81–90 of 157 posts
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I wouldn't worry about that. Most people can't even drive cars in "2D" safely, never mind helicopters. The general public will never be given the skies, unless the flights are automated.
Don't today's drones and airplanes demonstrate that automating flying is a lot easier than automating driving?
How am I supposed to "store it inside a standard garage" if it doesn't have wheels to move it in?
Wait: - Curb Weight: 1100lbs - Max Takeoff Weight: 1500lbs So... you, your passenger, and any cargo combined can't weigh more than 400 pounds? That's a pretty serious limit for people hoping to transport multiple adults. And "precision agriculture" or the sorts of practical uses they discuss all go right out the window.
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An average plane carries around 150 to 200 people and planes are used only for long distances. Living in a world where the affordability of these are like cars, would be far worse, I imagine.
Unlike cars, these machines would not be tightly packed into roads, concentrating the noise and pollution; likely they'd have to keep a serious distance. Also, with a top speed of 70 mph and range of 70 miles, it does not look like a great daily-commuter vehicle. This device looks like a good fit for an expensive urban fast-jump service, or a good solution for places where roads are hard to build, like going to a for…
The only thing is, something invented for a niche market on Sunday will be made much cheaper on Monday, will be widespread and causing mayhem by Tuesday, regulated to the hilt on Wednesday, the sole domain of big corporations by Thursday, and used for aerial assassinations at-will by the military by Friday.
(My little sequence there takes a cue from this talk, posted on HN yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16106331 )
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I empathize but I think that attitude is an artifact of the age we grew up in. I'm sure equestrians felt the same way when those rackety automobile contraptions started zooming around.
I think everyone must have felt this way about automobiles. And by and large, it's worked out just as horribly as they imagined: our communities are divided by dangerous moats we call "roads" -- death traps which we must painstakingly teach our children to avoid, if we dare let our children wander outside on their own anywhere near them in the first place.
Yep, JFYI, an excerpt from "Autophobia":
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No, worse. That thing would turn into the tumble dryer from hell with partial power. It has no blade pitch control (like a helicopter does), requiring power on the motors in all four corners to maintain stability. The real emergency situation to worry about would be a total power failure. Failure of the individual electric motors will likely be extremely rare but a battery fire or controller failure could send this t…
BRS parachutes have been tested as low as 260' AGL at 187 knots (several times faster than this craft would ever go) and individuals have reported successful deployments below 100' AGL[0] The question of course is how quickly it can be deployed in this craft as the vertical speed will likely be much faster than a Cessna or Cirrus in the event of total power failure. [0] https://www.flyingmag.com/g00/how-it-works-brs-…
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> For the SureFly, Hypothetically if loss of several motors caused the aircraft to be unable to maintain altitude, the aircraft would not suddenly drop like a brick, but drift down to a controlled landing. Source? I'd think loss of two stacked rotors would lead to loss of control, tumble, and dropping like a brick (until BRS deployed), not controlled descent and landing.
there's a parachute
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I don't get the point - are you suggesting we'd be better off without automobiles? Would we go back to horses? What about global logistics? Agriculture?
We'd be better off with dense cities where automobile is not the primary means of transportation. Like e.g. NYC or many European cities. Cars and large trucks should mostly belong to highways and country roads.
And with that said, Toronto is far from being a city where we could live without cars for human transportation - without Uber getting around would be hell.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An average plane carries around 150 to 200 people and planes are used only for long distances. Living in a world where the affordability of these are like cars, would be far worse, I imagine.
Unlike cars, these machines would not be tightly packed into roads, concentrating the noise and pollution; likely they'd have to keep a serious distance. Also, with a top speed of 70 mph and range of 70 miles, it does not look like a great daily-commuter vehicle. This device looks like a good fit for an expensive urban fast-jump service, or a good solution for places where roads are hard to build, like going to a for…
Remember weight is the real limit. So, having a single passenger frees up ~150 lb for extra fuel.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think everyone must have felt this way about automobiles. And by and large, it's worked out just as horribly as they imagined: our communities are divided by dangerous moats we call "roads" -- death traps which we must painstakingly teach our children to avoid, if we dare let our children wander outside on their own anywhere near them in the first place.
I don't get the point - are you suggesting we'd be better off without automobiles? Would we go back to horses? What about global logistics? Agriculture?