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About LinkBacksRead more.And it will be a self-piloted app-summoned vehicle.
Read more.And it will be a self-piloted app-summoned vehicle.
Scale model? and no.
So I should reserve Air-Uber as a registeted trademark now?
Seriously though, even if the tech is feasible (and it probably is, or is nearly there) I can see other obstacles, one of which is regulatory, another of which is customer acceptance, and a third of which is liability if, or rather when, one of these comes down on someone.
It's bad enough with ground cars when they, or their drivers, screw up and hurt or kill some innocent third party, but they have an individual in charge to hold accountable. If these are self-piloted, you can't hold the (probably dead) passenger liable, who who is at fault, AirBus or "Air-Uber".
While they may get small numbers of these approved, in a few places, I reckon they've mountains to climb before they're as ubiquitous as current cars, and our skies are full of them buzzing around. And meantime, those billions still need to be spent on roads and concrete bridges.
Events may prove me wrong, and indeed I rather hope so 'cos I like the idea, but I doubt I'll see this .... erm .... 'take off' in my lifetime.
A flying car prototype (AeroMobil) already exists. The issue is that it looks like both a terrible car and a terrible plane. From the vague information so far, it looks like they're trying to make a small V-22 Osprey. Which is actually really cool.
Surely it being self-piloting is a good thing. Road-rage drivers in flying objects sounds a lot worse than even normal ground-based drivers. This is also one of the best things about 'robot-cars' as we already know how bad many drivers are.
This thing is likely to make the most inefficient 4x4 monster truck car look efficient though. Although perhaps like some crazy tall fuming Victoria factory chimney it will spew it's pollutants over a very wide area somewhat masking cause and effect.
Time to replace the gentle hum of distance traffic to the roar of thrusters needed to lift a ton off the ground.
The amount of energy required to fly is massive compared to shunting something on wheels along a flat surface. They might be able to technically produce vehicles like this, but that's been done before, it's the practicalities around running them that will be the issue.
New York has some airship moorings on some of the old/early sky-scrapers, but apart from that, does anybody know of a major city that has convenient places to land without scattering or roasting everything underneath?
Less likely to be hit by a Moose unless they are wearing a jet pack.
An autonomous self-piloting V22 Osprey? Wonder where they got that idea...?Originally Posted by Jonatron
Plenty of North and South American cities have helipads all over the place, mostly free to use. Europe has essentially destroyed private aviation, but if your bank balance is big enough you could land in London. Fees up to GBP1650 and 795GBP/hour for parking.
I dunno I know a few people who are not millionaires who fly.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 17-01-2017 at 03:08 PM.
You see the only helicopter I see around my neck of the woods are either the police or air-ambulance. Occasionally military ones.
None of them are subtle, you know they're there due to the noise they make. Especially when they land.
Flying is a lot simpler for autonomous control than driving - there's no pedestrians or cyclists, other than birds everything should give a good radar return. Lot more space too.
um... Zeppelins (ie them big balloons)... don't need a lot of noise to lift off. Also there's plenty of ways to reduce noise using inverse sound wave techniques so to assume that it would be noisy on a smaller lightweight vehicle isn't necessarily going to be true.
Now don't get me wrong I have plenty of helicopters (love seeing/hearing the chinook for some reason) and planes (including those on afterburners) fly over out my way (near RAF Marham airbase) and honestly I notice the bus ticking over at the bus stop more than the planes/helicopters...
Phase shift only works in specific locations, everywhere else the waves add. Think about it - as the listener moves relative to the source, the distance to each sound emitter varies. Since distance varies, travel time varies, and with different travel times you introduce more phase shift - not necessarily in the direction that you want. If it was easily solved then helicopters & other aircraft (especially those operating near heathrow) would be a lot quieter
Oh, I don't know. I've landed mine at the back of my own property.
Sadly, the biggest of the several I own is only about 3 feet long.
And even THAT is far from subtle, noise-wise. And it's 100% electric. No noisy engines. Just very noisy blades.
The PAL-V One is/was far cooler, though!!
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