Edgley-Peebles Optifan

[steelpillow]

Some of you may recall the FanWing concept, the "lawnmower of the skies" cross-flow fan proposed by Patrck Peebles. He got some funding, flew a few drones, sparked some academic research, and died the usual death by indifference. Here is a concept produced at the time, for a light V/STOL observation craft:



It came a good few years after Edgley had built the odd prototype of their Optica STOL project for the same role, before dying the same death (apologies for the crude background):



What if Edgley had survived long enough for Peebles to team up with them and mate an Optica forward fuselage with a FanWing type wing and outboard tail, the Edgley-Peebles Optifan?

I shall probably never get to kitbash an Optica with a couple of toy lawnmowers, but I can dream. Might even try to get an AI to render it - with a rather better background than my Optica effort.

[Rheged]

I had a go at an Optica backstory some time ago.   https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=47918.msg884015#msg884015.   I wish I'd known about this wondrous flying machine you have brought before us;  it would have been  fascinating to incorporate!

I await with interest your "flying lawn mower" model...................and the best of British luck with it!!

[steelpillow]

I had a go at an Optica backstory some time ago.  https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=47918.msg884015#msg884015.  I wish I'd known about this wondrous flying machine you have brought before us;  it would have been  fascinating to incorporate!

Like it a lot!

Peebles began his work not long before the Panopticon launch. What is clearly (my mistake above) the VTOL-capable Sarum-Peebles Optifan would not be produced until some years later, when the original and smaller Optica had run out of STOL-only refresh options. It would prove so successful that the casevac variant of the larger Panoptifan is the most popular emergency medical airlifter on the market today. The smaller military DroneFan remains as much a niche product as the several drone mini-helicopters competing for the same market.

[Charlie_c67]

With a name like Peebles, he's got to be Scottish surely?

[steelpillow]

With a name like Peebles, he's got to be Scottish surely?

Not Shirley, Patrick.

Scottish ancestors for sure. Born and bred in the UK, but since FanWing Ltd. folded I believe he has gone off to the US to do whatever he normally does over there.