Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km • Hacker News Board

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#181

Post by IAmEveryone » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

looping__lui wrote: post #40

I love innovation and stuff. Radical ideas. But the aviation market is one of the most heavily regulated - bureaucracy beyond comprehension. Did you ever wonder why Piper or Cessna airplanes look EXACTLY what they did 50 years ago? And why the engines used in these planes (e.g., Lycoming) are referred to as “Lycosaurus”!? If you go for a sightseeing flight with a local aeroclub - you will find the pilot spending 30mi…

Safety, as measured in fatalities per person per mile per year, has increased by a factor of 100x since the 1960s: traffic increased 10-fold, while fatalities fell by the same factor.

So they do seem to be doing something right...

The lack of chaanges may just indicate that the current paradigm is a rather good one. If anvbody came up with a working scramjet, regulation would be a minor hassle.

It's really physics that are limiting here: supersonic travel is too inefficient both economically and environmentally. And personal autonomous local transport (i. e. "flying car") is impossible without some sort of breakthrough on noise.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#182

Post by scarier » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #64

looping__lui wrote: post #40

I love innovation and stuff. Radical ideas. But the aviation market is one of the most heavily regulated - bureaucracy beyond comprehension. Did you ever wonder why Piper or Cessna airplanes look EXACTLY what they did 50 years ago? And why the engines used in these planes (e.g., Lycoming) are referred to as “Lycosaurus”!? If you go for a sightseeing flight with a local aeroclub - you will find the pilot spending 30mi…

Private pilot here. Yes, aviation innovates slowly, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it sound. Cirrus aircraft have been a game changer, as has the Garmin G1000 avionics. I can fly just about any instrument approach entirely on autopilot. The only thing I have to touch is the throttle and the flaps. I get real-time traffic information via ADS-B, real-time weather via Nexrad. I do my flight planning in five minu…

Avionics have certainly changed a lot, but basic aircraft structures and controls have been almost stagnant for decades (and most of the places they aren't static are largely related to electronics--even if you're lucky enough to have a FADEC running your engine, it's still controlling hardware that largely dates to the '50s or so).

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#183

Post by FabHK » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

0_____0 wrote: post #96

baybal2 wrote: post #78

Switzerland is one of few countries where "air taxi" services turned to profit. Hilly terrain makes it hard to make straight roads. Quite a lot of big cities don't have direct road connections. In a relatively flat USA, you don't have a lot of similar spaces.

Only place in the US I can think of that matches that is rural Alaska. Lots of little islands and communities where bushplanes are a primary transportation mode. I remember seeing a row of houses built along a grassy strip that operated as a runway. Like their combined backyards were literally the airstrip.

Distances are much larger in Alaska though, I'd think, which means that electric aircraft will struggle.

Switzerland has 8.5m people on 41k km^2, while Alaska has 0.7m people on 1500k km^2.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#184

Post by djohnston » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

VTOL seems like a difficult thing to get right, the military still has issues w the osprey although the design here is quite removed from that. wishing them the best.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#185

Post by FabHK » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #6

What would make a "flying car" worthwhile for under 20km flights?

Bad traffic in Jakarta or Mumbai or Sao Paolo or Mexico City or Moscow? And those places don't lack a few super wealthy that wouldn't mind zipping around in a cool new aircraft.

Or maybe transit from one airport to another within a city.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#186

Post by renewiltord » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

looping__lui wrote: post #178

renewiltord wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only pay the R&D costs once. All you're saying is that you have to put a lot into R&D, but that's all on the I side of ROI. It was the same with SpaceX, the I part was huge. The question is whether you can make the R part work. And if you have scale, then the R part moves differently. It's the same with the first car you build. The first Tesla Roadster cost tens of millions to make. The second Tesla Roadster cost…

I think we have different mindsets here: !every! company in aviation, the automotive or transportation industry is worried about the “I” for the R&D. If there is a factor 10 whatever uncertainty in this equation - you are essentially just gambling like an Options-Day-Trader on Reddit. I understand that investors see “the hockeystick” unlimited revenue upside and justify everything around that. But I personally would…

Are you in the aviation industry? I am not. So know that what I'm saying is based on low-grade near-zero prior knowledge. Would love to know the certainty on your knowledge.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#187

Post by theptip » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

looping__lui wrote: post #159

theptip wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “innovation has a horrible ROI” This may be so, but I don't think you've really substantiated it; you're just talking about part of the "I", without any reference to the dollars of "R". Sure, $1m puts a plane out of almost everybody's recreation budget. But for a piece of transportation infrastructure with high utilization, it might not be prohibitive. (I mean, a jumbo jet costs hundreds of millions to build, invol…

What kind of analysis are you looking for? How much these features are worth is subjective and the general aviation market is super small and not exactly growing. Don’t get me wrong: everybody I know loves his SR20/22. My comment was not dismissive of the innovation by Cirrus (which I think is great). It’s about the costs getting it into the market and having it certified. Imagine you buy a car for 50k USD. Now, you…

> How much these features are worth is subjective

Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes here; when talking about ROI, the numerator and denominator are usually both in dollars.

If I'm pitching Lilium to some VCs, I'd model out the cost of researching, developing, and building the fleet ("I"), and the revenue I hope to generate in a given timeframe ("R"). After adjusting for the risk of failure, if that ROI is higher than what you can get with other investments, the ROI is, in the relative sense "good". If it's worse than putting your dollars into treasury bonds, it's "bad".

Paraphrasing, your arguments earlier in this thread were that investing in aviation is brave, because the ROI on those investments is bad, because it's expensive to certify new inventions. I certainly agree that it's expensive to build a plane, or even add features to a plane, and even more expensive to build and certify a new plane. But that doesn't mean it's bad ROI. The return generated by building expensive things can be astronomical; see military and aerospace contractors taking in multi-billion dollar contracts with very healthy profits, for example. There should be clear numbers behind this; how many aviation startups succeeded in the last N years? How many folded? That would be the objective analysis I'm looking for when talking about ROI on investments in aviation companies.

Maybe that's not the point you were intending to make; perhaps you're just talking about the ROI for an individual buying a plane, rather than a business operating a fleet (like Lilium in the OP)? But if that's what you mean by ROI, then I don't think that is particularly relevant to investors; they are interested in ROI in the sense I outlined above.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#188

Post by PopeDotNinja » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:38 PM UTC

tmh79 wrote: post #113

ordinaryradical wrote: post #5

This to me is a true moonshot and venture-worthy idea. Some of these concepts may be technically or economically infeasible—it's a major risk—but the pay-off for human wellbeing is phenomenal. I wish we celebrated more companies like these, but it seems like most of them are met with (well-earned) skepticism rather than genuine curiosity. The world of atoms is harder than software, but it's awaiting disruptions like…

I dunno man, im getting kind of jaded as I get older. "True moonshot" to me seems more like cheap clean water for everyone, or a real way to sequester carbon, not a way for rich folks to get to their country cottages faster.

My moonshot idea would be a 100% carbon neutral battery recycling plant w/ zero waste.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#189

Post by mlyle » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

looping__lui wrote: post #126

notatoad wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>let us not compare a 50k used Cessna to a 500k Cirrus? why not? the original post was that innovation can't happen in aviation because of regulation. if we're shifting the argument to innovation doesn't happen because it's expensive, that's a much more solveable problem.

Let me rephrase: The innovation you describe (which is cool and needs certification) bumped the price for a new airplane from about 50k in the 70s (I guess we may be talking 200k in today’s money) to close to 1MM USD. And that innovation is “just” glass cockpit, and some more advanced avionics. Not changing the principles - you fly a bit faster, a bit safer but still need a license and do all the preparation and chec…

> And that innovation is “just” glass cockpit, and some more advanced avionics. Not changing the principles - you fly a bit faster, a bit safer but still need a license and do all the preparation and checks. But it’s a bit more fancy. From 200k to almost 1 MM.

Nah. Avionics, etc, and what goes into a plane is cheap compared to the purchase price. Even when you talk about G1000, G3000, etc, they are not the primary cost drivers.

What's killed the price of general aviation aircraft is that very few units are purchased. In turn, prices go up; in turn more old planes are kept flying and fewer units are purchased.

Four seat aircraft without glass cockpits and without notable innovation are a few hundred K.

Re: Regional Air Mobility: Why we don’t plan to operate flights under 20km

#190

Post by JAlexoid » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 11:44 PM UTC

looping__lui wrote: post #40

I love innovation and stuff. Radical ideas. But the aviation market is one of the most heavily regulated - bureaucracy beyond comprehension. Did you ever wonder why Piper or Cessna airplanes look EXACTLY what they did 50 years ago? And why the engines used in these planes (e.g., Lycoming) are referred to as “Lycosaurus”!? If you go for a sightseeing flight with a local aeroclub - you will find the pilot spending 30mi…

I suspect that aeroplanes will look very similarly in 100 years as well. There's such thing as physics that are the main reasons.

Don't look at fighter jets, as they are basically jet engines with guns and little control surfaces added.

As for airworthiness - there's a good reason for that - these things literally fly over your head.