, I’m including a couple clips which are 16mm tape transfers that show some footage of the XM-2.  The XM-2 was a ground-effect only craft, covered by Patent 3,410,507.

The second video has some footage of Paul teaching at UC Davis.  And yeah, that XM-2 was a bucking bronco, no doubt.

Update: The YouTube channel Warped Perception started a series on the Wankel rotary engine.   These guys use high speed cameras and modified engines to show you visually what is going on inside the combustion chamber.   I posted this on our FB page, but thought it would be nice to share here as well.   I will post any new shows they upload related to the rotary.

Best Regards – Dave