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

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

#231

Post by runarberg »

Aeolun wrote: post #208
tmh79 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I feel like I’ve heard so many ‘cheap clean water’ ideas over time that I’m sure it already exists. The problem is probably nobody wants to pay for that.

I’m not so sure. “A cheap and easy way to clean water” is probably the easiest Kickstarter scheme you can pull off. So naturally you will hear a lot of ideas, and none of them will work.

But lets say that your right on your first point, and a general solution exists. Then your second point is most definitely false. It is not the problem that nobody wants to pay for it. It is a problem that the people who need it can’t pay for it, and that nobody is willing to give it to them. See it’s a problem of distribution, not of demand.

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

#232

Post by Retric »

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…

A new Cessna 172 SP with a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit and 180HP engine is 230,000$ that’s a significant upgrade over the 1970’s model for similar costs. Or you can spend 1/2 that on a The Cessna 162 Skycatcher with a 100HP engine and Garmin G300 Avionics.

100+k is expensive, but even a 162 is likely to be flying for 40+ years.

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

#233

Post by chris_va »

dylan604 wrote: post #141
GekkePrutser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a ballistic parachute is not super safe in mountainous areas where the ground is not flat. With the typical ballistic parachute there is zero control on where you land. And even in the best circumstances the landing is pretty rough, it's more like a last resort. However engine failure can also occur on fuel-powered aircraft. And at least this thing has a whole lot of engines so it could afford the failure of a fe…

>However engine failure can also occur on fuel-powered aircraft This. Why would a battery powered aircraft be more susceptible to failure than another engine type?

Ignoring hard failures (like a battery case overheat+rupture)...

Running out of fuel is, unfortunately, not as uncommon as it should be. Most aircraft glide quite well (10:1 glide ratio). I really cannot tell with this plane, but the lack of control surfaces make it a meteor.

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

#234

Post by steffan »

s1dev wrote: post #230
steffan wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that some of the difference between a pilot license and a driver's license would diminish if the difficulty of a driver's license more accurately reflected the challenges of operating a heavy vehicle in close proximity to pedestrians and other vehicles. At the current standards, apparently the only hard requirement is a pulse.

Here are a few ways to kill you and all your passengers under instrument flight rules. Most of these involve a single mistake and a "controlled flight into terrain" - Turn too early/late past an arbitrary point in space - Turn the wrong direction - Descend too early past an arbitrary point in space - Use the wrong altimeter setting - Failing to recognize and troubleshoot a failed instrument - Failing to recognize sig…

(I fly IFR as well)

I don't think the comparison between a regular driver's license and Instrument / IMC flight is reasonable. Perhaps more accurate to compare to a Commercial Driver's License with a HazMat load

Or driving a bus

Even in the aviation world, an IFR rating is largely considered the most difficult to get.

I would also add that in aviation, most accidents / incidents do _not_ result from a single error, but rather the stacking up of errors, which granted, are almost all variations of 'pilot error'

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

#235

Post by trynewideas »

bobthepanda wrote: post #139
hindsightbias wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fly routes over freeways so they crash there. Society will learn to tolerate 4-6 deaths at a time, but not on the 737 scale.

Lots of things are in fairly close proximity to highways, this is not really a solution. Crashing into the tower block next to a highway is still pretty bad. Lots of things in dense areas also are not necessarily on an easy route near a highway, so if that's the limitation you run into Concorde's old problem of "where can you actually fly this thing?"

I'm skeptical about the rest of it, but the article lightly covers using existing transport corridors (waterways, rail tracks, and to a lesser priority arterial roadways) as routes for these medium-range flights that explicitly avoid populated areas.

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

#236

Post by steffan »

scarier wrote: post #174
chris_va wrote: post #66

Most people do not have the years to devote to becoming a good pilot, much less get a new category cert, so I find that these sorts of prototypes have a very limited audience. "Or maybe you want to escape to Lake Tahoe for a long weekend? That would be less than an hour on a Lilium Jet" ... ah, mountain flying with batteries, what could possibly go wrong. Also, I find the lack of a vertical stabilizer this plane to b…

Yeah, I worry that a lot of the use cases are in the most complicated and dangerous flight environments (mountains, big cities), even before you consider things like weather, airspace management, power margin at altitude... >Also, I find the lack of a vertical stabilizer this plane to be an odd choice. Not to mention any form of traditional aerodynamic control surface: "With 36 single-stage electric motors providing…

Given enough redundancy in the powertrain and power, I think it's probably going to be more reliable mechanically than the average piston-engined light aircraft.

Where I would really worry, of course, is the software driving all of that. It's very likely it will need some sophisticated control systems and may not even be inherently stable aerodynamically.

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

#237

Post by wolco »

xnyan wrote: post #112
noir_lord wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen if the car (or something similar had never been invented) and someone came out with a modern saloon today. "It'll revolutionise personal transport but we estimate it'll kill 40,0000 people in a horrible way per year" Like many things that are harmful in some way cars got grandfathered in (as did alcohol and tobacco) - if someone came out with an equivalent of alcohol with the same side effe…

>banned any drug with a set of side effects The word you are looking for is pleasure. The only types of drugs that are 100% illegal are drugs that have no purpose besides making you feel pleasurable sensations. Horrible side effects (e.g. chemo) and high chance of addiction (opioids, amphetamines, etc) and more are all allowed as long as the purpose of the effect of the drug is not (solely) pleasure. Alcohol, and inc…

Cannabis is seen as a medicine and a for pleasure only drug. The fact that it occupies both is unique.

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

#238

Post by trynewideas »

ricardobeat wrote: post #227
bfuclusion wrote: post #224

I feel these plans are ignoring a big component of why we don't have tons of heliports in urban areas. Noise. Even with electric pushing enough air to move is going to make a fair amount.

They certainly didn't ignore that aspect - right there, in the middle of the article, they mention that the aircraft has been designed for low noise, the equivalent of a truck passing by.

Now you can have the relative noise level of a nearby industry road wherever your house might be!

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

#239

Post by s1dev »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #205
lisper wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Lots of innovation has happened in aircraft electronics. The powerplant? Not so much. Most light aircraft engine designs are four or more decades old, and the only ones cheap enough for a moderately-priced aircraft have carburetors. I don't think you can even buy a car these days with a carburetor, but with airplanes they're still standard, even though fuel injection makes a lot more sense in an airplane than in a ca…

The problem with the 100LL phase-out is that you have over 70 years of engines and fuel systems designed to work with leaded fuel.

In order to complete the phase-out you either need to: force people to put a new $30K+ engine into a The FAA has been attempting the second route for some years, but to date has not been terribly successful. The first route has been done successfully in other regions such as the EU, but I would suspect there is far less legacy general aviation aircraft. I personally look forward to the mainstream introduction of diesel engines into the US market that are able to run on Jet-A

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

#240

Post by dzhiurgis »

runarberg wrote: post #222
renewiltord wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always been the case. We linked the world via trade in search of making a rich man's food taste better. I don't think it's sad. I think it's wonderful. The rich 'subsidize' progress for everyone. All of the things you mention (except the 3-point seatbelt, perhaps) have a story just like this one with some guy saying things just like this guy and a veritable shower of lament with no effort behind it.

> The rich 'subsidize' progress for everyone This sounds like an HN version of trickle down theory which I thought had been thoroughly debunked by economists. It’s funny but, I’ve always been under the impression that the opposite were true in standard economics, the poor—with their labour—are the once who subsidize the rich. I find it hard to believe that the economics of progress are any different. Let me draw up s…

Sir, this is not reddit.
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