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YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

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31–40 of 313 posts

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#31
post #3

I know it's really hard to predict what people will or won't want in the future, but... Would people want this, even if it worked really well?

If there were only few of those around and you could afford one and it had good range imagine how it would cut your commute. Fly to your cabin in the woods in no time (rather than sit in traffic for hours) to chill for a bit? Worth the money.

Accidentally hit a guy wire on the way...

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#32
post #26

What's the fail safe for aircraft with this kind of thrust? Planes can glide after a loss of power, helos autorotate, do these just fall out of the sky on a nice ballistic arc? Maybe one of those whole plane parachutes?

Such a parachute would be prohibitive in term of weight, so no. I suppose the pilot could wear a personal parachute, and hope to ditch far from people or property, but I think the odds are...

"In the very unlikely event that all four engines fail, we’ll go straight into the ground like a fucking dart." -Billy Connolly

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#33
post #23

They promised my generation flying cars growing up. They never, not a single time talked about flying motorcycles. I don't mean to be negative but here's a few questions: What happens when you hit turbulence? What happens if you get caught in a rainstorm? What happens if you fly into a flock of birds? What happens when you fly into lightning on a clear day? None of those have to be fatal in an airplane, but potential…

To your point, all of those can be fatal for existing light aircraft.

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#34

I am looking forwards to the legal circus after some rich idiot buys one of these and runs out of fuel over someone else's house.

Drones are pretty good at landing themselves these days if there's a need. I can't imagine one of these couldn't enforce a height limit when it's low on fuel and then land itself when it's nearly empty.

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#36

They are requiring drone pilots to be licensed and these guys think an ultralight version of this won’t require a license.

Yes no licence needed to fly our ultralight version JB10 and JB11 Jetpacks. Same rules apply to ultralight version of the Speeder.

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#37
post #9
post #3

I know it's really hard to predict what people will or won't want in the future, but... Would people want this, even if it worked really well?

I'd want it if it didn't work so well to be honest. People in the Bay Area complain about how terrible public transport is. Try living in the midwest or southeast. I frequently dreamed of having my own personal Rocketman style jetpack or something to avoid that terrible commute. If I had the funds I'd buy one of these things without a second thought.

10-22 minutes of flight time doesn’t seem like it has commuter applications. I’d guess that for regulatory and safety purposes you wouldn’t be allowed to overfly a city, and you’d probably need to take off and land somewhere safe as well. This is for amusement, not flying over traffic.

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#38
post #26

What's the fail safe for aircraft with this kind of thrust? Planes can glide after a loss of power, helos autorotate, do these just fall out of the sky on a nice ballistic arc? Maybe one of those whole plane parachutes?

Ballistic parachutes above approx 150ft. Working on two alternative solutions for the “red zone” ie zero - 150 ft. All the eVTOLs makers need to solve same issue and we plan to offer it to them.

Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to start it and apply to YC, we'd be very interested.

You for real?

Absolutely. I work for YC. An artificial kidney would transform the lives of millions of people on dialysis. It's worth trying to build one even if the chance of success is only 1%.
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