Flying Taxis May Be Years Away, but the Groundwork Is Accelerating
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- a short trip allows battery needs to not be excessive
- bypass traffic, you don't have to go all that fast to get a huge speedup, and remove the extra buffer time on traffic uncertainty
- radically less infrastructure than roads or rails, reduces the cost of adding more pickup zones
In cites with poor airport to downtown infrastructure you could probably start off as a high-end service and charge i.e. 5x than an airport limo.
I think there doesn’t need to be new tech to make this work. Helicopters are safe and reliable, but are out of reach financially for most. I don’t see how drones or multirotor would be able to compete on price for a very long time.
Because they have better properties for many use cases: much simpler mechanically, cheaper to operate, easier to control, etc. I’d also expect drones to be more reliable, but that remains to be seen.
(Of course, you need a certain altitude for the BRS to kick in successfully, so low-level hover is a risk, just as with a helicopter.)
If regular subway is not fast enough, maglev train like the one connecting PVG airport to Longyang Rd subway station can complete its 19 miles trip in 8 minutes, with a fare less than 10 US dollars, and it has been running for almost two decades.
And I agree, I’m thinking of short shuttle services in extremely congested cities, such as São Paulo, Jakarta, etc.
Yes, they’d be better served by a good subway system, but good luck waiting for that.
2. External constraints prevent the better solution from being implemented for now.
For a technology to eventually become mainstream, usually it first needs to find a sweet-spot where operational kinks can be worked out. Think of Tesla Roadster.
It may add value if you could suggest a more suitable initial application than airport shuttle.
Maglev is just a bit extreme but more traditional subway systems are already super common across the world. The RER trains in Paris is exactly what I mean by an express subway system. It’s much faster than the other metro system in Paris simply because it has fewer stops.
It’s an easier technical problem I’d think, and the regulatory issues are probably about the same.
But a flying, electric, quiet, self-flying drone taxi will mean no traffic issues, as-the-crow-flies travel, and higher top speeds. It may eventually mean the death of roads and the ability for people to live 100 miles from where they work, possibly solving a lot of housing issues in metropolitan areas.
Also it’d be a better way to get around watery/mountainous areas, not to mention just a few helipads to clean off after snowstorms.
It would also be super cool, jetsons-style!
Edit: here is the exact video (1 min long): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nz69M6khCs
IMO and his major point the issue/risk is falling cars. NYC for example does not have many safe places to crash, or just have a hubcap fall off. Aircraft tend to mostly hit empty fields and mountains because that's what most of the US is covered with. Still, plenty of people have died sitting at home as an aircraft failed and making that 10,000x as bad seems like a significant issue.
https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/may-16-1977-he...
Also because the route takes them that way. People are going to be doing short commute runs in these flying taxis (airport to city, house to work, etc). That's not over lots and lots of nothing in the general case.
Not sure. They will become profitable only at a point where you can sell many flying taxis, at which point the airspace becomes crowded and the problem becomes harder than autonomous cars.
At certain levels of demand there are air traffic control and collision avoidance issues that need to be dealt with. Birds, other air taxis, consumer drones, aircraft small and large.
Also, departure and landing sequencing - what happens when a few hundred air taxis need to depart a large apartment complex for their commute, or a thousand or so air taxis descend for a large sports or entertainment event.
- they are inherently fuel inefficient compared to devices with wheels
- they are noisy, a problem which can probably never be solved unless breakthroughs are made in science-fiction fields like anti-gravity
- airspace is very limited. In my country, we have already serious planning problems with the current amount of air traffic
- it's not sustainable from nature-perspective. Current air traffic accounts for quite some insect & bird loss. Imagine a multitude of current airtraffic; it would be disastrous for the already dwindling quantity of airborne creatures
- flying is inherently weather-bound. Especially for relatively small aircrafts this is true. Taxis fit this property. This means service is limited to a subset of all weather conditions; YMMV depending on the area of flight.
- flying is heavily regulated, which poses barriers. Obviously, startups can overcome these barriers, but they don't help in solving the overall problem
- social opposition will always be a thing unless 100% security is neared and near-100% noiseness is reached. Until that time, there will be fierce opposition to add any type of aircraft for mass-use to the airspace
This being said, I really, really, really do like the idea of hopping in an airborne transportation device and go straight to any place in a +-(a few hundreds of KM) range.
assuming it can be harvested cleanly, energy isn't inherently a problem until we start getting close to capturing a significant fraction of total solar irradiance. we get better at this every year, so eventually it will be a non-issue.
> they are noisy, a problem which can probably never be solved unless breakthroughs are made in science-fiction fields like anti-gravity
imo, this is probably the biggest obstacle. like you say, there's really no plausible breakthrough that could reduce the noise level to something that could be acceptable in a dense environment.
> airspace is very limited. In my country, we have already serious planning problems with the current amount of air traffic
idk what country you live it, but this is probably only true at higher altitudes and in the immediate surroundings of airports.
> airspace is very limited. In my country, we have already serious planning problems with the current amount of air traffic
this is important, but people won't necessarily care.
the other items in your list would probably delay adoption but not prevent it altogether.
Total cost will be lower.
>they are noisy, a problem which can probably never be solved unless breakthroughs are made in science-fiction fields like anti-gravity
Not electric, though wind may be a problem if the FAA allows a free-for-all, which it probably won't.
>airspace is very limited. In my country, we have already serious planning problems with the current amount of air traffic
With human pilots, sure. With autonomous vehicles, nope. They'll swarm like birds or insects.
>it's not sustainable from nature-perspective
Airborne wildlife will learn to avoid population centers and "skyways".
>flying is inherently weather-bound
Only with human pilots. Autonomous vehicles will care only about ice and lightning. Severe wind, sure, but that's fairly rare in most places.
>flying is heavily regulated, which poses barriers
The FAA just relaxed its regulations and will relax them more in the future. Everyone wants the personal airborne vehicle, especially winkled old bureaucrats in Washington.
>social opposition will always be a thing unless 100% security is neared and near-100% noiseness is reached
This may come as a surprise, but policymakers don't really give a damn about what the public wants. Autonomous vehicles will be more safe than human-piloted craft, which is enough, and electric, which is silent.
>This being said, I really, really, really do like the idea of hopping in an airborne transportation device and go straight to any place in a +-(a few hundreds of KM) range.
Good, because you're going to get it.
P.S. Re: +/- several hundred kilometers: There's no such thing as negative range.
There's no nature-perspective, there's the question how to keep the environment the way we like it (or accustomed to). Flying insects/birds loss is a tiny part of the equation that needs to be taken into account.
Not sure that’s really an issue. Imagine the surface of your city had no obstacles and were basically one huge road. Surely, that’s a lot of space to drive. Now imagine many horizontal layers of that, so you could eg easily separate by direction of travel (as is done in aviation).
Next, one problem in traditional aviation is of course that planes can’t stop in the air. Drones, however, can.
While air space and ATC for many air taxis surely present a regulatory and technical challenge, I don’t think they’ll severely limit large scale deployment in principle, particularly if it’s more or less random point-to-point traffic.
If everyone is trying to get to a specific location at a specific time (an event), that might get complicated.
DJI recently introduced a 60% quieter version of its Mavic Pro drone (with “new FOC sinusoidal driver ESCs and 8331 propellers”).
And remember how Apple engineers the fans in the MBP to be very quiet, by using irregular spacing?
I think there is quite some scope for improvement, even without anti-gravity devices...
Lastly, listening to videos of eg the Volocopter flying, I don’t find the noise particularly bothersome (but then, I’m biased,,, :-)
I agree with most of your post, but I can't agree with this:
> the regulatory issues are probably about the same
The issue is, flying cars are by far more dangerous than road vehicles.
Sadly, transportation advances come at a cost of human lives.
Today we take road fatalities for granted. Think of the dangers of crossing the road 150 years ago vs now.
But even today getting injured or killed by a motor vehicle requires being near a road or a thoroughfare where it can pass. Imagine taking it to a whole new level: even if you're standing on your balcony or even inside your apartment, you can get killed by an idiot flying his mini-plane on ecstasy. Tiny drones with toy functions and limited traffic are already dangerous. Imagine super-powered flying machines that can lift a ton.
Sprawl does not solve housing issues. Let’s say the metropolitan range is expanded by 100 miles, all that’s happened is now the 100 mile area will soon get filled up with low density housing full of new NIMBY homeowners. It’s much better to approve new housing near existing transportation infrastructure than spend billions building out a speculative technology to fix a problem with an easily understood solution.
On a software level Self-flying aircraft are much more simple than self-driving cars, there exist today technologies to have 100% safe self-flying vehicles similar to small electrical planes capable of 1 to 2 passengers, it's much more a regulation challenge.
The weight of a car is an excellent kinetic energy weapon. Fly over soft target, detonate something on-board to disable safety features and you have the poor-man(terrorist?)'s remote-kill drone.
Makes driving trucks into crowded streets look positively medieval.
The danger of this far outweighs any possible benefits.
Flying cars will become a thing, but stay heavily regulated and a rich-person's toy.
The killer combination is self-flying cars (which as I said will be a prerequisite for mass adoption). No one needs ride it for it to be a weapon, unlike a helicopter.
and
FAR §135.125 Aircraft security. Certificate holders conducting operators conducting operations under this part must comply with the applicable security requirements in 49 CFR chapter XII.
The first applies to all flights, the second applies to air taxi flights. Equivalents for flying taxis are indicated, but it's a whole separate paradigm. Who is the pilot in command of an autonomous flying taxi? That has very clear implications today with human pilots. It's really vague what that thing is in a pilotless paradigm.
There's probably a distinction between rides with strangers and rides with friends and family. If I know everyone in my flying taxi, that's probably more like a FAR 91 flight, and maybe it's sane to have a minimal security paradigm. If there are strangers on the flight, that's trending toward FAR 135 requirement.
Loss of multiple rotors is perfectly manageable.
Add variable pitch blades and you get autorotation ability to handle total power loss.
Worrying about the threats posed is silly. A truck driven by a maniac still can do far more damage. No one is proposing a truck ban.
A 'flying car' is heavy enough to do large amounts damage just by falling out of the sky. Doesn't have to have anyone riding in it to blow themselves up at the right time, a cell-phone triggered bomb will do just as well.
Molotov cocktail delivery vehicle? Why not? Requires a remote control lighter and remote release. How about dropping steel rebar? Needs tail fins for directional stability and some testing but that would be plenty troublesome. Drone mounted pistols are already here. (YouTube them.)
And yet the skies are considered safe enough today. I just think there are bigger concerns out there.
The only practical option is independent dual redundant power systems so that one failure can't take out more than half the propellers. Plus a rocket assisted ballistic recovery parachute to allow a (mostly) survivable crash landing in case of a catastrophic failure. Of course there will still be some rare failure modes where a parachute won't be sufficient.
3rd answer down :)
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/37360/can-a-pas...
Rotor system inertia is incredibly important in autorotation, and this fact will pretty much make autorotation in quad+-rotor aircraft a no-go.
The only option here is a ballistic parachute / BRS, and personally that's not a system I'd stake my life on.
After all such cars will have to be self-flying. You're surely not suggesting the flying car using public would need to get a pilots license before flying in one ? That would already mean they're only a rich persons toy.
If the target is big enough (sports stadium for example) you.dont need to aim it. And as to why use a flying car instead of going there, I would have thought that was obvious. You can drop a car on people from a distance. Don't need to be there.
First, these cars would be easy targets for AA batteries. I would have to assume thst getting to close to a stadium full of people in one would lead to a shoot down, or remote shutdown.
Second, why bombs? What you can pack into a small aircraft is not the makings of a really impressive bomb, unless you have military grade high explosives. Now on the other hand, you could pack loads of nerve agents, chlorine, vessicants, or biological agents into one.
Third, you’d have to know enough about the hardware and software to modify it to fly empty, and violate restricted airspace. That might be a hell of a barrier to entry.
Fourth, these things could be heavily networked to function, so a rogue taxi could be taken over remotely, because it’s already remotely controlled.
Fifth, does the FBI care why you’re building a bomb or milling anthrax? Whatever your delivery system, they’re monitoring precursors and equipment you’d need. Air taxi, truck, drone, dudes with backpacks... the delivery system isn’t the chokepoint.
I guess I don't feel that this will be the reason flying cars aren't adopted. In my mind, the barriers are almost entirely economics.
It's worth mentioning also that there seems to be a plan to have pilots for these programs in the near term. Take a look at Uber's Elevate concept video, there's a pilot on-board.
Our current 'arrive two hours early' security screening has cost many lives simply because it tilts the drive/fly equation towards driving, which is dramatically more dangerous.
That said, you are probably right about the net effect.
This. Considering about 800 million passengers per year in US, that's 800 million extra hours of awake human that the additional hour to handle security requirements suck up. Considering a 79 year lifespan per human (totaling 461360 awake hours), that's around 1734 human lives wasted per year in US. 9/11 only killed 2996 people, of average age 40, so roughtly could be said that the extra hour of airport security in US costs a 9/11 every year. (I'll admit, maybe people having a friendly chat in the secutiry line or otherwise enjoy the extra time in the airport terminal, so not exactly apples-to-apples comparison).
To share the same space requires either really agile and smart flying taxis that will always avoid legacy aircraft, regardless of conditions, a kind of "smart separation" of aircraft, or we need a new air traffic control system.
Setting aside ATC's automation, even autonomous aircraft has all sorts of unsolved technical problems. The reality today is that the vast majority of flights are not automated at all when it comes to taxi, takeoff, and landings. Most flights use Visual Flight Rules. The landing capacity of airports when using Instrument Flight Rules is substantially less, and there are various technical reasons why not least of which is that there is only one kind of precision approach to landing system, and it requires ground systems, airborne system, and pilot competency and certification. So we need a separate system invented for autonomous systems to do this at scale, while also integrating into the existing VFR and IFR systems for legacy aircraft.
Or someone comes up with a cheap enough retrofit of existing airplane cockpits that this can happen really fast, and just ban all the legacy aircraft from operating in autonmous only space (make it Class A, B and C space). That's sort of a joke because this would be very expensive. But maybe a hybrid pilot with augmented non-human secondary pilot could make this vaguely plausible.
Add in both FAA and ICAO regulations (global regulations apply for obvious reasons), economics, politics, and it's just really complicated. So I have to laugh every time I read "technical problems all solved" and "this could happen in 5 to 10 years". That's something I've heard for 30 years...
That is the status quo, but FAA has been trying to move to an automated system forever (they were testing ATD-1 in KMWH as of last year) https://www.aviationsystemsdivision.arc.nasa.gov/research/ta...
Most likely they will have to set up special flight rules for unmanned taxis.
It also helps that rotor-driven vehicles don't need the runways the way the airplanes do - any large parking lot next to the airport could be designated as UAS landing space.
ILS will not work on a large parking lot, the antennas are huge, transient objects attenuate the signal making it unreliable, all kinds of monitoring is needed to detect deviations and automatically shutdown the system if necessary, etc. A whole new precision landing system is needed to fit into smaller space requirements you're suggesting. And now there are new problems like people walking around the landing zone and having physical access to the ground based equipment.
I don't agree with this. You're missing a variable: safety factor. Cars try to minimize safety factor to save money and weight, airplanes often have more regulations to prevent this. Cars definitely break more often then airplanes. Also, keep in mind that aircraft can rely on preventative maintenance by trained professionals. Cars really can't, meaning they have to simplify their components and assembly a lot.
There are so few because getting an aircraft certified is hard. Not just for commercial use. Even private use. Most private planes in the US were built in the 20th century. And there were only 210,000 of them in 2015. Roughly 1/1500 people. Even among the commercial fleet, many air carrier aircraft are more than thirty years old because FAA certification is so difficult. To put it in automotive terms, much of what is flying in the US is analogous to a 1973 Dodge Dart or a 1985 F600. Aircraft in the US are like old cars in Cuba.
The number of aircraft in the sky is limited by long standing policies against general ownership. The FAA licensing of drone pilots is part of a general stance of limiting access to private aviation that began long long before 9/11. Just compare the number of private aircraft to recreational boats.
[1]: https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu...
lol. No, safety is achieved by having strong licencing, both for pilots and aircraft, maintenance requirements, such as engine checks every x hours and so forth, and investigation into accidents. Any of the general citizenry can sign up to get a PPL, and in the US it is quite cheap and easy to do so. Long may it remain so. Even so, GA is considered dangerous, and can have impact on your ability to get life insurance. The main cause of GA deaths is pilot error.
You can get easier access and lighter touch regulations simply by going for a plane in the light sport category. That has an even poorer safety record than GA.
The limiting factor for citizen access to the sky is aircraft availability not pilot licensure. A Cessna 172's engine is slightly more sophisticated than an air-cooled VW's but the same basic 1930's technology. A new one starts at $70,000 because there is only a single source. There is only a single source because FAA regulations create a moat. Again, there are only 210,000 non-carrier aircraft in the US, the sky is only accessible to a fraction of the one percent by regulatory intent.
In fact, let's extend this a bit further. You say a Cessna is in a moat because it's the only supplier.... of Cessnas. BMW is the only supplier of BMWs! That's ridiculous reasoning. There are other GA and even light sport aircraft available - Piper and FlightDesign and Zenith and Bristell all sell aircraft. And they're all in the same price range, leading one to believe that maybe aircraft manufacture isn't as cheap as you're making it out to be.
The high price of the O-320 engine reflects FAA regulations that require the use of a Lycoming O-320 in every Cessna 172...and actually a specific version of the O-320 engine for each minor variant of the Cessna 172. There's no second source for Cessna 172 engines by regulation...by regulation there's no second source for engine parts either. The supply is restricted.
Light sport aircraft are by regulation impractical as ordinary transportation. The allowable gross weight and one passenger restrictions insure that. It's like arguing that a YZ250 is a reasonable alternative to a Civic.
Really?
How many people want or need exclusive ownership? Unless I want to hour build for an ATPL, or have time off for holiday, only a few hours flying a month is likely. That's to enjoy flying as a hobby.
A citizen seeking easy travel, rather than love of flying, would likely log even fewer hours. They may well prefer an air taxi or charter to ownership of a little used aircraft.
A part share, or rental for $100/hr (chock to chock) is about as easy to reach as a cheaper car. That is plenty for a few hundred hours a year, so why bother with outright ownership? Most GA pilots are miles away from the 1%, with pretty regular jobs and wages. There's plenty of flying schools that will get you a PPL for around $5k or so, all in with books, tests and 40hrs. That's all pretty affordable - should you want it.
So what regulations should go to unleash this pent up demand for more aircraft?
Honestly, I don't see it. At all.
Flying as a hobby reflects the "the sky as a highway for sports cars" restrictions not the demand. Even as a hobby the number of recreational boats suggests that there may be an order of magnitude of unmet hobbyist interest. This is not to mention that the costs prevent practical use of private aircraft for practical transportation (the cheap car analogy).
1. Annual aircraft sales are absolutely tiny. Only about 1000 piston engine airplanes are sold annually globally [1].
2. Thanks to very small production numbers and demanding certification requirements, almost anything is super expensive in aviation. For example, to add air conditioning to your Diamond DA 40 will cost you 27,500 USD. An aviation headset will cost you 400 to 1000 USD. And so on.
So, while I don’t believe that there’s a conspiracy to keep airplane numbers down, the fact remains that very few small aircraft are out there (and outside the USA it looks even grimmer), and only a small fraction of what was produced in the 60s is produced now.
[1] https://gama.aero/news-and-events/press-releases/gama-presen...
Sales are tiny because the current fleet is enough, fewer are learning to fly each year, yet it's not much different in real terms today to fly than it was in the 60s.
Fewer are walking into a flying club than used to, but many fewer are completing their 40hrs and PPL than used to. Why? That can't be down to sales or parts certification.
My guess? Instant gratification combined with no longer being the postwar generation that had a perception of flying as being the arrival of the future. Flying is now a bit "meh" and being stuck in cattle class. Personally I don't understand how a trial lesson isn't enough to hook them for life!
Just like back in the 60s it was "the friendly atom", whereas today nuclear power has rather lost its sheen.
>long standing policies against general ownership
This is derogatory language, and it's simply not true. FARs were written over many decades based on prior failures. They weren't dug out of some bureaucrat's asshole to prevent ownership. Tort law is substantially more applicable to the rising cost of aircraft than regulations. But you're welcome to provide citations of regulations you think are not necessary, and and argument why.
The reason it’s not done is because no one gives a damn. Planes and helicopters fly too high up and if you’re in one of these vehicles the sounds of the engine will be louder than the propellers anyway because they aren’t electric.
The military however already has this tech.