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United Airlines Makes $10M Down Payment for Flying Taxis
Maybe this flying taxi thing is more than a pipe dream. Now they just need pilots to fly them. (avgeekery.com) More...
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i got a few thousand hours, some of it actual ifr, and have been a pilot for 50 years. THese new generational change electric aircraft have whetted my appitite to fly in them, as they will be used to transport business class customers in a few United focus cities. I will not partake of the flight experience uless there are real, live pilots operating these and any other such EV aircraft. Perhaps there will be thousands of these in the world within 20 years, VTOL's in city centers and running airport shuttles too. This i find exsciting, and thanks to the early adopters for stepping up so soon.
Well first they have to carry more than one person to work so far there are NONE that make any sense. All of the ones that have been tested so far have no payload beyond the pilot. The Beaver up in Canada had none due to battrey weight and same for the Cessna 208 and the airliner up in Arlington WA there have been no reports of it flying at all. The CEO quit that company the Cessnas, two of them are up for sale that failed also. These flying taxies as they are called have too many down sides just like the Jetsons flying cars. Just think about all the problems they will have I also was a pilot so you should know all of the things they are facing.
The problems associated with conversions from pistons or turbines to an electric powertrain are irrelevant in this context.
Archer,Joby and Lilium etc. are clean-sheet designs intended from the ground up for short-range transport of small numbers of passengers (or also freight in the case of Lilium). They are not trying to haul nearly a dozen people and luggage over hundreds of miles — they are trying to move a handful of people a few dozen miles in urban areas where takeoff and landing locations are very limited even for helicopters.
While there are certainly challenges, they are very different from those trying to convert existing airframes to electric power. I think these companies will succeed within a few years, and they will of course only be the first generation of eVTOL. Seeing where all of this goes in a decade or two will be exciting.
I expect autonomous driving in cars to be commonplace then, and while today people needs to opt for “self-driving” options on the few cars that offer them, eventually things will probably be reversed: cars will have no means of controlling them unless you opt for that feature. And flying taxis will be fully autonomous someday as well, it’s inevitable.
Archer,Joby and Lilium etc. are clean-sheet designs intended from the ground up for short-range transport of small numbers of passengers (or also freight in the case of Lilium). They are not trying to haul nearly a dozen people and luggage over hundreds of miles — they are trying to move a handful of people a few dozen miles in urban areas where takeoff and landing locations are very limited even for helicopters.
While there are certainly challenges, they are very different from those trying to convert existing airframes to electric power. I think these companies will succeed within a few years, and they will of course only be the first generation of eVTOL. Seeing where all of this goes in a decade or two will be exciting.
I expect autonomous driving in cars to be commonplace then, and while today people needs to opt for “self-driving” options on the few cars that offer them, eventually things will probably be reversed: cars will have no means of controlling them unless you opt for that feature. And flying taxis will be fully autonomous someday as well, it’s inevitable.
i never met a microchip i trusted for me to not watch where the plane was flying or how the car was steering. Don't expect to meet one ever...
