For the love of God, make something affordable (50's? 60's?) and I'd buy one in a snap... my daily commute is PITA and sore nead of drone'ification.
I think you mean soar need. :-)
Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
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Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#22How's the Ehang 184 coming along?[1] That's an electric flying car, essentially a big 8-prop drone, announced last June. They're targeting short-distance travel within big, crowded cities in China. China's 1% will be able to get across Beijing in 10 minutes. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4nDFgVx2o
First comment makes a good observation. When a plane loses power, it glides. When a helicopter loses power, it autorotates [1]. If a single engine on a quadcopter loses power, it crashes [2]. There is work being done on mitigating this, but I don't see why you'd go for a quad versus tri- or helicopter. (Quadcopters are better than other aerial platforms at one thing: maneuverability. To get this agility they sacrific…
The Ehang 184 has 8 propellers, two for each of the four quad points. I'd assume the reason is safety, that it can limp to the ground with just 7.
You're wrong about a quadcopter not being able to fly with 3 rotors, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsHryqnvyYA
That looks like it would be quite a ride with a human on-board, but would probably suck less than crashing.
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#23Interesting title considering the article's as much about Uber and battery efficiency a la Tesla as it is Larry Page. I'm still curious about how highways for these types of aircraft will be implemented. I imagine the goal is ubiquity and at some point, with thousands of these things flying around, flight paths will be the bottleneck.
Probably the same way they are for planes- victor airways.
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#24Interesting title considering the article's as much about Uber and battery efficiency a la Tesla as it is Larry Page. I'm still curious about how highways for these types of aircraft will be implemented. I imagine the goal is ubiquity and at some point, with thousands of these things flying around, flight paths will be the bottleneck.
could be VTOL
http://moller.com/ - this project seems dead =( hopefully either I'm wrong or something more interesting takes its place
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#25Why only 4, 8 or 12 rotors? Can a group of much smaller rotors replace the thrust a single bigger one produces? Would add a lot more redundancy and limit the costs.
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#26I hope they fly themselves as well. Humans can barely manage to safely pilot a car in 2 dimensions. I don't want to think of the carnage that would result if we took existing traffic and moved it 10,000 feet up in the air. Every fender bender would become a multiple fatality.
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#27Because he can.
That's the only answer.
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#28Why would the VTOL miniplanes described in the article be better than small helicopters, which take off the same way?
Pilot training time. At the Hiller Museum in San Mateo one of the docents was talking about how helicopters seem so great but they are so hard to fly with the pilot managing rotor pitch, rotor speed, and countering torque with the tail rotor. A typical quad/hexa/octo copter type vehicle is much easier to fly. (as is a gyrocopter but it cannot really take off vertically)
>A typical quad/hexa/octo copter type vehicle is much easier to fly
They're easier to fly because they have software providing artificial stability. If you had to control each rotor individually it would be virtually impossible. There's no reason in principle why a helicopter couldn't have similarly straightforward controls.
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#29I hope they fly themselves as well. Humans can barely manage to safely pilot a car in 2 dimensions. I don't want to think of the carnage that would result if we took existing traffic and moved it 10,000 feet up in the air. Every fender bender would become a multiple fatality.
I think everyone working on this is well-aware of this problem. It's obvious that there can't be widespread adoption without self-piloting technology. The danger to passengers and people on the ground is much too great, and the burden of getting a pilot license is also too much of an obstacle for most people. There are other considerations such as requirements for frequent routine inspections on flying vehicles, which many people couldn't be trusted to fulfill, which also suggest that a self-driving-uber kind of model is really the right solution.
Shameless plug: my blog post from last year on this topic: https://pointersgonewild.com/2015/09/15/all-hope-is-not-lost...
Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars
#30Forget electric. That's just a gimmick that allows these companies to say "in five to ten years because batteries." Prove it. Make a gas powered one to prove your concept. The simplest flying machine is probably an autogyro. Automate that for point to point transport, show the automation, redundancy, and safety for urban use. Solve those real issues and then we can talk about fancy designs.