When your portfolio includes a machine possessing the world’s largest production motorcycle engine, bragging rights come easy…
The Cavorite X5 was never intended to be an EVTOL (Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing) concept. It was originally imagined as an electric amphibious vehicle, like the RC-3 Seabee from the 1940s. But after realising the long range vertical lift system belonged somewhere more useful/marketable, Canadian startup Horizon Aircraft went the hybrid plane/copter route.
The X5 was named after a cool gravity-defying metal from the HG Wells’ 1901 novel, The First Men In The Moon, which could cancel out the effects of gravity. The plane shares similar characteristics — able to hover vertically before taking flight like a ‘normal’ plane. That hover/flight is courtesy of a hybrid-electric powertrain with the bulk of the power coming from an LS V8 engine.
It sports the design of a sleek stealth-bomber, and comes with wings that split open like a Transformer to reveal multiple fans underneath. These fans help the EVTOL take off and land vertically (like a helicopter), while the outer covers close to turn the X5 into a fighter wing-based aircraft that can hit speeds of up to 350 km/h. Its range ain’t bad either, travelling to 500 km with cargo or passengers — or 1000 km without.
Science fiction had us believe you could have a helicopter that could grow wings and fly like a jet. Now that Horizon are currently working on a 1:6 scale version which will see production as early as 2024, the sci-fi wet dream is becoming a reality. ■
By Bill Varetimidis
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