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SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

workhorse.com

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Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#101

Post by jonny_eh »

dantillberg wrote: post #37
rkagerer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathize but I think that attitude is an artifact of the age we grew up in. I'm sure equestrians felt the same way when those rackety automobile contraptions started zooming around.

I think everyone must have felt this way about automobiles. And by and large, it's worked out just as horribly as they imagined: our communities are divided by dangerous moats we call "roads" -- death traps which we must painstakingly teach our children to avoid, if we dare let our children wander outside on their own anywhere near them in the first place.

"more deaths per capita in horse accidents in NYC in 1900 than in auto accidents today"

https://legallysociable.com/2012/09/07/figures-more-deaths-p...

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#102

Post by SolarNet »

FabHK wrote: post #56
zellyn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all four on one side went out, I assume you'd be in big trouble.

I'd imagine if two stacked ones go out, you'd be in trouble (as the centre of gravity will not be exactly in the intersection of the two diagonals).

Actually that's a benefit of the quad-copter design. It can sacrifice an axis of control in that situation (a "minor" one, like rotation about the gravity vector). In this case it would likely make the passengers sick, but it would still be able to fly in a controllable fashion.

See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0FrCaogcs

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#103

Post by jachee »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #6

Flying fixed-pitch copters is risky. The question is: more risky than driving in traffic? More than taking the bus or swimming or eating fatty foods or a hundred other things we do without blinking? Still, it'll have to have a measured safety record before I'd want to fly it. Better yet, automate it to go from heliport to heliport in a crowded city, a sort of aero-lyft. So I don't have the chance to screw anything up…

I think it'd be interesting if it were semi-automated. For example: Get in, start it up, hit the "Go" button, and it automatically hovers vertically to minimum cruising height (i.e. above all the houses, trees, power lines) before granting further control to the pilot^Wuser. Then, either GPS-powered destination selection or mobility with computer-stabilized limited degrees of freedom.

The fewer decisions the human in the seat has to make, the safer they are.

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#104

Post by QAPereo »

cal5k wrote: post #48
dantillberg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone must have felt this way about automobiles. And by and large, it's worked out just as horribly as they imagined: our communities are divided by dangerous moats we call "roads" -- death traps which we must painstakingly teach our children to avoid, if we dare let our children wander outside on their own anywhere near them in the first place.

I don't get the point - are you suggesting we'd be better off without automobiles? Would we go back to horses? What about global logistics? Agriculture?

We might not be better off, but the rest of the planet sure as hell would be. Not to mention that the history of overpopulation would be very different without those things.

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#105

Post by fizx »

aqme28 wrote: post #95
georgeecollins wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't today's drones and airplanes demonstrate that automating flying is a lot easier than automating driving?

That might stop being true if the air is as crowded as the roads.

The air won't have pedestrians and bikes!

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#106

Post by nine_k »

cal5k wrote: post #88
nine_k wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'd be better off with dense cities where automobile is not the primary means of transportation. Like e.g. NYC or many European cities. Cars and large trucks should mostly belong to highways and country roads.

I live in a major city (Toronto) and don't own a car, but this is still something of a fantasy - major cities are incredibly reliant on automobiles for moving goods in and out of the city even before you consider moving people. And with that said, Toronto is far from being a city where we could live without cars for human transportation - without Uber getting around would be hell.

Cars as a secondary transport are fine. In NYC I take a cab / lyft once in a while, but it's like 3% of my trips.

Delivery trucks are, or course, incredibly important in a city. But they are also much more efficient than cars moving 1-2 people, so they need a bit less road capacity.

Also, city traffic is pretty favorable for electric vehicles with recuperative braking, so the coming crop of city buses and delivery trucks is going to have a significant portion of all-electric or hybrid vehicles. This helps the air pollution problem.

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#107

Post by nine_k »

ghaff wrote: post #66
nine_k wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'd be better off with dense cities where automobile is not the primary means of transportation. Like e.g. NYC or many European cities. Cars and large trucks should mostly belong to highways and country roads.

NYC is a very far way from being a carless paradise. Yes, lots of people walk or take transit. But, especially in Manhattan, many streets are choked for a good chunk of the day.

It's not a paradise, but it's a city where you can live nicely without a car, and without a slightest desire to own it. Public transportation (non-ideal as it is) and the occasional uber / lyft / cab trip cover the needs of daily commute. Also, walking is easy, and a lot of things are within an easy walking distance, not only on Manhattan but also in most of Brooklyn and Queens.

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#108

Post by nine_k »

rdiddly wrote: post #84
nine_k wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike cars, these machines would not be tightly packed into roads, concentrating the noise and pollution; likely they'd have to keep a serious distance. Also, with a top speed of 70 mph and range of 70 miles, it does not look like a great daily-commuter vehicle. This device looks like a good fit for an expensive urban fast-jump service, or a good solution for places where roads are hard to build, like going to a for…

If you're outside 70 miles, you've got bigger problems. But considering that rush-hour traffic can bring average freeway speeds down to the 5 and 10 MPH range, I'd say this would be a huge improvement for daily commuting. At great expense of course. The only thing is, something invented for a niche market on Sunday will be made much cheaper on Monday, will be widespread and causing mayhem by Tuesday, regulated to the…

70 miles one way, so it's likely 35 miles round-trip after which you're dry.

Winged aircraft is so much more economical, but it's necessarily large.

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#109

Post by rdiddly »

nine_k wrote: post #108
rdiddly wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're outside 70 miles, you've got bigger problems. But considering that rush-hour traffic can bring average freeway speeds down to the 5 and 10 MPH range, I'd say this would be a huge improvement for daily commuting. At great expense of course. The only thing is, something invented for a niche market on Sunday will be made much cheaper on Monday, will be widespread and causing mayhem by Tuesday, regulated to the…

70 miles one way, so it's likely 35 miles round-trip after which you're dry. Winged aircraft is so much more economical, but it's necessarily large.

Curses, foiled by the old "one way/round trip" trick!

Re: SureFly – a personal helicopter designed for safe and easy flight

#110

Post by anotheryou »

SolarNet wrote: post #102
FabHK wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine if two stacked ones go out, you'd be in trouble (as the centre of gravity will not be exactly in the intersection of the two diagonals).

Actually that's a benefit of the quad-copter design. It can sacrifice an axis of control in that situation (a "minor" one, like rotation about the gravity vector). In this case it would likely make the passengers sick, but it would still be able to fly in a controllable fashion. See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0FrCaogcs

with the counter-set props probably less spin even
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