Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside • Hacker News Board

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#91

Post by Cyder » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

oceanplexian wrote: post #62

heyflyguy wrote: post #24

Every time I see a multirotor carrying people, I think of the many times while building them at the beginning of the drone renaissance that I saw 4/6/8 bladed multirotors have an AP failure, a blade break, a speed controller overheat, etc etc and it fell out of the sky, literally. These do not have a glideslope! Sure, a ballistic chute might prevent an onboard tragedy but I continue to wonder about what the flying ca…

Statistically speaking, powerplant failure is not a leading cause of accidents for general aviation aircraft. A small popup thunderstorm will rip this thing to shreds like confetti. A moderately gusting 30-40kt crosswind will result in this thing landing upside down in a ditch. A lightning strike from 10-20 miles away will result in an entire wing shearing off. Hit some precip on a cold day and structural icing will…

This is why they'll never work in areas with weather as such. Certainly limits the geographical areas where they would be practical.

In rain, people would have to resort to ground based transport, so it doesn't really solve the problem. Transportation has to deal with weather. In the future, when batteries are light and powerful enough to run heavy aircraft (ie. Less vulnerable to light winds) vstol craft will be more practical. So much is waiting on Kw per AA sized battery.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#92

Post by dchichkov » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 9:02 PM UTC

fsloth wrote: post #76

dchichkov wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be nice to have emergency vehicles. But, don't build hanging parkways with good views, for the privileged, please. We've been there before - https://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2003/putting-pleasure-... - with Robert Moses parkways, "bridges instead of tunnels" and the likes. And we've now learned - it's a mistake to put mass transportation system into the air. (Love flying, private pilot, airplanes, sailplane…

Couldn't the parking be organized by just putting roboticized "air garages" to the top of sky scrapers? Carriers operate a fleet of aircraft in a very constrained space. With purely VTOL craft there is no need for that to be horizontal, it all could be put to vertical. So you would have 1. Landing bay (helicopter pad or an enclosed bay).For enclosed bays those could be stacked on top of one another. 2. Robotic parkin…

Parkway is not parking. Wiki: The term has also been applied to scenic highways and to limited-access roads more generally. Many parkways originally intended for scenic, recreational driving have evolved into major urban and commuter routes.

The mistake that would be great to avoid is "private parkways in the sky" in the urban areas.

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#93

Post by craftinator » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

Cyder wrote: post #91

oceanplexian wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistically speaking, powerplant failure is not a leading cause of accidents for general aviation aircraft. A small popup thunderstorm will rip this thing to shreds like confetti. A moderately gusting 30-40kt crosswind will result in this thing landing upside down in a ditch. A lightning strike from 10-20 miles away will result in an entire wing shearing off. Hit some precip on a cold day and structural icing will…

This is why they'll never work in areas with weather as such. Certainly limits the geographical areas where they would be practical. In rain, people would have to resort to ground based transport, so it doesn't really solve the problem. Transportation has to deal with weather. In the future, when batteries are light and powerful enough to run heavy aircraft (ie. Less vulnerable to light winds) vstol craft will be mor…

Meteorologist here. Every place on Earth has weather as such. Frequency is different for different places, but everywhere experiences those conditions multiple times a year (at altitude, hazardous conditions as such are far more frequent than on the surface).

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#94

Post by dchichkov » Sun, Oct 06, 2019, 11:09 PM UTC

zizee wrote: post #67

Atheros wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Construction is temporary. Stereos and bands are played to bring enjoyment; the sound produced is the point, not a byproduct of some other motivation so those should get more of a pass. Many cities already enforce laws against persistently barking dogs and those laws can work just fine. I'm with you regarding motor bikes and public transport but the same rules should not apply to the others. They can have their own r…

My comment was deliberately extreme as I believed the parent comment to be. The activities/devices I mentioned can be appropriate in certain locales, and inappropriate in others. To suggest this new vehicle has to operate at a level to not drown out birds before it can fit into society is silly. It's reasonable to place restictions on their use, e.g. you shouldn't be able to takeoff and land in quiet residential neig…

Why is it silly? If someone rides a bicycle, walks or rides a subway in a city there is no noise pollution. Why noise pollution should be allowed for a guy flying his motorbike from his private hills to the urban center?

Re: Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

#95

Post by zizee » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

dchichkov wrote: post #94

zizee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was deliberately extreme as I believed the parent comment to be. The activities/devices I mentioned can be appropriate in certain locales, and inappropriate in others. To suggest this new vehicle has to operate at a level to not drown out birds before it can fit into society is silly. It's reasonable to place restictions on their use, e.g. you shouldn't be able to takeoff and land in quiet residential neig…

Why is it silly? If someone rides a bicycle, walks or rides a subway in a city there is no noise pollution. Why noise pollution should be allowed for a guy flying his motorbike from his private hills to the urban center?

Please reread what I wrote.

To be clear, I really dislike noise pollution, and welcome the day when noisy lawnmowers, leaf blowers, jetskis and motercycles are banned from where people live, relax, most places really. I think it is really selfish for others to produce such noise around others.

What is silly is to say this noisy thing can't possibly fit into the world without hitting an extreme benchmark, when society has already accepted much worse offenders (whether you and I like it).