11 ms·

The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi

53 points by mhb 7y ago

ben_w 7y ago
I’ve been thinking about this recently. Would it be fair to say that the engine is the single most expensive part of a combustion-powered aircraft, and that batteries are the single most expensive part of a battery powered aircraft? If so, I expect this sort of aircraft to become quite viable quite soon; if not, then I would be surprised.
- gvb 7y ago
  Certification is the single most expensive part of an aircraft. The more "off-nominal" an aircraft is, the harder, and thus more expensive, it is to certify. Commercial aircraft (which a "flying taxi" would be) are also much more expensive to certify than general aviation aircraft. Drone-style "air taxi" aircraft are very different from a systems, reliability, and redundancy point of view than fixed wing (can glide) or rotary wing (can autorotate) aircraft. The FAA is comfortable with those types of aircraft. Convincing the FAA that single and multiple failures (e.g. battery failure) won't cause a drone-style aircraft to fall out of the sky is going to be very expensive. As an example, it took many years and multiple attempts to get the FAA to certify composite aircraft. Ref: * Lear Fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan * Beech Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship * Cirus VK30 / ST50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants * Piaggio P.180 Avanti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti I don't believe there were any commercially successful aircraft that were primarily composite before the Boeing 787.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    I hadn’t even thought of certification costs, so thank you. How well/badly would that scale with the number of aircraft with the same design? I assume “certify design X for $X” is a separate cost to “certify aircraft Y of model X for $Y”?
    - gvb 7y ago
      Aircraft manufacturers get a "type certificate" for a given type of aircraft which applies to all of the aircraft of that model that are made. The type certificate is expensive but gets amortized over all the aircraft produced. Changes (depending on how significant they are) can be covered by a "supplemental type certification" which leverages the underlying type certificate and only has to show that the changes are OK. Supplemental type certificates are much less expensive and is used to certify different models of a given aircraft (e.g. the 737-800 Max is a STC on a STC on a STC ... all the way back to the original 737 Type Cert[1]). There are also ongoing maintenance monitoring and updates that go into maintaining an aircraft's "airworthiness certificate". The manufacturer must monitor the fleet of aircraft it produces and produce maintenance instructions over the lifetime of the aircraft, including addressing unexpected fatigue and wear issues. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_certificate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_certificate [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
  - nradov 7y ago
    For certification purposes the FAA categorizes drone-style aircraft as "powered lift". https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotorcraft/ https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotor...
    - gvb 7y ago
      Thanks, that's very helpful. Looking at Wikipedia's entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift I don't see any commercially successful aircraft. There are some military aircraft[1], experimental aircraft, and a some unsuccessful commercial aircraft. None is "drone style" yet. Being the first to type certify a new style of aircraft is very difficult and expensive, which was my point with the list of composite aircraft. Composite aircraft (in my mind) seems much less of a change than powered lift. Maybe ballistic recovery systems[2] will make powered lift certifiable with a reasonable level of effort. The nice thing about BRS is that it is already flight proven and accepted as an emergency recovery system. [1] The military is willing to take more risks - helps that the jets have ejection seats. The Osprey had 12 hull-loss accidents with a total of 42 fatalities (no ejection seats and it cannot autorotate). Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accide... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems
- ghaff 7y ago
  Only in a narrow bill of materials sense (and mostly in the case of jet aircraft). The real expense is in the processes (such as maintenance) that minimize the likelihood of heavy objects falling out of the sky on people and property. There are also noise issues associated with scaling up personal air transport. People do routinely fly personal aircraft in sparsely populated areas like much of Alaska. Scaling that up in somewhere like the northeast US or Bay Area seems... unlikely.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Robotbeat 7y ago
I think there's a point to them, but honestly CTOL electric "thin haul" is more important. There are all these regional/rural airports that are under-utilized. It will be hard for electric aircraft to break into the jumbo jet market for the next couple decades. But conventional take-off, extremely high aspect ratio wing electric vehicles could efficiently and cheaply transport a dozen or more passengers at hundreds of miles per hour at distances of between 50 and 500 miles (a range usually serviced by turboprop planes, which are less efficient and no faster than electric planes) without requiring new chemistries or extreme architectural approaches. I hope someone takes up the challenge. We've got Eviation's Alice, but most of the other players are focused on these eVTOL aircraft or hybridized jets (the hybrid part is a big challenge in itself and offers only modest efficiency advantages).
AllegedAlec 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline...
- ohduran 7y ago
  Thought exactly that!
  - mhb 7y ago
    Yes, we all did. That's why it didn't need to be said.
Valgrim 7y ago
We should just bury the idea of replacing ground cars with their flying counterparts. Not that it is a bad idea to develop electric VTOL vehicle, on the contrary, but ultimately they are going to replace the existing flying fleet: helicopters and planes. Moving people around cities is much more safe and efficient using trains, buses, taxis and bicycles. Moving people a bit less wouldn't hurt too, with more vertical development, more remote-working, next-door delivery and mixed-use zoning.
- fortytw2 7y ago
  I think you're neglecting to think about moving people around in rural and or remote areas. Where I grew up (eastern NC) the ability to travel as-the-crow-flies would massively cut down on time to get places, many roads take 30-45 miles of driving to go what might be 15 miles in the air. In that kind of area, there's not the population density to support any kind of mass transit (or even really taxis) and the distances are too far for biking to be practical. Readily available electric VTOL would revolutionize rural America. Not much to worry about in terms of air congestion, either.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    Indeed, Alaska has this problem and worse. The region relies heavily on seaplanes and short-take-off-and-landing aircraft for logistics. These eVTOL aircraft would be great in Alaska and especially in places without lakes. Places without a lot of flat area for landing, places like Papua New Guinea, have no good options at all right now, so these VTOL aircraft will be transformative.
    - Retric 7y ago
      It’s not that difficult to learn how to fly a helicopter, you only need 20h with instructor before the first solo flight. While that’s just the beginning it shows getting the basic controls down is not the problem. Thus, these VTOL aircraft are only going to be game changers if they are vastly cheaper, which seems unlikely. The real issue is unit sales being so low. The R22 is a popular and ‘cheap’ helicopter ranking #8 in total sales, but it’s sold less than 5,000 units worldwide over 40 years. PS: Fixed wing aircraft are popular because they have a huge range of inherent advantages. VTOL sounds great, but the downsides are enormous.
j9461701 7y ago
The thing that sinks most of these flying car or flying taxi initiatives is the noise problem. Because airplane engines are so darn loud, all flying cars are forced to operate away from built up areas whether or not they're capable of vertical takeoffs and landings. Which makes them inherently redundant, as you're already having to drive out of the city to get to your flying car - at which point you could just drive slightly further to an airport and get on a conventional plane that boats vastly higher cruising speeds and fuel efficiencies. If not for the fact that airplanes are noisier than a fox stuck in a trashcan rolling down hill, we'd already have flying taxis of a variety of different forms that take off and land on top of sky scrapers. The youtuber mustard did a recent video exploring one such concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg Using ducted fans and an electric motor both reduce noise, so time will tell if we've finally achieved a "city acceptable noise level" out of one of these designs at long last.
- baybal2 7y ago
  > Because airplane engines are so darn loud It always appeared strange to me when countries have strict noise limits on aviation, but most countries do not seem to mandate noise limits for cars
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    Remove your truck's muffler and take note of how long it takes to get a ticket.
- nradov 7y ago
  The lack of safe landing sites also sinks the flying car initiatives. Only a few skyscrapers have helipads today. Adding them after construction is tremendously expensive. Roofs aren't designed to support the weight and are full of equipment (antennas, HVAC).
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    > Roofs aren't designed to support the weight A Surefly Octocopter is 1850 pounds; what does a large HVAC unit weigh? Surely a roof that's strong enough to support large HVAC units is strong enough to hold an Octocopter.
chrisa 7y ago
The one thing I keep thinking about is turbulence... Generally, small airplanes are moved around a lot more by wind gusts - which means some people get really motion sick in smaller airplanes. That could be quite a shock for people who are used to bigger airplanes. Does anyone know how these really small multi-rotor air taxis are with turbulence?
baybal2 7y ago
> Can Flying Taxis Live Up to the Hype? Because they are not technically sound, and they are not commercially sound. There are existing air taxi services, and they tend to go bust during every economic downturn.
- base698 7y ago
  Sounds like it will probably be a breakout success then. Most things that are wildly successful have "it's not going to work" opposition. Then it's rationalized after the fact when it does.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    The fallacy here is “affirming the consequent”: you are taking a principle (which I'll accept for the sake of argument) of if something is to succeed, then it will have had “it won't work” opposition, observing the presence of the fact described in the “then” clause, and concluding that the “if” clause must be true. But even if the principle is valid, you can only conclude the then clause (conclusion) from the if clause (premise), not the reverse. While most breakout successes may be mocked as impossible, most things mocked as impossible do not turn out to be breakout successes.
nathell 7y ago
Not a single word about greenhouse gas emissions.
- LeonM 7y ago
  The aircraft featured in the article is powered by electricicty, so it doesn't emit any greenhouse gas.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    The power still has to come from somewhere. If these vehicles are sufficiently inefficient, they could well be worse than cars in terms of emissions.
    - grumpydba 7y ago
      Hence the huge need for nuclear power.
mhb 7y ago
It's curious that the article calls these airplanes "jets".
davidhyde 7y ago
I wonder what the big secret idea is. Something visually obvious from the fact that they covered it up. An aerospike electric engine maybe? I guess you wouldn't have the same issues you have with cooling such an exit that you have with chemical propellant.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  What are you referring to by "covered it up"? All I can see is pretty standard looking aerodynamic cowlings.
  - davidhyde 7y ago
    Take a look at the image titled "An engine, covered by a cloth, in Lilium’s acoustic test chamber"
JackPoach 7y ago
Hype=everyone talks about it. Are there a lot of people believing in flying taxis?
- ben_w 7y ago
  Me, but I tend to be optimistic about this sort of thing and I know it.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  I'm a government researcher working on this exact thing and even I don't really believe it. That said, there is a tremendous amount of interest from commercial entities, which is what drives my work. I'm probably not allowed to name any specific companies, but there are certainly a large number of companies that believe enough to be investing significant amounts of money into the idea.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  If we had great a battery breakthrough, I don't even think it'd be much of a question.
neonate 7y ago
http://archive.is/Zwaw4 http://archive.is/Zwaw4
WhompingWindows 7y ago
I thought of an alternative idea for travel in somewhere like NYC. If you want to cross at certain points of the river, you may need to wait for public transport or use a bridge... What if we used a combination of drone technology and powerlines...instead of a drone needing to have its own batteries on board, what if there was a power line suspended across the river that it ran along, similar to a street-car. The drone, let's say it holds 2 or 4 people per trip, would basically be a mini flying-on-a-line taxi. It would travel only along the power-line, thus no navigation or control systems needed, no pilot needed.Presumably it could have a much lighter frame due to no battery needed, and you could power it off the rapidly decarbonizing grid. The downsides I see now are the safety risks if a part flies off, the noise may be intolerable, and you'd need to construct the lines and hold them up somehow. And obviously, you'd need to engineer the product and face the realities of the physics, which I don't know much about.
- sksksk 7y ago
  You've just described a cable car... Medellin has an extensive metro system and one line is a cable car.
jedberg 7y ago
You can already get a ride from Manhattan to Kennedy airport in 10 minutes for about $100, via helicopter.
- skizm 7y ago
  Last time I checked it was closer to $250. Where are you seeing $100? I'm genuinely asking because I would definitely pay that.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    It may have been an exaggeration on my friend's part. I've never actually taken the helicopter but he has. Maybe the rate changes based on how in demand it is? Here is an article about someone who spent $120 back in July: https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous-helicopter-flight-review-nyc-jfk-airport-photos-2019-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous-helicopter-...
sbussard 7y ago
Apparently not the world's first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways

53 points by mhb 7y ago

I’ve been thinking about this recently. Would it be fair to say that the engine is the single most expensive part of a combustion-powered aircraft, and that batteries are the single most expensive part of a battery powered aircraft? If so, I expect this sort of aircraft to become quite viable quite soon; if not, then I would be surprised.

gvb 7y ago
Certification is the single most expensive part of an aircraft. The more "off-nominal" an aircraft is, the harder, and thus more expensive, it is to certify. Commercial aircraft (which a "flying taxi" would be) are also much more expensive to certify than general aviation aircraft. Drone-style "air taxi" aircraft are very different from a systems, reliability, and redundancy point of view than fixed wing (can glide) or rotary wing (can autorotate) aircraft. The FAA is comfortable with those types of aircraft. Convincing the FAA that single and multiple failures (e.g. battery failure) won't cause a drone-style aircraft to fall out of the sky is going to be very expensive. As an example, it took many years and multiple attempts to get the FAA to certify composite aircraft. Ref: * Lear Fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan * Beech Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship * Cirus VK30 / ST50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants * Piaggio P.180 Avanti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti I don't believe there were any commercially successful aircraft that were primarily composite before the Boeing 787.
- ben_w 7y ago
  I hadn’t even thought of certification costs, so thank you. How well/badly would that scale with the number of aircraft with the same design? I assume “certify design X for $X” is a separate cost to “certify aircraft Y of model X for $Y”?
  - gvb 7y ago
    Aircraft manufacturers get a "type certificate" for a given type of aircraft which applies to all of the aircraft of that model that are made. The type certificate is expensive but gets amortized over all the aircraft produced. Changes (depending on how significant they are) can be covered by a "supplemental type certification" which leverages the underlying type certificate and only has to show that the changes are OK. Supplemental type certificates are much less expensive and is used to certify different models of a given aircraft (e.g. the 737-800 Max is a STC on a STC on a STC ... all the way back to the original 737 Type Cert[1]). There are also ongoing maintenance monitoring and updates that go into maintaining an aircraft's "airworthiness certificate". The manufacturer must monitor the fleet of aircraft it produces and produce maintenance instructions over the lifetime of the aircraft, including addressing unexpected fatigue and wear issues. Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_certificate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_certificate [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
- nradov 7y ago
  For certification purposes the FAA categorizes drone-style aircraft as "powered lift". https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotorcraft/ https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotor...
  - gvb 7y ago
    Thanks, that's very helpful. Looking at Wikipedia's entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift I don't see any commercially successful aircraft. There are some military aircraft[1], experimental aircraft, and a some unsuccessful commercial aircraft. None is "drone style" yet. Being the first to type certify a new style of aircraft is very difficult and expensive, which was my point with the list of composite aircraft. Composite aircraft (in my mind) seems much less of a change than powered lift. Maybe ballistic recovery systems[2] will make powered lift certifiable with a reasonable level of effort. The nice thing about BRS is that it is already flight proven and accepted as an emergency recovery system. [1] The military is willing to take more risks - helps that the jets have ejection seats. The Osprey had 12 hull-loss accidents with a total of 42 fatalities (no ejection seats and it cannot autorotate). Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accide... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems
ghaff 7y ago
Only in a narrow bill of materials sense (and mostly in the case of jet aircraft). The real expense is in the processes (such as maintenance) that minimize the likelihood of heavy objects falling out of the sky on people and property. There are also noise issues associated with scaling up personal air transport. People do routinely fly personal aircraft in sparsely populated areas like much of Alaska. Scaling that up in somewhere like the northeast US or Bay Area seems... unlikely.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Robotbeat 7y ago

I think there's a point to them, but honestly CTOL electric "thin haul" is more important. There are all these regional/rural airports that are under-utilized. It will be hard for electric aircraft to break into the jumbo jet market for the next couple decades. But conventional take-off, extremely high aspect ratio wing electric vehicles could efficiently and cheaply transport a dozen or more passengers at hundreds of miles per hour at distances of between 50 and 500 miles (a range usually serviced by turboprop planes, which are less efficient and no faster than electric planes) without requiring new chemistries or extreme architectural approaches. I hope someone takes up the challenge. We've got Eviation's Alice, but most of the other players are focused on these eVTOL aircraft or hybridized jets (the hybrid part is a big challenge in itself and offers only modest efficiency advantages).

AllegedAlec 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline...

ohduran 7y ago
Thought exactly that!
- mhb 7y ago
  Yes, we all did. That's why it didn't need to be said.

Valgrim 7y ago

We should just bury the idea of replacing ground cars with their flying counterparts. Not that it is a bad idea to develop electric VTOL vehicle, on the contrary, but ultimately they are going to replace the existing flying fleet: helicopters and planes. Moving people around cities is much more safe and efficient using trains, buses, taxis and bicycles. Moving people a bit less wouldn't hurt too, with more vertical development, more remote-working, next-door delivery and mixed-use zoning.

fortytw2 7y ago
I think you're neglecting to think about moving people around in rural and or remote areas. Where I grew up (eastern NC) the ability to travel as-the-crow-flies would massively cut down on time to get places, many roads take 30-45 miles of driving to go what might be 15 miles in the air. In that kind of area, there's not the population density to support any kind of mass transit (or even really taxis) and the distances are too far for biking to be practical. Readily available electric VTOL would revolutionize rural America. Not much to worry about in terms of air congestion, either.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Indeed, Alaska has this problem and worse. The region relies heavily on seaplanes and short-take-off-and-landing aircraft for logistics. These eVTOL aircraft would be great in Alaska and especially in places without lakes. Places without a lot of flat area for landing, places like Papua New Guinea, have no good options at all right now, so these VTOL aircraft will be transformative.
  - Retric 7y ago
    It’s not that difficult to learn how to fly a helicopter, you only need 20h with instructor before the first solo flight. While that’s just the beginning it shows getting the basic controls down is not the problem. Thus, these VTOL aircraft are only going to be game changers if they are vastly cheaper, which seems unlikely. The real issue is unit sales being so low. The R22 is a popular and ‘cheap’ helicopter ranking #8 in total sales, but it’s sold less than 5,000 units worldwide over 40 years. PS: Fixed wing aircraft are popular because they have a huge range of inherent advantages. VTOL sounds great, but the downsides are enormous.

j9461701 7y ago

The thing that sinks most of these flying car or flying taxi initiatives is the noise problem. Because airplane engines are so darn loud, all flying cars are forced to operate away from built up areas whether or not they're capable of vertical takeoffs and landings. Which makes them inherently redundant, as you're already having to drive out of the city to get to your flying car - at which point you could just drive slightly further to an airport and get on a conventional plane that boats vastly higher cruising speeds and fuel efficiencies. If not for the fact that airplanes are noisier than a fox stuck in a trashcan rolling down hill, we'd already have flying taxis of a variety of different forms that take off and land on top of sky scrapers. The youtuber mustard did a recent video exploring one such concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg Using ducted fans and an electric motor both reduce noise, so time will tell if we've finally achieved a "city acceptable noise level" out of one of these designs at long last.

baybal2 7y ago
> Because airplane engines are so darn loud It always appeared strange to me when countries have strict noise limits on aviation, but most countries do not seem to mandate noise limits for cars
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Remove your truck's muffler and take note of how long it takes to get a ticket.
nradov 7y ago
The lack of safe landing sites also sinks the flying car initiatives. Only a few skyscrapers have helipads today. Adding them after construction is tremendously expensive. Roofs aren't designed to support the weight and are full of equipment (antennas, HVAC).
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > Roofs aren't designed to support the weight A Surefly Octocopter is 1850 pounds; what does a large HVAC unit weigh? Surely a roof that's strong enough to support large HVAC units is strong enough to hold an Octocopter.

chrisa 7y ago

The one thing I keep thinking about is turbulence... Generally, small airplanes are moved around a lot more by wind gusts - which means some people get really motion sick in smaller airplanes. That could be quite a shock for people who are used to bigger airplanes. Does anyone know how these really small multi-rotor air taxis are with turbulence?

baybal2 7y ago

> Can Flying Taxis Live Up to the Hype? Because they are not technically sound, and they are not commercially sound. There are existing air taxi services, and they tend to go bust during every economic downturn.

base698 7y ago
Sounds like it will probably be a breakout success then. Most things that are wildly successful have "it's not going to work" opposition. Then it's rationalized after the fact when it does.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  The fallacy here is “affirming the consequent”: you are taking a principle (which I'll accept for the sake of argument) of if something is to succeed, then it will have had “it won't work” opposition, observing the presence of the fact described in the “then” clause, and concluding that the “if” clause must be true. But even if the principle is valid, you can only conclude the then clause (conclusion) from the if clause (premise), not the reverse. While most breakout successes may be mocked as impossible, most things mocked as impossible do not turn out to be breakout successes.

nathell 7y ago

Not a single word about greenhouse gas emissions.

LeonM 7y ago
The aircraft featured in the article is powered by electricicty, so it doesn't emit any greenhouse gas.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  The power still has to come from somewhere. If these vehicles are sufficiently inefficient, they could well be worse than cars in terms of emissions.
  - grumpydba 7y ago
    Hence the huge need for nuclear power.

mhb 7y ago

It's curious that the article calls these airplanes "jets".

davidhyde 7y ago

I wonder what the big secret idea is. Something visually obvious from the fact that they covered it up. An aerospike electric engine maybe? I guess you wouldn't have the same issues you have with cooling such an exit that you have with chemical propellant.

0xffff2 7y ago
What are you referring to by "covered it up"? All I can see is pretty standard looking aerodynamic cowlings.
- davidhyde 7y ago
  Take a look at the image titled "An engine, covered by a cloth, in Lilium’s acoustic test chamber"

JackPoach 7y ago

Hype=everyone talks about it. Are there a lot of people believing in flying taxis?

ben_w 7y ago
Me, but I tend to be optimistic about this sort of thing and I know it.
0xffff2 7y ago
I'm a government researcher working on this exact thing and even I don't really believe it. That said, there is a tremendous amount of interest from commercial entities, which is what drives my work. I'm probably not allowed to name any specific companies, but there are certainly a large number of companies that believe enough to be investing significant amounts of money into the idea.
6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
If we had great a battery breakthrough, I don't even think it'd be much of a question.

neonate 7y ago

http://archive.is/Zwaw4 http://archive.is/Zwaw4

WhompingWindows 7y ago

I thought of an alternative idea for travel in somewhere like NYC. If you want to cross at certain points of the river, you may need to wait for public transport or use a bridge... What if we used a combination of drone technology and powerlines...instead of a drone needing to have its own batteries on board, what if there was a power line suspended across the river that it ran along, similar to a street-car. The drone, let's say it holds 2 or 4 people per trip, would basically be a mini flying-on-a-line taxi. It would travel only along the power-line, thus no navigation or control systems needed, no pilot needed.Presumably it could have a much lighter frame due to no battery needed, and you could power it off the rapidly decarbonizing grid. The downsides I see now are the safety risks if a part flies off, the noise may be intolerable, and you'd need to construct the lines and hold them up somehow. And obviously, you'd need to engineer the product and face the realities of the physics, which I don't know much about.

sksksk 7y ago
You've just described a cable car... Medellin has an extensive metro system and one line is a cable car.

jedberg 7y ago

You can already get a ride from Manhattan to Kennedy airport in 10 minutes for about $100, via helicopter.

skizm 7y ago
Last time I checked it was closer to $250. Where are you seeing $100? I'm genuinely asking because I would definitely pay that.
- jedberg 7y ago
  It may have been an exaggeration on my friend's part. I've never actually taken the helicopter but he has. Maybe the rate changes based on how in demand it is? Here is an article about someone who spent $120 back in July: https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous-helicopter-flight-review-nyc-jfk-airport-photos-2019-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous-helicopter-...

sbussard 7y ago

Apparently not the world's first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways