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China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

engineerine.com

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Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#61

Post by rpdillon »

_kava wrote: post #30
vbezhenar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc. A…

For me, I guess it was the experience with the public transport, the cleanliness of the city, the way everything was built to interact with your phone seamlessly and automatically once you have the local apps(at the cost of privacy, I am fully aware), and the dazzling look of it all. Everything is new and shiny and feel safe. And not just the sterile kind of clean, but one that has a vibrant life under it. Yes, the e…

> the way everything was built to interact with your phone seamlessly and automatically once you have the local apps

This sounds so horrifying to me.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#62

Post by Gigachad »

hnfong wrote: post #49

An IRL Youtuber streamer recently tried one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQGAuf0rFLA Might be a bit of a stretch to call these "taxi"s but anyway here's your futuristic flying car from China...

The fact that it actually exists and can be demoed is pretty impressive.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#63

Post by Gigachad »

maxglute wrote: post #43

Hope this doesn't take off (kek), EVs have made PRC cities increasingly tranquil, dealing with rotors would be huge step down in QoL. Fine for quick transit across water. That said, maybe they can optimize for size:volume. it would actually be pretty good to displace delivery network from ground level. Maybe even straight to 40th storey balcony / living room delivery sometime.

Ideal use case seems like medical. Air taxi someone directly to the hospital as fast as possible.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#64

Post by Gigachad »

howard941 wrote: post #26
tekla wrote: post #5

I wish to see the safety test of what happens when a blade breaks off and hits the passenger bay.

It doesn't even need to hit the passenger compartment. The partially missing, unbalanced rotor could be enough to take it out.

From the demo video, they claim it has more rotors than needed. So presumably it could detect one of them breaking and just turn it off.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#65

Post by belter »

outer_web wrote: post #48

Additional reading: https://hindenburgresearch.com/ehang/

"EHang’s much-touted, recently granted certification comes with numerous flight restrictions that it has failed to fully disclose to investors. The restrictions invalidate the bulk of its potential commercial use cases, including restrictions against flying in densely populated areas, in shared airspace, and out of sight of a ground crew.

EHang claims restrictions will be progressively lifted, but according to China-based eVTOL experts, EHang’s flagship aircraft would need a billion-dollar redesign and an entirely different class of certification to avoid the limitations."

Also from the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority:

https://www.caac.gov.cn/XXGK/XXGK/BZGF/ZYTJHHM/202202/t20220...

"EHang EH216-S Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System Special Conditions.pdf" (in Chinese) - https://www.caac.gov.cn/XXGK/XXGK/BZGF/ZYTJHHM/202202/P02022...

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#66

Post by cynical_spar »

ablob wrote: post #60
NoahKAndrews wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airplanes already broadcast their position! It's called ADS-B.

Not every airplane does that. Commercial planes mostly do, but its not mandated under all circumstances as far as I know. (Speaking for my region only)

All commercial planes have it at this point. And most part 91 airplanes (General Aviation) have it at this point. Without ADSB you cannot fly in or near class A, B, or C airspace and must stay below 10,000 feet. Which largely makes having an airplane useless for most people.

There are still airplanes flying that have no electrical system but even then some of them have retrofitted a system.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#67

Post by cynical_spar »

metalman wrote: post #38
pryelluw wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on how you reason it would be easier?

everything with a mass over 1kg+- in the air, is carrying a "gps" and something that is transmitting its location, and all air traffic world wide is(theoreticaly) assigned a flight path for each trip,witha specific flight level, ie: the planning is 3d, so the density per layer, never gets very high, and there are specific paths taken to change layers, there are never any dogs, or horses, or people trying to deek, the…

This is not correct. There is no hard requirement for GPS nor anything that requires “something that transmits its location”. There is also no requirement for a flight plan or communication with ATC.

I can take off from an uncontrolled airport with no GPS, no transponder, no plan, and no radio and as long as I’m in the correct airspace I’m completely legal and within my right to do so.

There are some differences with these rules through out the world.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#68

Post by tmtvl »

whazor wrote: post #32
TulliusCicero wrote: post #24

> These vehicles are expected to redefine how cities tackle traffic congestion and pollution Counterpoint: no they're not. These sorts of very large drones may well become more popular, but they're not gonna become widespread enough to impact traffic congestion. The realistic target is becoming a moderately more popular version of helicopters for the sufficiently affluent.

Imagine the perfect city, with lots of green parks, great restaurants with outdoor seating, shops, do you think it should have noisy drones in it? Or a thousand drones?

I'd imagine rail and bicycles to be more practical.

Re: China just approved flying taxis – no pilot needed

#70

Post by ablob »

cynical_spar wrote: post #66
ablob wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every airplane does that. Commercial planes mostly do, but its not mandated under all circumstances as far as I know. (Speaking for my region only)

All commercial planes have it at this point. And most part 91 airplanes (General Aviation) have it at this point. Without ADSB you cannot fly in or near class A, B, or C airspace and must stay below 10,000 feet. Which largely makes having an airplane useless for most people. There are still airplanes flying that have no electrical system but even then some of them have retrofitted a system.

I was answering with the purposes of flight-taxis in mind. I doubt that they will fly in high altitude and deem it quite likely that they might want to pass uncontrolled airspace at some point. And if you're flying in uncontrolled airspace you just can't count on the presence of it. In fact, missing transponders are an occasional source of accidents in these spaces. There are lots of gliding enthusiasts that aren't equipped.

P.S.: Commercial planes (esp. big ones) should have hardly any contact points with flying taxis.

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