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This is vaporware. It's being announced by a lame duck government who want to point at something in the future and say the equivalent of 'I took steps to ... in

This is vaporware. It's being announced by a lame duck government who want to point at something in the future and say the equivalent of 'I took steps to ... invent the internet'. If this actually consists of anything at all it is funding for a research project without commercial demand. Just announcing "we are giving free money to the arms industry so they don't have to pay for their own R&D" doesn't play well any more so it gets spun as part of The Future.

robertlagrant 4y ago
My ex-boss is involved in the project to get organs delivered fast via drones that were basically just flying minifridges. This might be pretty useful for that.
- martin_a 4y ago
  Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that some kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it.
  - EUROCARE 4y ago
    If you think transporting organs by car is a solution, then yeah, very much solved. But organs degrade every minute, so even a little speed up is very much worth it.
    - martin_a 4y ago
      Then get a helicopter. ;-)
      - EUROCARE 4y ago
        I have a medical helicopter flying over my house roughly every second day and that's more than enough. If all the cars marked as "organ transport" that I see around here went by helicopter instead I wouldn't be able to hear my GF talking at home... And of course - the cost and emissions, and the inability to land at small fields... I don't see how a big, bulky, human-piloted helicopter could be in any way better than a specialized, lightweight unmanned vehicle.
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        I bet the money that will be wasted on this project (before it inevitable get shelved) will be way more than the costs of just buying out the land affected by the noise from helicopter organ transport so people that are bothered by it can move (and maybe resell the land at a discount to those who don't mind the noise, whether it's due to better soundproofing or converting it to office space that wouldn't mind it). Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment.
        EUROCARE 4y ago
        I live in the centre of a capital city. Not even the state could get enough money to buy the affected land here. > Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment. A country always has thousands of more pressing problems, the issue is that nobody orders them the same way. The best you can do is to solve more than one problem at a time.
        rich_sasha 4y ago
        I think in the here and now, autonomous drones sharing airspace with other aircraft is not really a solved problems. Otherwise agreed.
        vidarh 4y ago
        Hence the "superhighway" to ensure the drones sticks to a pre-defined volume which other aircraft won't be straying into.
        saiya-jin 4y ago
        At current situation, reliability of transport. Drones may be 99% reliable (making up the number), but thats not enough when that 1% means somebody on waiting list is going to die due to failed transport. Costs benefits are obvious but there are always drawbacks, especially when every fail may mean 1 dead person. And that you bought your property so badly placed is unfortunate, but the result of your own choices (or more like lack of thorough research). If you bought it next to highway so should all car traffic in the area be banned?
      - DocTomoe 4y ago
        Helicopter pads are not available everywhere.
        worldsayshi 4y ago
        I suppose helicopter pilots are a bit hard to come by also
        martin_a 4y ago
        Where do you think an organ transport helicopter would need to land? In a larger hospital or next to your local butcher? Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does transplants, will have a landing pad.
        EUROCARE 4y ago
        But that's the point - this would enable new use cases, like for example performing emergency organ replacement at a smaller hospital, when transport is too dangerous for the person, or when a helicopter is not available. Also, you might be transporting organs from a smaller place to a big hospital - donors that got into an accident probably didn't take care to have it near a helipad.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        > Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does transplants, will have a landing pad. Perhaps before they had that, this same line of thinking might have concluded they didn't need one, as they already had a car park.
      - konschubert 4y ago
        Or just get an FTP account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.
    - Closi 4y ago
      They transport them by motorbike at the moment, just because they can skip traffic much better. But yes, quick delivery for organs is great - if this is enough commercial demand to make a drone superhighway worthwile/viable though is another question. Also these drone superhighways drop at a specific point at the end of the highway - so you still need to pick it up from the superhighway 'Skyway hub' and get it to the end customer. When I looked at the Coventry Skyway project last it looked like it was started by a team who had nearly no experience in aviation or logistics so it did make me a bit sus.
      - noir_lord 4y ago
        Same with blood, when you need it you really need it. There is an awesome (volunteer) organisation in the UK called Blood Bikes[1] that operate all over the UK. The training is pretty intensive, it's something I'm considering doing after I get a full license (and 2 years and advanced) because it's an amazing thing to do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_bike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_bike
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    It is a race against time, with a life at risk, in adverse traffic. Watch an actual organ being transported through London [1], back in the mid-1980s. Situation is worse today, if you talk to EMR drivers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      What a riveting 30 minutes that was.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that some kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it. I didn't say it would solve it.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  People will just steal the drones, I'm sure there's huge demand for organs.
- amelius 4y ago
  Organ transport might be a good application. That doesn't mean that we should allow drones for any other types of application without thinking it over very thoroughly. And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy than moving them over land. And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide).
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy than moving them over land. What are you comparing this to? Does this include the energy and pollution needed to move a human, and a vehicle to safely accommodate that human? > And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide). Are these not also the case for human-driven vehicles, which endanger more people (if a motorbike crashes then the rider has low odds), and create noise and visual pollution? I assume the latter means "I don't like how it looks"; if so then does a road look nicer than a drone your eye can't resolve unless you're fairly close to it?
    - amelius 4y ago
      Air transportation can only compete with cars in terms of pollution when a lot of mass is transported (e.g. for an aircraft with 300 passengers versus a 4-person car, pollution per passenger is about equal). For small transport, cars win by a large margin.
  - stuaxo 4y ago
    I think bikes might be better, than an organ stranded god knows where when a drone has fallen out the sky.
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
A substance-free eye-catching gimmick? from this UK government? /s It's not quite as stupid as this gimmick ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnson-scotland-northern-ireland-tunnel-plans-axed https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnso... ) but there's no surprise here.
heurisko 4y ago
There is a demand for fast transportation of medical supplies. A company has already provided services to the NHS, during the pandemic. https://skyportsdroneservices.com/nhs-launches-uks-first-covid-test-drone-delivery-service-in-scotland/ https://skyportsdroneservices.com/nhs-launches-uks-first-cov... Not really vaporware.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  Not vaporware, however, not ready for scaling up on to an industrial scale. The main concern remains safety in case of a malfunction. Until that has been addressed, the main benefit seems to be delivery of essentials (e.g. cancer medications) to remote areas where the drone can fly mostly over uninhabited areas.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  Vapourware is when someone promises to meet a need with no intention of doing so. The fact there might be at least some need for this doesn't mean it isn't vapourware.
  - dboreham 4y ago
    I'm not sure about that definition. I think it includes people who genuinely believe they will meet the need, but it's obvious to a knowledgeable observer that they won't succeed. E.g. Elisabeth Holmes, Elon Musk (self driving and mars colonization, not landing rockets).
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > There is a demand for fast transportation of medical supplies [emphasis mine] Is there really? I understand that for non-fungible, perishable goods such as organs or test samples there might be a need (though a helicopter would do just as well), but when it comes to supplies, it will be significantly cheaper to just make more of them and stock up on them at each hospital rather than moving them back & forth (not to mention that this particular trial only ranged for 40 miles - this is something a car can easily do). It won't work unless it's cheaper than the alternatives, and I can't see it being cheaper than just optimizing logistics elsewhere to ensure you have a big enough stock of medical supplies to not need regular drone deliveries (and when you do, a helicopter is an adequate backup plan).
jollybean 4y ago
If by 'vaporware' you mean decent chance that it happens, then yes. It's a legit thing that's happening here. It may or may not come to fruition.
- oxfordmale 4y ago
  Drone delivery itself isn't vaporware, and will almost certainly happen. However, the title referring to "the biggest drone superhighway" is the kind of BS the current UK government likes to put out. I am surprised it isn't sold as some kind of direct benefit of Brexit. If you read the article, it is about a small amount of funding to scale up trial drone delivery. As the article implies a lot more research and investment is needed to scale up drone deliveries to an industrial scale, beyond isolated success stories.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  It will be delivered right after the bridge to ireland, or the garden in the middle of the thames or the oven ready brexit deal we are all waiting for...
moomin 4y ago
Given the current U.K. government’s penchant for announcing and re-announcing major projects that turn out to be less than nothing, you’d have hoped that journalists would have got a bit more sceptical. But no.

robertlagrant 4y ago

My ex-boss is involved in the project to get organs delivered fast via drones that were basically just flying minifridges. This might be pretty useful for that.

martin_a 4y ago
Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that some kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it.
- EUROCARE 4y ago
  If you think transporting organs by car is a solution, then yeah, very much solved. But organs degrade every minute, so even a little speed up is very much worth it.
  - martin_a 4y ago
    Then get a helicopter. ;-)
    - EUROCARE 4y ago
      I have a medical helicopter flying over my house roughly every second day and that's more than enough. If all the cars marked as "organ transport" that I see around here went by helicopter instead I wouldn't be able to hear my GF talking at home... And of course - the cost and emissions, and the inability to land at small fields... I don't see how a big, bulky, human-piloted helicopter could be in any way better than a specialized, lightweight unmanned vehicle.
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        I bet the money that will be wasted on this project (before it inevitable get shelved) will be way more than the costs of just buying out the land affected by the noise from helicopter organ transport so people that are bothered by it can move (and maybe resell the land at a discount to those who don't mind the noise, whether it's due to better soundproofing or converting it to office space that wouldn't mind it). Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment.
        EUROCARE 4y ago
        I live in the centre of a capital city. Not even the state could get enough money to buy the affected land here. > Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment. A country always has thousands of more pressing problems, the issue is that nobody orders them the same way. The best you can do is to solve more than one problem at a time.
      - rich_sasha 4y ago
        I think in the here and now, autonomous drones sharing airspace with other aircraft is not really a solved problems. Otherwise agreed.
        vidarh 4y ago
        Hence the "superhighway" to ensure the drones sticks to a pre-defined volume which other aircraft won't be straying into.
      - saiya-jin 4y ago
        At current situation, reliability of transport. Drones may be 99% reliable (making up the number), but thats not enough when that 1% means somebody on waiting list is going to die due to failed transport. Costs benefits are obvious but there are always drawbacks, especially when every fail may mean 1 dead person. And that you bought your property so badly placed is unfortunate, but the result of your own choices (or more like lack of thorough research). If you bought it next to highway so should all car traffic in the area be banned?
    - DocTomoe 4y ago
      Helicopter pads are not available everywhere.
      - worldsayshi 4y ago
        I suppose helicopter pilots are a bit hard to come by also
      - martin_a 4y ago
        Where do you think an organ transport helicopter would need to land? In a larger hospital or next to your local butcher? Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does transplants, will have a landing pad.
        EUROCARE 4y ago
        But that's the point - this would enable new use cases, like for example performing emergency organ replacement at a smaller hospital, when transport is too dangerous for the person, or when a helicopter is not available. Also, you might be transporting organs from a smaller place to a big hospital - donors that got into an accident probably didn't take care to have it near a helipad.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        > Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does transplants, will have a landing pad. Perhaps before they had that, this same line of thinking might have concluded they didn't need one, as they already had a car park.
    - konschubert 4y ago
      Or just get an FTP account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.
  - Closi 4y ago
    They transport them by motorbike at the moment, just because they can skip traffic much better. But yes, quick delivery for organs is great - if this is enough commercial demand to make a drone superhighway worthwile/viable though is another question. Also these drone superhighways drop at a specific point at the end of the highway - so you still need to pick it up from the superhighway 'Skyway hub' and get it to the end customer. When I looked at the Coventry Skyway project last it looked like it was started by a team who had nearly no experience in aviation or logistics so it did make me a bit sus.
    - noir_lord 4y ago
      Same with blood, when you need it you really need it. There is an awesome (volunteer) organisation in the UK called Blood Bikes[1] that operate all over the UK. The training is pretty intensive, it's something I'm considering doing after I get a full license (and 2 years and advanced) because it's an amazing thing to do. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_bike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_bike
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  It is a race against time, with a life at risk, in adverse traffic. Watch an actual organ being transported through London [1], back in the mid-1980s. Situation is worse today, if you talk to EMR drivers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTN5X4JZFjU
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    What a riveting 30 minutes that was.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > Is this (organ transport) really an unsolved issue that some kind of "drone highway" would solve? I doubt it. I didn't say it would solve it.
bamboozled 4y ago
People will just steal the drones, I'm sure there's huge demand for organs.
amelius 4y ago
Organ transport might be a good application. That doesn't mean that we should allow drones for any other types of application without thinking it over very thoroughly. And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy than moving them over land. And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide).
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy than moving them over land. What are you comparing this to? Does this include the energy and pollution needed to move a human, and a vehicle to safely accommodate that human? > And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide). Are these not also the case for human-driven vehicles, which endanger more people (if a motorbike crashes then the rider has low odds), and create noise and visual pollution? I assume the latter means "I don't like how it looks"; if so then does a road look nicer than a drone your eye can't resolve unless you're fairly close to it?
  - amelius 4y ago
    Air transportation can only compete with cars in terms of pollution when a lot of mass is transported (e.g. for an aircraft with 300 passengers versus a 4-person car, pollution per passenger is about equal). For small transport, cars win by a large margin.
- stuaxo 4y ago
  I think bikes might be better, than an organ stranded god knows where when a drone has fallen out the sky.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago

A substance-free eye-catching gimmick? from this UK government? /s It's not quite as stupid as this gimmick ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnson-scotland-northern-ireland-tunnel-plans-axed https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnso... ) but there's no surprise here.

heurisko 4y ago

There is a demand for fast transportation of medical supplies. A company has already provided services to the NHS, during the pandemic. https://skyportsdroneservices.com/nhs-launches-uks-first-covid-test-drone-delivery-service-in-scotland/ https://skyportsdroneservices.com/nhs-launches-uks-first-cov... Not really vaporware.

oxfordmale 4y ago
Not vaporware, however, not ready for scaling up on to an industrial scale. The main concern remains safety in case of a malfunction. Until that has been addressed, the main benefit seems to be delivery of essentials (e.g. cancer medications) to remote areas where the drone can fly mostly over uninhabited areas.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Vapourware is when someone promises to meet a need with no intention of doing so. The fact there might be at least some need for this doesn't mean it isn't vapourware.
- dboreham 4y ago
  I'm not sure about that definition. I think it includes people who genuinely believe they will meet the need, but it's obvious to a knowledgeable observer that they won't succeed. E.g. Elisabeth Holmes, Elon Musk (self driving and mars colonization, not landing rockets).
Nextgrid 4y ago
> There is a demand for fast transportation of medical supplies [emphasis mine] Is there really? I understand that for non-fungible, perishable goods such as organs or test samples there might be a need (though a helicopter would do just as well), but when it comes to supplies, it will be significantly cheaper to just make more of them and stock up on them at each hospital rather than moving them back & forth (not to mention that this particular trial only ranged for 40 miles - this is something a car can easily do). It won't work unless it's cheaper than the alternatives, and I can't see it being cheaper than just optimizing logistics elsewhere to ensure you have a big enough stock of medical supplies to not need regular drone deliveries (and when you do, a helicopter is an adequate backup plan).

jollybean 4y ago

If by 'vaporware' you mean decent chance that it happens, then yes. It's a legit thing that's happening here. It may or may not come to fruition.

oxfordmale 4y ago
Drone delivery itself isn't vaporware, and will almost certainly happen. However, the title referring to "the biggest drone superhighway" is the kind of BS the current UK government likes to put out. I am surprised it isn't sold as some kind of direct benefit of Brexit. If you read the article, it is about a small amount of funding to scale up trial drone delivery. As the article implies a lot more research and investment is needed to scale up drone deliveries to an industrial scale, beyond isolated success stories.
LatteLazy 4y ago
It will be delivered right after the bridge to ireland, or the garden in the middle of the thames or the oven ready brexit deal we are all waiting for...

moomin 4y ago

Given the current U.K. government’s penchant for announcing and re-announcing major projects that turn out to be less than nothing, you’d have hoped that journalists would have got a bit more sceptical. But no.