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This isn't a product yet. Not focusing on safety when it's ferrying people is one thing, but not focusing on safety when the craft doesn't even work yet is anot

This isn't a product yet. Not focusing on safety when it's ferrying people is one thing, but not focusing on safety when the craft doesn't even work yet is another. I read this as an order of operations thing. First work out the concept, then get it to work, and then get it to work reliably. As long as nobody is in danger putting reliability last seems natural by definition. Once it's reliable, it's done.

nradov 7y ago
That simply doesn't work. If you want to build a reliable aircraft then you have to design around reliability from the beginning, starting with the basic product concept. Reliability isn't something you can add on at the end of the development cycle and achieve good results. Real aeronautical engineers have known this for decades.
- gretch 7y ago
  That really doesn't match actual aircraft design history though. Like were the wright brothers in 1900 thinking about how to make their first flier safe?
  - leoedin 7y ago
    This isn't 1900 though. Helicopters have been a thing for 70 years. Everyone knows you can make an unsafe multirotor. They're everywhere. Colin Furze made one in his shed. You can buy general aviation aicraft today with fully autonomous autopilots, including a completely hands-off "land at the nearest airport because the pilot's having a heart attack" button. The absolute bottom line offering of any small aircraft has to be that its safe (or at least, the failure rate is acceptable - which means at least comparable to modern helicopters). That's the innovation that anyone entering the market needs to bring.
    - matz1 7y ago
      No? not safe + working is more useful than safe + not working. Beside they are not building helicopter, they are building new kind of aircraft.
      - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        This isn't Skunkworks where they're developing experimental aircraft for extremely well trained pilots in the military. They're trying to make these for consumers who don't even want to get a pilot's license. They should be designed to be far safer than what is available today if that is their target audience.
        matz1 7y ago
        Doesn't matter if it military or end user. First you have to make it work then make it safe. A not safe but working consumer multirotor plane is still much better than safe but not working plane.
        OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        We have decades of experience to learn from in the aviation industry, that is what we should be iterating on and benchmarking against. Making a new type of aircraft that is significantly more dangerous and requires significantly less training (so it is unrealistic to expect the consumer to understand the risk) is just valuing profits over human lives - full stop. Are you still okay with unsafe flying machines when they start falling out of the sky and killing people on the ground? As mentioned previously, these aren't even supposed to require a pilot's license, so you can't expect the customer to be trained like a pilot. The FAA rules are written in blood. If people want to experiment with new types of aircraft responsibly, that's fine! There is even a specific process for that, it's called an experimental certification. https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/airworthiness_certification/sp_awcert/experiment/ https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/airworthiness_certific... But selling these things to untrained consumers is just completely, utterly, reprehensibly irresponsible. That's probably why Kitty Hawk returned deposits - they realized the machines just weren't safe enough to sell to people.
jeffreyrogers 7y ago
You can't add on safety. It has to be designed that way from the start. For example, on airplanes it's safer to have the wings below the cockpit because it gives the pilot more visibility. If you weren't thinking about that when you designed the plane you would be hard-pressed to make that change.

nradov 7y ago

That simply doesn't work. If you want to build a reliable aircraft then you have to design around reliability from the beginning, starting with the basic product concept. Reliability isn't something you can add on at the end of the development cycle and achieve good results. Real aeronautical engineers have known this for decades.

gretch 7y ago
That really doesn't match actual aircraft design history though. Like were the wright brothers in 1900 thinking about how to make their first flier safe?
- leoedin 7y ago
  This isn't 1900 though. Helicopters have been a thing for 70 years. Everyone knows you can make an unsafe multirotor. They're everywhere. Colin Furze made one in his shed. You can buy general aviation aicraft today with fully autonomous autopilots, including a completely hands-off "land at the nearest airport because the pilot's having a heart attack" button. The absolute bottom line offering of any small aircraft has to be that its safe (or at least, the failure rate is acceptable - which means at least comparable to modern helicopters). That's the innovation that anyone entering the market needs to bring.
  - matz1 7y ago
    No? not safe + working is more useful than safe + not working. Beside they are not building helicopter, they are building new kind of aircraft.
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      This isn't Skunkworks where they're developing experimental aircraft for extremely well trained pilots in the military. They're trying to make these for consumers who don't even want to get a pilot's license. They should be designed to be far safer than what is available today if that is their target audience.
      - matz1 7y ago
        Doesn't matter if it military or end user. First you have to make it work then make it safe. A not safe but working consumer multirotor plane is still much better than safe but not working plane.
        OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        We have decades of experience to learn from in the aviation industry, that is what we should be iterating on and benchmarking against. Making a new type of aircraft that is significantly more dangerous and requires significantly less training (so it is unrealistic to expect the consumer to understand the risk) is just valuing profits over human lives - full stop. Are you still okay with unsafe flying machines when they start falling out of the sky and killing people on the ground? As mentioned previously, these aren't even supposed to require a pilot's license, so you can't expect the customer to be trained like a pilot. The FAA rules are written in blood. If people want to experiment with new types of aircraft responsibly, that's fine! There is even a specific process for that, it's called an experimental certification. https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/airworthiness_certification/sp_awcert/experiment/ https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/airworthiness_certific... But selling these things to untrained consumers is just completely, utterly, reprehensibly irresponsible. That's probably why Kitty Hawk returned deposits - they realized the machines just weren't safe enough to sell to people.

jeffreyrogers 7y ago

You can't add on safety. It has to be designed that way from the start. For example, on airplanes it's safer to have the wings below the cockpit because it gives the pilot more visibility. If you weren't thinking about that when you designed the plane you would be hard-pressed to make that change.