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Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

I am squarely middle class... how in the hell would I be able to afford this, pilot training, maintenance and more if I can't afford to buy a 1960's Cessna 172? Nevermind the maintenance, training and more?

Flying cars for the masses are a delusional pipe dream.

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You dont afford it. You hail it like an uber. And its autonomous, so you dont need a pilots license. And because its picking up and dropping off dozens and dozens of 'rides' a day, the cost is shared by the user base. A short flight 2 hours away could be $100. Hell of a lot better than spending your time stuck in traffic. Also begins the process of easing congestion on highways.

The other thing is that they could still be flown a few feet above ground but without an actual road. It would eliminate the need to maintain a road system and if the thing fails at least it will not be the high altitude crash landing that kills you( although traveling at 300km/hour and loosing power will still be really bad even if you are just a few feet above ground). I think it would make it an easier sell to the public.

[Edit] Obviously I know nothing about aviation. So based on the comments below I stand corrected.

That's totally unrealistic. Low altitude flight is extremely dangerous due to the risk of hitting trees, towers, power lines, hills, etc. Military helicopter pilots are well trained and have good equipment but they still have frequent crashes during low-level training missions. If anything goes wrong you impact the ground and die with no chance to recover. The general public won't tolerate that level of risk, and the FAA would certainly never permit it.

> And because its picking up and dropping off dozens and dozens of 'rides' a day, the cost is shared by the user base.

I imagine charging time would be an issue; there would have to be well-stocked supplies of batteries near each dropoff point, and some way to quickly swap them out.

And don't forget about fuel. My horse, for example, costs me only $50/mo to keep well fed and gives me transportation year round. These sound like a huge drain on the wallet just to keep them running.

You ride it to work?

Horses were and are pretty expensive.

I think that underestimates the TCO of horses - shoes, medical care, grooming etc!

$300/month is a more realistic figure.

> The first is that full autonomy is much easier in aviation than with ground transport.

> potentially for everyone if the economics of sharing these works out where regular folks could afford to hail these and the system could scale.

The idea is:

- You don't need pilot training

- The cost of the aircraft is shared among many people. You're not meant to buy one for yourself, you're meant to hail it like a taxi or Uber.

Plus, the only price I could find for a 1960s Cessna 172 is $12k. If you can't afford that, you can't buy a decent car either.

> Plus, the only price I could find for a 1960s Cessna 172 is $12k.

Seems unusually low, compared to the offer prices listed here: http://www.aircraftdealer.com/aircraft_for_sale/Cessna_172/9...

I was looking at this, though I admittedly know little about purchasing used aircraft: https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?category_level1=Single+...

Ditto, I just though it might be useful to look at a larger sample size (taking "a 1960's Cessna 172" as more of a general example than an exact requirement).

Even if it's a real price, that's hardly the only cost to owning an airplane, if you actually fly it.

Similarly, the purchase price of a car isn't the only cost of owning it. Someone else later in the thread broke down small plane ownership costs (about $8000, without flying, about $10k if you actually want to fly some).

I was just replying to the price comparison with a car. Going up the thread, part of the premise was that they couldn't afford to buy a Cessna "Nevermind the maintenance, training and more".

Anyhow, the point's already been made (several times) that the purchase price isn't the only consideration.

~30k-40k for a mid 60's 172 that will actually fly, after some maintenance.

Plenty of decent cars available for $12K.

alistproducer2 is operating under the premise that full autonomy, or a self-driving VTOL is easier than self-driving cars, or at least that flying cars for the masses would hinge on top-tier automagical flying to deal with the training issue.

A fleet of these forming an aerial taxi service would be the next step

$39K for 1967 Cessna 172 seems affordable

http://www.aircraftdealer.com/aircraft-for-sale-detail/Cessn...

Annuals are at least $1000 a year, with insurance, taxes, and other costs you'd probably spend $8K a year to have it sit not flying. Add in flying costs and engine reserve you'd spend $10K or more a year.

Source: Am a pilot.

Taxes for what exactly?

Insurance is about ~600 a year from what I gather.

So not sure how you go from 1k to 8k

When you have large assets, the gov makes sure to charge property tax.

Local tax of a few hundred up to $1k, $300 loan a month, insurance is more like $1200 depending on experience. Hangar and tie down fees...

Cant find anything on taxes on personal aircraft (past purchase of course).

Loan?

Hangers are indeed expensive depending on the area, but tie down fees are like $60 a month

Many states/counties have a property tax on airplanes. But compared to other costs (insurance, maintenance, fuel) it's a drop in the bucket.

They're aiming to make it a taxi service. You wouldn't have to own one or deal with maintenance, you'd just pay the $X for your trip. And if it's fully autonomous (which it appears to be), then you -- as a passenger -- wouldn't have to be licensed any more than if you were flying commercial. I have no idea what sort of regulatory hurdles would exist or how easily they'd be overcome. But the fact that they've already built the plane would indicate that they've already taken that into consideration.

> And if it's fully autonomous (which it appears to be),

It's clearly not, since they describe situations in which onboard systems would provide notifications to "the pilot" directing them to land the plane.

The vision is an air taxi service serving the public, not personal aircraft owned or piloted by members of the general public.

If it's fully autonomous, which as has been noted is easier for aviation, you don't buy it, you rent it for a few minutes.

Imagine ordering a Lyft and this show up. This is amazing.

I laughed at the thought that you might one day use a ride sharing app and forget to specify that you wanted a car.

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