BBTB2 t1_jbhs1wx wrote on March 9, 2023 at 3:15 AM

Reply to comment by uncoolcat in We live in the Jetsons now. A Flying Motorbike Company Gets Listed on the Nasdaq by jwright100

They just came out with some new propeller designs that are pretty quiet… for water. Fluid engineering says this should, at some point, be applicable to above-water propeller tech.

nonameworks t1_jbhwsnp wrote on March 9, 2023 at 3:54 AM

You’re mixing things up. There are commercial toroidal propellers for boats, they have been in production for years, but cost $5000 each.

MIT recently developed toroidal propellers that they demonstrated with a quad rotor drone. No reason they couldn’t be scaled up to fit this. But the question is will they, not can they.

BBTB2 t1_jbhz5pt wrote on March 9, 2023 at 4:15 AM

I thought they weren’t really produced until a couple years ago.

Also apparently MIT (of course) is already trying them on air-based drones: https://newatlas.com/aircraft/toroidal-quiet-propellers/