You Can Finally Buy Your Own Flying Pod And Pilot It Without A License, But There Are Caveats

The future you were promised by science fiction is here! You can finally buy your own little electric flying pod to whisk you off to your next destination. Well, sort of. The Pivotal Helix is one of the first electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) that you can buy right now in America, and you don’t even need a pilot license to fly it. In theory, it’s aviation for everyone! But you should know that there’s a list of caveats, and they start with the fact that you basically can’t operate this anywhere but over rural America. Let’s dig in.

I’ve been following the story of the little Helix since my time over at the old site. There are countless startups out there all vying to create the best ultralight eVTOL. Many of these companies boast about changing the way we travel and opening the skies to everyone. But they’re selling products that are legally of limited practicality. Add six-figure price tags and these companies have come at odds with their missions. On the other hand, the folks of Pivotal, née Opener, have largely avoided trying to write checks the company’s product can’t cash. In fact, Pivotal comes right out and says that its aircraft is not a flying car, which is refreshing.

Now, you can buy Pivotal’s debut flying vehicle and it looks like a load of fun. Before you start checking your accounts, we should go over why the Helix, as well as every single ultralight eVTOL in development, are fun vehicles, but won’t be your commuter vehicle.

Pivotal

If the Helix eVTOL looks familiar, it’s because just last year the aircraft was called the BlackFly and Pivotal was named Opener Aero. The rebrand comes as the company’s debut aircraft enters its new generation, which brought some improvements that we’ll talk about later.

Development of Pivotal’s aircraft has been over a decade in the making. Back in August 2009, Canadian engineer Marcus Leng began the first stages of creating a fixed-wing all-electric VTOL aircraft. In October 2011, Leng took his first flight in his creation, the Rebel SkyKar, in Warkworth, Ontario, Canada. Flying on the success of his concept eVTOL, Leng founded his company in Canada. Then, in 2014, he rebranded the company as Opener Aero and moved most of its operations to Silicon Valley. Having his company in that location was strategic as he wanted access to the money that seemingly falls from the sky out there in addition to local engineering talent.

This seemed to do the trick, as development sped up while Opener Aero found investors such as Google co-founder Larry Page. The eVTOL, renamed the BlackFly, made a test flight in August 2014. The BlackFly would undergo flight testing while fully loaded at 200 pounds in 2015 before being refined into the BlackFly V2 in 2016. That eVTOL would see even more loaded flight testing through 2016 and 2017, including 10,000 miles of flying at its maximum payload of 200 pounds.

For many people, their first look at the Opener BlackFly happened in 2018, when the BlackFly made its first-ever manned flight. Later that year, the BlackFly dazzled crowds at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh when it took off and hovered around the flightline. That’s when it caught my attention.

Where the original Rebel SkyKar weighed 237 pounds empty and could only accomodate pilots under six feet tall weighing 160 pounds or less, the BlackFly was a more robust 343 pounds and could carry pilots over six feet tall and weighing up to 200 pounds. Opener also produced other specs, including 25 to 30 miles of range with an 8 kWh battery, a 62 mph cruising speed, a 1,200-foot operating ceiling, and a 500-foot-per-minute climb rate. Safety came in the form of triple redundancies, including the ability to keep flying even if one of the eight props stops operating. In a very worst-case scenario, the BlackFly even had a ballistic parachute system. The BlackFly also had a sophisticated flight system that simplified controls and in the event of an issue with the pilot, the eVTOL could even fly itself back to where it originally took off.

In 2018, Opener Aero said you’d get all of this wrapped up in a body of epoxy-impregnated carbon fiber. And since it complied with Federal Aviation Regulation Part 103, Ultralight Vehicles, you didn’t need a pilot license to fly one. The company said it was targeting sales that year with the first 25 units going for roughly the price of a luxury SUV.

It would take until 2023 for Opener to deliver its first BlackFly to a customer. By that time, the Opener team added tens of thousands of miles of flight testing to the BlackFly and refined it further. A few months after the first BlackFly delivery and first customer flight, Opener rebranded to Pivotal and the eVTOL became the Helix. So, what’s new with the eVTOL that Pivotal wants you to spend $190,000 on?

The Pivotal Helix

At its core, the Helix isn’t much different than the BlackFly that came before it. It’s a tilt eVTOL with tandem wings and eight motors. It seats just a single person and is designed to land just about anywhere, including water. However, Helix says water landings are limited to emergencies only. The body is still a carbon fiber composite, though its weight has increased to 348 pounds. The pilot weight limit has also increased by 20 pounds to 220 pounds.

The motors got an upgrade before the name change. During its development cycle, the BlackFly had eight motors producing 112 pounds of thrust each. Now, the thrust output is around 130 pounds for each motor. Each motor weighs about 4 pounds and there are two lithium batteries behind each motor, totaling 8 kWh of storage. These batteries are said to charge from 20 percent to 100 percent in 4.5 hours on a Level 1 charger and in 75 minutes on Level 2. Range, which includes a 20 percent reserve, is noted to be “20+ miles.”

In addition to the Helix’s ability to keep flying after motor failures, the motors can also feed off of another motor’s batteries if they need to. Today, Pivotal advertises a total static thrust of 960 pounds from all eight motors. As I observed at 2022’s EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the eVTOL flies by lifting itself off of the ground and then tilting to enter cruise. It does this with help from its motors, that way it doesn’t need tilting props or variable wings, cutting down potential points of failure.

Like the BlackFly, the Helix cruises at 63 mph, climbs 500 feet per minute and descends 500 feet per minute. Control is through a fly-by-wire system featuring sidesticks and electrical controls. In terms of safety, the Helix retains triple-redundant systems, an ADS-B transponder, beacon lights, a landing camera, and a ballistic parachute. The Helix also gets 4 split elevon pairs for additional redundancy. Pivotal also says that the Helix can land and take off with two dead motors if it needs to.

All of these features are driven by a software system designed to work in the background. The Helix can even take off and land by itself. In the cabin, there’s a panel feeding you flight data and navigation. Your flight should be pretty quiet, too. Pivotal says the Helix is quieter than an electric car. After seeing one fly in person, I can say the company is telling the truth. The Helix is so quiet that you can barely hear it buzzing by.

When you’re done flying your Helix, the eVTOL disassembles and fits into a 16-foot trailer. Amusingly, the assembly process takes 30 minutes, or longer than you’ll be able to fly it.

In addition to its quiet operation, I also like Pivotal’s attention to safety. Sure, you can fly the Helix without a license, but Pivotal requires every buyer to undergo a training course, which includes ground school, aircraft handling, flight training, sim practice, and more. So long as Pivotal’s course is close to the instruction you’d get from a certified flight instructor, you should come out of it knowing the basics of flight.

The Caveats

Alright, so the Helix is pretty cool. I’ve gotten to see the eVTOL take to the skies twice and it’s just as cool as videos make it out to be. I want to fly one of these one day because it’s a totally different flight experience than getting around in a Cessna 172. The Helix also just looks like a ton of fun.

However, there are some stipulations you should know. You’ve probably noticed that the specs of the Helix aren’t impressive. A range of over 20 miles isn’t incredibly useful, and it’s lame that you cannot carry a passenger. Well, the FAA Part 103 is the reason for that. The FAA is quite strict about ultralights. I mean, after all, you can legally fly one without any training.

Ultralights are legally limited to a single occupant. That person cannot use their ultralight for anything but recreation or sport purposes. The ultralight, if powered, cannot weigh more than 254 pounds empty; with exceptions for amphibious ultralights and the weight added by safety equipment. That’s how the Helix weighs 348 pounds.

In addition to those tight aircraft constraints, the ultralight cannot have more than the equivalent of 5 gallons of fuel onboard and the aircraft cannot exceed 55 knots (63 mph) at full power in level flight.

Ultralight operators are also limited in where and when they can fly their crafts. The FAA doesn’t allow ultralight pilots to fly at night and ultralights are largely limited to Class G uncontrolled airspace. Ultralights can fly in Class E controlled airspace if they aren’t flying near an airport and otherwise meet the other conditions.

Once you combine all of those limitations, piloting a Pivotal Helix is pretty much resigned to rural areas. There’s nothing wrong with that. Almost all of my flight hours thus far have been over the flat farmlands of Illinois. To its credit, Pivotal is quite open about its eVTOL’s legal limitations.

These restrictions are why none of these ultralight eVTOLs will change aviation as some companies claim. You aren’t flying an eVTOL to your job in the city and back, and it probably wouldn’t be wise to use one on a grocery run to Dollar General.

There are qualifications for the pilots themselves. You cannot weigh more than 220 pounds, be taller than 6′ 5″, or have a sitting height taller than 3′ 3″. The Helix also operates in areas up to 5,000 feet above sea level, and cannot operate in winds greater than 20 mph, or temperatures higher than 91 degrees. It also doesn’t fly in temperatures below 14 degrees.

More Expensive Than An SUV

The final part is price. While I’m certain almost anyone can fly a Helix, the eVTOL’s $190,000 base price might be hard to swallow for some. If you want a trailer for your Helix, a cart for detached wings, a radio, ADS-B, and the landing camera, that’ll be $240,000. If you want every possible feature, which includes an emergency locator transmitter, beacon lights, training for a second pilot, and custom paint, that’ll cost you $260,000.

That price is a far cry from the estimates of 2018 unless, by luxury SUV, Pivotal/Opener meant more expensive than a Mercedes-Benz AMG G63. A decent Cessna 172 Skyhawk will set you back about $130,000 today. Flight training can cost between $10,000 and $20,000. Where I live, 100LL aviation gas averages $6.31 a gallon. The Cessna flies faster, higher, and for longer, for less money. Maybe the Cessna 172 is too rich for your blood? You could get a Cessna 150 for $50,000 or less. Vintage planes and other ultralights get even cheaper.

Update: To be clear, a Cessna isn’t really a comparable aircraft, and pilots of them still have to deal with licensing and the FAA. The Helix also sounds far safer than an old piston aircraft. The comparison is to show that aviation doesn’t have to be a six-figure hobby.

Pivotal says its target customers are anyone who wants to enjoy flight, from people who are pilots to people who aren’t. The idea is that the Helix will open the skies to a wider variety of people than aviation currently does. I’m not sure the price achieves that. Pivotal does say it expects the Helix to be more than for recreation but perhaps turn into a platform for defense or public service. Maybe that’s the future.

If you do have the kind of cash the Helix commands, you can start your purchase process at Pivotal Aero. The company charges $250 to place an order, then a deposit of $50,000 within five days after. Eventually, you’ll get a spot in the production line and be able to schedule training. Pivotal expects customer orders to begin shipping again on June 10.

All of this said, perhaps I’m being too hard on Pivotal. This machine looks like a ton of fun and I bet buyers will be getting a ton of smiles for their money. Certainly, you’ll be a celebrity at local air shows! I think if Pivotal figured out how to lower that price, perhaps by half or more, then it would get much closer to achieving that goal of getting more people into flight. So, I’ll keep watching these small eVTOLs evolve, maybe one day they can become an affordable commodity.

(Images: Pivotal Aero, unless otherwise noted.)