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

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

#301

Post by UncleEntity »

baron816 wrote: post #107

Alright, let’s say we get the ALL the safety issues squared away. And let’s also assume they strap a cold fusion reactor to this too, so you can fly it around the world without stopping... Can you imagine how fucking LOUD one of these things would be? Regular motorcycles drive my crazy with the noise from their ICEs. Now what if they had jet ingines one them instead? That alone should be enough to get these things ba…

> Regular motorcycles drive my crazy with the noise from their ICEs.

They don't have to be loud it's just that people pull off the stock muffler and throw on something different.

I used to have a ZX-10 that two owners before me used to amateur race which had basically straight pipes and it was entirely too loud -- used to set of car alarms just idling through parking lots. The police around here don't enforce the noise pollution laws so I didn't bother with it though I'm pretty sure my neighbors didn't like me too much starting that thing up at 5am.

My current bike (if I ever get around to getting it running) is as quiet as a kitten with its (intact) stock mufflers.

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

#302

Post by deanclatworthy »

comicjk wrote: post #250
typetehcodez wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. For all the, "Where's my jetpack?" angst in the world of science fiction fanboys (I am one) and start-up builders, there seems to be a disconnect with the rest of humanity on this issue. If the chance of failure is > 0% and odds of death on failure is > 95%, I don't see how a product like this will ever become more than a pipe dream, or at best a prototype flown by a thrill seeker over open water for a publicit…

Commercial airplanes are much safer than cars (because they're rigorously maintained, observed, and operated by professionals). Little ultralight planes might be the best analogy for this project - but they're used by thrill-seekers, just like you predicted.

Commercial airplanes are usually able to safely glide under engine failures. A jetpack is going to drop out the sky. Just from glancing at this flying bike, if the power cuts above 10m, you're probably going to die.

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

#303

Post by pkaye »

snowmaker wrote: post #78
chaosprophet wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could YC pro-actively get in touch with the folks already working on the project? Sounds like they would be your best bet at success.

That's a good idea. I just emailed them.

Thank you for this. I think the prominence of YC will bring much attention to this space.

The approach that the kidney project is taking is very promising. It expands on the current dialysis method. Improved filtration but self contained in the body. No need to lug around a heavy machine. No regular clinic visits. 24x7 cleaning of blood. Reduced chance of infection. No rejection issues unlike transplants. The cost savings vs current dialysis is mind-blowing. Back in the 80s, our current dialysis method was in their infancy until new materials (plastics) made them feasible.

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

#304

Post by dmayman »

designtofly wrote: post #290
abock1 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have actually teamed up with a company called AMT Netherlands to build our custom engines. The engines are not cheap because most of the companies are making them in very very small batches. We are currently increasing our numbers so the numbers are coming down considerably. We are actually currently working on a small thrust class turbofan which would solve a lot of issues that turbojets present. If you check out…

What bypass ratio are your turbofans? Your argument seems to be that because it's a turbofan (bypass > 0), you've "solved" all of the issues with turbojets. But at this size, you've still got a bypass ratio that's much closer to a turbojet than a modern commercial airline engine.

We use turbojets but are working on a 4:1 bypass ratio TF

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

#306

Post by estsauver »

whb07 wrote: post #256
estsauver wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we talk about basic ag tech, we're not talking about drones or robots, we're not even talking about mechanization, it's mostly fertilizer and seed breeding. - The accumulated knowledge of crop science is pretty strong, it's not a secret what the limiting factors in cereals crops are. - Empirical results (see groups like The One Acre Fund, extensive research farm results in the region, high confidence RCTs leave…

That doesn’t address the core issue of rule of law and property rights though. Pick any number of countries in Africa and air drop them ag-tech that’s 50 years into the future. I don’t for a second believe that it would cause much of anything to change or improve. Your US example appears to have been constrained by the current tech and knowledge of the day. In Kenya like you bring up, they aren’t limited by those thi…

Hey, I'm sorry but I truly don't understand what you're trying to say. I want to try and understand where we disagree, because to me that usually indicates we're having a communication failure. I think this is an empirical question and I feel like it's been settled at every level, and so I'd like to understand at what level we're disagreeing.

Things I believe:

- At the plant level, crop science has shown fertilizer and seed breeding are by far the dominant factor that control the first 75% of yield above wild types of maize/corn.

- One Acre Fund RCTs have shown that providing seed and fertilizer substantially improve yield outcomes.

- At the macro level, the development path of most countries that have transitioned out of agricultural economies have correlated extremely well with fertilizer usage. From the US to China, yield correlates really, really well with fertilizer usage and minimally with things like rule of law indexes of property ownership.

Which level or statement do we disagree at?

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

#307

Post by tim333 »

giarc wrote: post #251
estsauver wrote: post #104

One of the excellent things about YC is how they are completely unphased by moonshots. I don't know of any other organization that is nearly as supportive of ideas that would literally be called crazy other places. 3.5 years ago my cofounder were working on what was actually becoming an okay telecom referral business at the YC Fellowship, but my cofounder and I weren't happy. Pretty much every partner there enthusias…

>One of the excellent things about YC is how they are completely unphased by moonshots. I have never seen YC as a company investing in moonshots. Most of the companies that get accepted seem to be building products for developers or similar saas businesses. Some of their recent biotech investments are a bit more cutting edge, but full of moonshots, YC is not.

It's hard to keep up with all the companies they have funded but looking briefly here are a few along those lines:

Momentus - space propulsion, handy I guess for shooting towards the moon

Cruise and Embark - self driving cars and trucks

Helion and UPower - nuclear fusion and fission

Boom - supersonic aircraft

Ginko and Atomwise - custom designed organisms and drugs

Rigetti - quantum computing

Nectome - mind uploading

and I'm sure there are quite a few more

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

#308

Post by dmayman »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #302
comicjk wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial airplanes are much safer than cars (because they're rigorously maintained, observed, and operated by professionals). Little ultralight planes might be the best analogy for this project - but they're used by thrill-seekers, just like you predicted.

Commercial airplanes are usually able to safely glide under engine failures. A jetpack is going to drop out the sky. Just from glancing at this flying bike, if the power cuts above 10m, you're probably going to die.

Fixed wing can glide, helicopters can autorotate, open rotor e-vtols don’t autorotate because they don’t have variable pitch blades and their inertia is way too low anyway. jet-vtols have no rotor blades at all so... you’re right if an e-vtol or jet-vtol experiences a catastrophic failure then it’s going straight down! Many of the e-vtol companies say they solve this by having x levels of redundancy..we don’t buy that at JPA. We want to build a saftey system that can rescue the pilot from 5 feet or 50 feet or 5000 feet. Now that’s a challenge! But we believe doable.

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

#309

Post by dmayman »

mrnobody_67 wrote: post #276

Lift Aircraft already built working eVOTL for 1 passenger. 16 engines. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSbynmTcAYk

Yes they are and it’s great but...it suffers the same limitations as any open rotor drone configuration, it’s really slow and really large

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

#310

Post by dmayman »

cousin_it wrote: post #197

Since there's no need to keep the aircraft small while it's in the air, my ideal personal flight solution would be a combination of ducted fans for safe vertical takeoff and landing, and large wings that unfold or inflate in flight for much higher efficiency / gliding. Edit: apparently there's a ton of engineering problems with both ducted fans (stability) and folding wings (unfolding in flight is tricky). No idea if…

EDFs are really power hungry beasts! You have to use them for takeoff and then transition onto a wing ASAP or you’ll be out of juice at 250w.h/kg No loiter time possible. The issue with folding wings is that they can big stability issues. Probably not unsolvable but not simple.
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