Gelisim News

With the developing technology, there are many developments that cars will travel both on land and in the air in the future. In this sense, many institutions and organizations continue to work with the technological infrastructure and reveal examples. Istanbul Gelisim University Mechatronics Department in order to keep pace with global developments and also to support the national flying car technology is still working in Turkey for many years. The flying car Tusi, which first met with technology lovers in 2019 at TEKNOFEST and was highly appreciated, started test drives this year as well. The vehicle, which successfully completed the indoor test drives, made an open area test drive at Başakşehir Şehit Erdem Özçelik Stadium. Saying that they will continue all the necessary work for the vehicle after the test drives, Mechatronics Department Instructor Umut Us said, “After our trials, we will start more ambitious flight tests.”

“WE GET THE RESULTS WE WANT”

Providing detailed information about Tusi and also being an R&D Engineer at the University's Technology Transfer Office, Umut Us said: “The vehicle is currently built on a hexacopter infrastructure with 6 motors and its current weight is 100 kg and it can travel a person of 80 kg. In terms of flight range, it has a range of 30 kilometers in the air and 160 kilometers on land. It is powered by electricity and can fly for 8-9 minutes with a thrust value of approximately 180 pounds after a charge of 2-2.30 hours. Our test flights are currently around 10 meters. When we exceed a certain limit, the wind resistance in the air is activated. Since it is the first prototype, I can say it is enough for us. Based on these, we achieve the results we want.”

“WE WILL MAKE MORE CHALLENGING FLIGHT TESTS”

Us also said that they are very pleased with the support provided by the university and added: “Thanks to the innovative approach of our university, we are working on many projects with our teammates and we have come this far. In fact, the design process of our flying car project started in 2018. It came to the testing stages after leaving various production stages. We actually conducted our indoor test flights. We also conducted various studies on our open air test flights. As of today, I can say that we will now perform a much more challenging flight test.”

“A PROJECT FOR THE FUTURE”

Lastly, Us said: “We are not doing the flying car project just to say that we have done it, it is a project we do for the future. We are planning to make this realizable with various investments in the future and we really want to make our flying car a travelable structure by getting a person inside. As you know now, in accordance with the Civil Aviation Rules, transporting people is a difficult and troublesome process. That's why we do our tests by placing them within an 80-pound weight.”

Abdulkadir Gayretli, The Cahirman of the Board of Trustees of IGU, stating his satisfaction with the realized test drives, said: “We will continue to work in order Turkey to become the leading country in flying car technology.”