6 ms·
Nothing that flies in the air is that safe for its passengers or its surroundings - not without restrictions placed on it and having a maintenance schedule that
by torginus 2y ago
Nothing that flies in the air is that safe for its passengers or its surroundings - not without restrictions placed on it and having a maintenance schedule that most people would not be comfortable following.
Most components are safety critical in ways that their failure can lead to an outright crash or feeding the pilot false information leading him to make a fatal mistake. Most cars can be run relatively safely even with major mechanical issues, but something as 'simple' as a broken heater on a pitot tube (or any other component) can lead to a crash.
Then there's an issue of weather - altitude, temperature, humidity, wind speed can create an environment that makes it either impossible, unsafe, or extremely unpleasant - imagine flying into an eddy current that stalls out the aircraft, making your ass drop a few feet.
Flying's a nice hobby, and I have great respect to people who can make a career out of it, but I'd definitely not get into these auto-piloted eVTOLs, nor should people who don't know what they are doing.
Edit: Also unlike helicopters, which can autorotate, and fixed wing aircraft, that can glide, eVTOLs just drop out of the sky.
- _yb2s 2y agoI would expect eVTOLs to be capable of greater redundancy than a helicopter or fixed wing aircraft - with no single point of failure that could make them drop from the sky. It would add little weight to have two or more independent electrical and motor systems each capable of making a semi controlled landing on its own, but must coordinate to provide the full rated lift. Marketing materials claim the Blackfly has triple redundancy. I suppose one could have software logic glitches that cause all modular systems to respond inappropriately to conditions in unison.