3 ms·
My understanding is that even if you solve the actual plane + battery etc, the real rub is where do you take off and land? Most of the demand is going into/out
by azinman2 3y ago
My understanding is that even if you solve the actual plane + battery etc, the real rub is where do you take off and land? Most of the demand is going into/out of a city, and cities have very few places appropriate to land helicopters. Basically at the top of buildings that already have structural support, which are expensive and few.
- Someone 3y ago_If_ we can make them generate a lot less noise and be a lot safer (both not that unrealistic), I would think more places to land them would rapidly pop up. Also, but that’s in the really long term, if we could do air traffic control for millions of machines without creating congestion, I would expect city centers to sprawl out a lot. Why impress your clients with an office on the 50th floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan if you also can put it on a hillside overlooking some national forest, unreachable by car, but only 20 minutes flying away?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoThe rest of us plebs that are forced back to the office do not get a spot on the helicopter?
- _hypx 3y agoHelicopters are VTOLs. And all VTOL concepts have basically the same aerodynamic problems. So no, it is incredibly unlikely these problems can be solved easily. Which is why VTOL concepts have stayed vaporware. People are simply trying to sell helicopters with a new name. It mirrors the endless attempts to build systems that work exactly like trains, but with a much sillier mechanism of operation. Both strategies are built on willful ignorance of what they're really trying to do, and are nearly guaranteed to fail.