8 ms·

I have to say I'm impressed. This is a game changer for several reasons. The first is that full autonomy is much easier in aviation than with ground transport.

• monkmartinez 10y ago
  I am squarely middle class... how in the hell would I be able to afford this, pilot training, maintenance and more if I can't afford to buy a 1960's Cessna 172? Nevermind the maintenance, training and more? Flying cars for the masses are a delusional pipe dream.
  • fredley 10y ago
    If it's fully autonomous, which as has been noted is easier for aviation, you don't buy it, you rent it for a few minutes.
    • timothycrosley 10y ago
      Imagine ordering a Lyft and this show up. This is amazing.
      • jl6 10y ago
        I laughed at the thought that you might one day use a ride sharing app and forget to specify that you wanted a car.
  • drspacemonkey 10y ago
    They're aiming to make it a taxi service. You wouldn't have to own one or deal with maintenance, you'd just pay the $X for your trip. And if it's fully autonomous (which it appears to be), then you -- as a passenger -- wouldn't have to be licensed any more than if you were flying commercial. I have no idea what sort of regulatory hurdles would exist or how easily they'd be overcome. But the fact that they've already built the plane would indicate that they've already taken that into consideration.
    • dragonwriter 10y ago
      > And if it's fully autonomous (which it appears to be), It's clearly not, since they describe situations in which onboard systems would provide notifications to "the pilot" directing them to land the plane.
  • Jarwain 10y ago
    alistproducer2 is operating under the premise that full autonomy, or a self-driving VTOL is easier than self-driving cars, or at least that flying cars for the masses would hinge on top-tier automagical flying to deal with the training issue. A fleet of these forming an aerial taxi service would be the next step
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    The vision is an air taxi service serving the public, not personal aircraft owned or piloted by members of the general public.
  • Veratyr 10y ago
    > The first is that full autonomy is much easier in aviation than with ground transport. > potentially for everyone if the economics of sharing these works out where regular folks could afford to hail these and the system could scale. The idea is: - You don't need pilot training - The cost of the aircraft is shared among many people. You're not meant to buy one for yourself, you're meant to hail it like a taxi or Uber. Plus, the only price I could find for a 1960s Cessna 172 is $12k. If you can't afford that, you can't buy a decent car either.
    • khedoros1 10y ago
      > Plus, the only price I could find for a 1960s Cessna 172 is $12k. Seems unusually low, compared to the offer prices listed here: http://www.aircraftdealer.com/aircraft_for_sale/Cessna_172/94/page-1.htm http://www.aircraftdealer.com/aircraft_for_sale/Cessna_172/9...
      • Veratyr 10y ago
        I was looking at this, though I admittedly know little about purchasing used aircraft: https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Single+Engine+Piston&make=CESSNA&model=172A+SKYHAWK&listing_id=2264440&s-type=aircraft https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Single+...
        • khedoros1 10y ago
          Ditto, I just though it might be useful to look at a larger sample size (taking "a 1960's Cessna 172" as more of a general example than an exact requirement).
      • ams6110 10y ago
        Even if it's a real price, that's hardly the only cost to owning an airplane, if you actually fly it.
        • khedoros1 10y ago
          Similarly, the purchase price of a car isn't the only cost of owning it. Someone else later in the thread broke down small plane ownership costs (about $8000, without flying, about $10k if you actually want to fly some). I was just replying to the price comparison with a car. Going up the thread, part of the premise was that they couldn't afford to buy a Cessna "Nevermind the maintenance, training and more". Anyhow, the point's already been made (several times) that the purchase price isn't the only consideration.
  • gfodor 10y ago
    And don't forget about fuel. My horse, for example, costs me only $50/mo to keep well fed and gives me transportation year round. These sound like a huge drain on the wallet just to keep them running.
    • atomical 10y ago
      You ride it to work?
    • rhino369 10y ago
      Horses were and are pretty expensive.
    • pjc50 10y ago
      I think that underestimates the TCO of horses - shoes, medical care, grooming etc!
    • mbfg 10y ago
      $300/month is a more realistic figure.
  • poultron 10y ago
    You dont afford it. You hail it like an uber. And its autonomous, so you dont need a pilots license. And because its picking up and dropping off dozens and dozens of 'rides' a day, the cost is shared by the user base. A short flight 2 hours away could be $100. Hell of a lot better than spending your time stuck in traffic. Also begins the process of easing congestion on highways.
    • felipemnoa 10y ago
      The other thing is that they could still be flown a few feet above ground but without an actual road. It would eliminate the need to maintain a road system and if the thing fails at least it will not be the high altitude crash landing that kills you( although traveling at 300km/hour and loosing power will still be really bad even if you are just a few feet above ground). I think it would make it an easier sell to the public. [Edit] Obviously I know nothing about aviation. So based on the comments below I stand corrected.
      • nradov 10y ago
        That's totally unrealistic. Low altitude flight is extremely dangerous due to the risk of hitting trees, towers, power lines, hills, etc. Military helicopter pilots are well trained and have good equipment but they still have frequent crashes during low-level training missions. If anything goes wrong you impact the ground and die with no chance to recover. The general public won't tolerate that level of risk, and the FAA would certainly never permit it.
    • chriswarbo 10y ago
      > And because its picking up and dropping off dozens and dozens of 'rides' a day, the cost is shared by the user base. I imagine charging time would be an issue; there would have to be well-stocked supplies of batteries near each dropoff point, and some way to quickly swap them out.
  • olegkikin 10y ago
    $39K for 1967 Cessna 172 seems affordable http://www.aircraftdealer.com/aircraft-for-sale-detail/Cessna-172/1967-CESSNA-172-SKYHAWK/63165.htm http://www.aircraftdealer.com/aircraft-for-sale-detail/Cessn...
    • base698 10y ago
      Annuals are at least $1000 a year, with insurance, taxes, and other costs you'd probably spend $8K a year to have it sit not flying. Add in flying costs and engine reserve you'd spend $10K or more a year. Source: Am a pilot.
      • danderino 10y ago
        Taxes for what exactly? Insurance is about ~600 a year from what I gather. So not sure how you go from 1k to 8k
        • Justin_K 10y ago
          When you have large assets, the gov makes sure to charge property tax.
        • base698 10y ago
          Local tax of a few hundred up to $1k, $300 loan a month, insurance is more like $1200 depending on experience. Hangar and tie down fees...
          • danderino 10y ago
            Cant find anything on taxes on personal aircraft (past purchase of course). Loan? Hangers are indeed expensive depending on the area, but tie down fees are like $60 a month
            • Eugr 10y ago
              Many states/counties have a property tax on airplanes. But compared to other costs (insurance, maintenance, fuel) it's a drop in the bucket.
• pdelbarba 10y ago
  I'm calling bullshit. See my calculations in the other thread. ~1600lbs of batteries to hit their specs with current tech and that's VERY generous. Likely closer to 2k. Lipo capacity going up at 5% a year so 2025 isn't happening unless new battery tech is announced and commercialized in the next 8 years. Also, steering appears to be entirely based on differential thrust. Power loss = uncontrolled descent. Good luck getting that certified...
  • joshuahaglund 10y ago
    I'm not a pilot, but the fan pods are flaps, so I think there's some steering there. Also, it has a full aircraft parachute as a last resort.
    • pdelbarba 10y ago
      Air frame parachutes are great at high altitude but under ~500ft (where you're going to have the highest load on your electrical system during landing/takeoff) they do absolutely nothing. As far as the flaps, they are not sufficient for controlled flight. Increasing the angle of one of them increases both lift and drag on that wing so you have at best a dutch roll/adverse yaw and at worst a flat spin.
    • Jtsummers 10y ago
      https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/helicopter_flying_handbook/media/hfh_ch11.pdf https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/a... Helicopters, as opposed to this vehicle, have the ability to be controlled even when power is lost. This is a much safer failure mode for personal aircraft then depending on a chute: useless at altitudes high enough to be fatal but low enough to result in a failed chute deployment. Similarly, winged aircraft can glide, where this one cannot, given enough forward velocity. This thing will drop like a rock in an incidence of power failure at low altitude and the operator will have no way to control where it hits the ground (for either their safety or the safety of those on the ground).
  • aphextron 10y ago
    That's why this is so frustrating. It seems like everyone is just missing the point. Flying cars are not a mechanical design problem. We have the tools, engines, designs, etc. all nailed down at this point. Any aerospace engineering grad could design a flying car tomorrow if the energy source existed in such a density that would make it feasible. It is fundamentally an energy problem, not a mechanical one. Maneuvering around that fact, and spending time on problems that aren't solving the core issue of battery technology is a massive waste of resources.
• erentz 10y ago
  It would be cheaper (and far more effective) to just run a rail line to the exurbs in question. Why don't we do that first if connecting them is that valuable/important.
  • poultron 10y ago
    Because fundamentally thats still less convenient for the customer. In a perfect world, you want to be picked up from your front door and dropped off at the front door of your destination. And if you can avoid highways and traffic, even better. This provides the infamous 'last mile' solution to transportation, instead of forcing everyone onto mainline routes and artery networks.
    • chriswarbo 10y ago
      I don't see something like this scaling in the way that a rail network can. Shuttling a few people at a time won't be enough for morning/evening rush hour, you'd need loads of these to match the carrying capacity of a train, and then you've reinvented the problem of traffic (although presumably much less dense; e.g. I imagine you'd join a queue and have to wait until the airspace isn't congested before your journey is permitted). That's also an optimistic outlook. One contributor to traffic is people using a whole car just for themselves; since we've not figured that out after several decades of having cars, I doubt making them fly will solve the problem. I can imagine niches for this, and wish them luck, but I don't think it'll make a dent in mass commuter transport.
    • nradov 10y ago
      This doesn't even remotely provide a last mile solution because even if they get the aircraft working the landing pads will be more than a mile apart. Just because it's a VTOL aircraft didn't mean you can land it on a city street. A large, securely fenced area free of nearby obstacles will be needed. Where are you going to put those in a dense city? And don't try to tell me that they're going to land on building roofs; most roofs are unsuitable because they're too small or not flat or full of ventilation equipment and antennas.
• mtgx 10y ago
  It's also impressive that it can each 300KM already. In 10 years, it could be about 1,500 or 1,000 miles. But 300 is a great start.
  • lolc 10y ago
    I'd be surprised if their current prototype had a range of 300km. I think that's what they hope to achieve.
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    You're joking, right?
  • notahacker 10y ago
    It would be impressive if it could reach 300km already, but the actual evidence we have is of it flying a small circle above the middle of a runway, implying a range of the order of 300m and physics of course, that would suggest a 300km range to be exceptionally unlikely. But what use is physics in the face of such reckless marketing hype?
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > It's also impressive that it can each 300KM already. That's a target, not what they've demonstrated.
• mathewsanders 10y ago
  For a speculative look at how a global network of flying cars might play out 'Too Like The Lightening'[1] was a pretty enjoyable read for me last year. One of the consequences was that global borders essentially become worthless, and people instead join hives that best represent their ideals. [1] http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/476483675/science-fiction-and-philosophy-collide-in-astonishing-lightning http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/476483675/science-fiction-and-...