"Lost rotor blades" - any details would be appreciated --was it FOD or something else? Did it crash because of loss (pinwheel even )? any link or source..... presume you are the designer of the tailless hang glider -- Bryan Allen has commented on the similar Archer eVTOL from not dissimilar background. Looked like a technical enthusiasm rather than a practical transport tool. TAKEOFF noise was . was around 65 dB. --that is the significant figure for any near ground use.

VTOL is the Problem, STOL might be a Better Goal! Increase the 30' x 30' Zone, to 30' x 250' Strip, might be more energy efficient for launching, as well!

@@robertweekley5926 Hint; Don't "LAND" at all --if your 'launching apparatus' is ABOVE ground -even the mythical 50ft obstacle -- then you don't need ANY 'terra firma' and going to extreme lengths (VTOL) to 'save' landing space is futile ....... but it was Larry's playmoney ( I tried to contact google via it's Melbourne office but their numbers are fictitious and the office staff are just warming seats with no knowledge or interest in any of the other google 'spaceshot' activities -- Larry paid for the ill fated "Centennial challenge' under Mark Moore --that fizzled and as Paige observed "nonbody is watching " .

That is not what happened.

@@rays14ful Are you responding to my (Ross Nolan) comment? if so what part ? or if not who ?-- are you associated with kitty hawk or Heaviside ? Is your comment about the 'centennial challenge " - nothing is clear . This aircraft is obviously the result of a lot of skilled work and engineering time, money etc and seems to work exactly as they expected (even exceeded their calculations ) so the big question is - WHAT went wrong ? My comments were meant to try to address that basic question since they obviously persisted with it for a long time -and judging by the number of different vehicles (or did they just keep repainting the prototype ? -we don't see two of them together....) and the number of test flights . It is clearly much more efficient than the Blackfly or Kitty Hawk (twin pontoon ) which are truly misbegotten creations -- it looks like the 'team' got immersed in writing code, solving control algorithms, layup schedules etc etc - all the DETAILED minutae that is fascinating and engrossing for newly minted engineering graduates and gives easily measured 'milestones' BUT it looks like the OVERALL CONCEPTION was lost sight of ; as in my earlier post -- what was the typical use scenario ? What becomes of it after you get 'there'? The configuration has pluses and minuses versus a tractor arrangement 'blowing' the wing and would be expected to be a bit more noisy (maybe a LOT) with the wing and canard wake entering the props (the B 36 was horrendously noisy as was the Piaggio amphibian and the much later Avanti -- all those had relatively draggy nacelles in front but still had the wing wake issue - the Ezes, Seabee and XB 42 et al were typically very noisy - not a good starting point perhaps ,and "@ 1500 ft" is a bit of a cheat if comparing other aircraft . The 65dB at take off IS loud -as it would be on landing and probably even more in the landing FLARE (just as helicopters doing a flare landing are louder than in hover )-- I suspect that this was one of the show stoppers but mainly the what do you DO with it issue. Sailplane inspired (like the Joby S3 in fact) but sailplanes are impractical in any real sense - it looks like they had a mononwheel landing gear at one point also . when chasing "efficiency" it is easy to overlook the bedrock fact that efficiency is measured as OUTPUT/INPUT --if there is NO output then n = zero.