NASA’s Langley Aerodrome No. 8 is an Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Drone You Probably Never Knew Existed

NASA’s Langley Aerodrome No. 8 (LA-8) is essentially a distributed all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone currently being used for wind tunnel testing as well as free flight testing at the agency’s Langley Research Center. The goal of this project is to create a low-cost, modular test bed for technologies in the area of Advanced Air Mobility which includes electric urban and short regional flight.

This eVTOL was specially designed so that NASA researchers can try as many different technologies as needed in order to gather data to better understand how electric aircraft can help make Urban Air Mobility become a reality. Important tests include studying how to help an aircraft land safely after losing a propeller or an electric motor and also finding ways to handle gusty wind conditions. We just hope that the Porsche Vision Renndienst gets turned into a flying aircraft of sorts in the future.

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The 65 pound LA-8 UAS has an extensive data recording system that can record many flight parameters including airspeed, altitude, pilot inputs, flight control outputs, IMU data, power use, and motor RPM,” said NASA.