can we just please get some normal, boring, safe, efficient trains that actually function instead of this gizmo bullshit?
Right? I’d love some decent trainage in the US.
But when I inevitably win the lottery and become a billionaire overnight I won’t want to share a filthy train car with other people, I’ll want flying taxis that charge $100 a kilometer.
Joby’s production aircraft is designed to transport a pilot and four passengers at speeds of up to 200 miles (321.87 kilometers) per hour, with a maximum range of 100 miles (160.93 kilometers). I
Back in my day we called these contraptions “helicopters”
And those were considered for use as “flying taxis” and they failed for the same reason these will: Flying and landing in cities is dangerous, which is why airports are built very far away.
It’s also expensive as fuck.
Even if you have electric flying helicopters, the rotary component makes them very expensive to maintain as blades and components need to be replaced sometimes every 500 hours or less and require constant safety checks and inspections.
Imagine how many taxi cabs have a malfunction of some sort every year. Now imagine that taxi cab crashing into a building or crowded street if it had a malfunction instead of just cruising to a halt on the side of the road.
Helicopters aren’t failures, people still use them to get from the city to an airport and back. However, they are very expensive.
The vehicles in this article have the same use case, but they are intended to be cheaper.
These drone cars won’t be cheap either.
Because it costs a lot more energy to keep something in the air and move it forward, than it is to move it forward on the road.
It was mostly a noise/airspace crowding concern, helicopters fly in cities all the time and plenty of roofs have active helipads.
That and seven people died when a helicopter tipped over over on top of a building
2 minutes, 21 seconds after touch down, at approximately 5:35 p.m., the right main landing gear of the helicopter failed and the S-61 rolled over to the right. All main rotor blades struck the concrete helipad. Four passengers who were waiting to board were struck by the blades and killed. One of the blades, 28 feet, 10 inches (8.787 meters) long and weighing 209.3 pounds (94.9 kilograms) flew out over the building’s railing and fell alongside the building before crashing through an office window on the 36th floor. The main rotor blade broke into two segments, one of which fell to the street below, striking a pedestrian and killing him.
The airline had two more accidents because helicopters are just an oil leak surrounded by a million parts that want to fly apart
7 people probably died in car accidents in the last hour, I guess cars are too dangerous to drive too.
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Yes, but also yes.
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I’ll never understand the eternal hype around “flying cars”. Fuckers out here can hardly drive on a 2d road. Now you want to introduce a third axis on them?
I guarantee that if the general public gets their hands on a real “flying car”, it’ll take about 2 weeks before some drunk idiot commits a mini 9/11.
Right? Cool, now the road goes over your house! Along with the Amazon drones.
The only way flying cars should ever get implemented is if they are 100% automatic.
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Create automatic taxi (impossible)
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Create flying taxi (impossible)
Okay, new plan!
- Create automatic flying taxi (should be possible in the next 5-15 years)
Not saying it’s a good idea, but a lot of the complexity surrounding automated driving is actually because you are confined to a 2D space and have to follow roads/road signs. When you can just lift off and adjust verticality to avoid objects all you really need is a way to detect and avoid obstacles and some navigation logic. Landing is probably the most difficult part to automate.
Not super easy but it is actually easier than self-driving cars (which is why almost all of a commercial flight is running on autopilot)
When you can just lift off and adjust verticality to avoid objects
You need to navigate between objects on an additional access. Also, manage speed and trajectory with a changing mass, as you exhaust fuel.
Not rocket science, but its close.
it is actually easier than self-driving cars (which is why almost all of a commercial flight is running on autopilot)
Commercial flight follows lanes of traffic with regular well-regulated flight paths.
One thing that gets helicopters and small engine aircraft pilots in trouble is that they don’t have any of that.
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The FAA mandates extensive training for anyone who wants to fly, regardless of the form of the aircraft. And even more training for commercial pilots (i.e. paying passengers).
Nothing in this article suggests that pilots of this vehicle would have less training than pilots of other aircraft.
That doesn’t make flying any less dangerous in general, and it’s already pretty dangerous as it is. Add to that a bunch of tiny little flying vehicles buzzing around, and it the odds of more mid-air collisions (and their result and ground crashes) rises significantly.
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Flying is less dangerous per capita because fewer people fly than drive and are required to have more training to fly commercially. But the is t true for these sorts of craft, and small engine aircraft are far more dangerous with a far higher rate of crashes. So are helicopters. And increasing the number of those aircraft and flights would only raise those numbers further.
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Large commercial aircraft with 2 trained pilots, air traffic control, a full flight crew, autopilot, and millions of dollars of advanced avionics.
These are not the same type of aircraft, nor are they the same caliber of pilots that will be flying them with 10,000+ hours of experience flying those types of craft. And there won’t be air traffic control to back them up, either. You’re comparing apples to oranges.
Edit: I suppose there will be ATC? But that opens a different can of worms and adds a huge burden to an already overtaxed system.
Major airlines have two pilots and expensive avionics. But “commercial aircraft” refers to all aircraft with paying passengers, including Cessnas with a single pilot that take a few passengers sightseeing. As I said, fatalities are extremely rare in any of these flights.
And all pilots are guided by air traffic control, from major airliners to solo private pilots. Air traffic control is meant to prevent mid-air collisions, an air traffic control system that ignored small aircraft would be pointless.
Per capita means per unit of people. So by definition the group size does not matter.
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The FAA mandates extensive training for anyone who wants to fly, regardless of the form of the aircraft.
Apparently not if the mass and maximum speed are both low enough. The Jetson One (which has been taking preorders for at least a couple of years but still isn’t shipping) says it won’t require a license in the US.
It looks pretty impractical, produces an obnoxious amount of wind during landing and takeoff, and has a range of only 30km, but, still… it or things like it probably will actually be a reality for some rich people pretty soon.
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& you are correct about airspace being regulated. Just because an ultralight doesn’t require a license doesn’t mean you can just fly it anywhere with no training on how to get airspace clearance either. I imagine they will eventually develop something like an automated version of the LAANC clearance process for drone pilots, but it will take a while to develop the regulations for sure, if they even get that far.
Drink idiots hit things in cars all the time.
Make the test to acquire your license actually difficult to the skill level required instead of the “you can take two left turns and park shitty, here’s your license” level of difficulty that most states use for road vehicles.
Dog if you make one mistake you can kill so many more people than in a crash. This is a horrible idea.
So require more training and certification for use?
Are you guys all seriously hung up on the word “car” here and trying to imply that eVTOLs can’t just come with its own infrastructure and pilot requirements independent of what we currently have?
It doesn’t have to be like cars, where the skill level of the driver can be non existent and still pass licensing.
I just can’t believe I’m in the tech community of a supposedly leftist website having to argue for a technology that beyond small local airstrips (literally a grass field with charging stations and basic rest stop equipment) needs no additional ground infrastructure.
The opposition? Begin large scale rail projects that will require we carve through a lot of natural resources as well as acquire the resources to build it with.
I just have to double check to make sure I didn’t fall into the wrong internet rabbit hole.
I got my driver’s license when I was 18, after studying for the test and practicing for several months on a learner’s permit.
Now I’m 40. I’ve never been retested. I have completely forgotten what’s on the exam. I’ve developed a whole bunch of bad driving habits, particularly with the advent of smart phones. And nobody is going to challenge my license renewal so long as I can pass an eye exam every 10 years.
Trains and Trams please and thank you
No. Only the promise of a single-person direct-to-destination fee-for-service that ends up being a giant scam.
We will never build mass transit in this country. You can’t make us.
Where America is going to come unstuck is with the electric car.
Either you guys are going to have to build up more electrical infrastructure which you don’t want to do, or you’re going to have to develop public transit options, would you also don’t seem to want to do.
Then the GOP will somehow try and turn it into a political issue (because they are lunatics) and nothing will get done, and then no one will be able to go anywhere because they will be stuck living in a country that is designed for a mode of transit that no longer exists, and no one has bothered to update it in any way. And then your kids are going to overthrow the government because they won’t be able to understand why everyone in Europe can go wherever they want.
A few major metro areas with big finance and tech sectors will get a bunch of pilot programs that cost way too much and never get fully implemented.
Then we’ll get told that the tech is too expensive and we can’t do it.
Meanwhile, China will be building a BRI that moves people at 600 mph from Beijing to Rabat.
Fuck that just built trams and trains
Do you have any idea how much time and resources it would take to construct high speed rail across the US compared to small local airstrips for VTOLs?
Yeah and think of how many more people a single five-person helicopter can move per hour! An obvious choice
Do you have a idea how much more efficient it would be?
Do you know how much more utility and efficiency actual public transport has?
Flying is a horrible option for short range public transport.
An order of magnitude less than carrying the same cargo via VTOLs.
Jesus fuck. It’s just like some auto execs to pull shit like this. Completely fuck up transportation infrastructure on the ground to your own benefit and everyone else’s detriment, then use your winnings to build taxis that can fly over the carnage you’ve wrought. We are living the Cyberpunk future.
Fucking waste of resources.
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So, we’re just gonna burn more fuel. Wtf. We need legislative change to prevent shit like this.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Around the world, electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL aircraft are entering the mainstream, though questions remain about noise levels and charging demands.
Still, developers say the planes are nearing the day when they will provide a wide-scale alternative to shuttle individual people or small groups from rooftops and parking garages to their destinations, while avoiding the congested thoroughfares below.
Joby’s decision to locate its first scaled manufacturing facility at a 140-acre (57-hectar) site at Dayton International Airport delivers on two decades of groundwork laid by the state’s leaders, Republican Lt. Gov.
Its financial package wasn’t the largest, but the chance to bring the operation to the birthplace of aviation — with a workforce experienced in the field — sealed the deal, he said.
Bevirt said operations and hiring will begin immediately from existing buildings near the development site, contingent upon clearing the standard legal and regulatory hurdles.
Toyota, a long-term investor, worked with Joby in 2019 to design and to successfully launch its pilot production line in Marina, California.
The original article contains 862 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’m hoping regulations get in the way of this. The FAA is barely comfy letting people fly a drone beyond line of sight with a waiver, fully automated flight for untrained passengers is going to take some doing.
Ohio is also the state which has the highest per-capita production of astronauts, with only New York and California producing more in terms of raw numbers.
I wonder, what is it about Ohio that encourages people to flee the planet with such zeal?
Ya, it’s almost like once you’ve seen Ohio you have this urge to get off the ground. The planet even, if possible. You no longer want to touch anything else attached to Ohio.
You’ve clearly never been to Cleveland.
Considering it has a scatological sexual act named after it, do I really want to?
Wasn’t there some controversy with who had the first flying machine? There was supposedly some guy in CT that flew an aircraft before the brothers?
EDIT - found this article Three states bicker over ‘first in flight’ claim
