Scott Edsall designed the Spectres more than a decade ago and purchased an Allison jet turbine engine to power his craft. The project sat unfinished until last year when development restarted and Edsall is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for the Spectres.
The design of the Spectres looks sleek and futuristic, for me the big draw is the tilt rotor blades now driven by modified piston engines. The blade configuration allows for vertical takeoff and landing along with ten degree vectoring for low speed vertical flight.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1614073669/iceu-spectres
Wings house fuel cells that give the craft a long flight range. The rotors are also protected by the round wing enclosures when flying at near ground altitudes. The carbon fiber body is self-stabilizing and will be balanced by a combination of gyroscopes, accelerometers and gps. Dry weight of the entire craft is expected to be around 160 pounds.
Kickstarter funding will be used to continue development of the flight control systems and begin the process of vertical flight testing. $100,000 is being sought before the Kickstarter campaign ends on April 10, 2015.
Spectres is an incredibly ambitious project that has a great positive energy surrounding the prototype itself and a well-polished campaign video. Pixie is the daughter of Edsall and acts as the narrator for the video, discussing the various details of the aircraft.
Search and rescue operations, aerial photography and surveillance industries would all benefit from a fully implemented fleet of Spectres. Flight controls are being developed to allow for an umanned version of the Specrtres in the future. The Risks and Challenges portion of the campaign page shows that Edsall understands the massive scale of this project and is ready to work through the problems will undoubtedly arise during development.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1614073669/iceu-spectres