If this actually consists of anything at all it is funding for a research project without commercial demand. Just announcing "we are giving free money to the arms industry so they don't have to pay for their own R&D" doesn't play well any more so it gets spun as part of The Future.
A company has already provided services to the NHS, during the pandemic.
https://skyportsdroneservices.com/nhs-launches-uks-first-cov...
Not really vaporware.
I don't follow. A gap not filled is not evidence of no gap.
I can think of several companies/industries/products where people said "It's as optimal as it gets!" and then Netflix/Dropbox/Uber/Pick-X-Tech-Company gets invented and makes things more optimal or changes the game completely. They also make all the people who say "our current system is in it's optimal state" look silly.
Take a look at Greensill Capital. They were running a politically exposed shadow bank with terrible risk controls. They hired a former Prime Minister to sell a project which would 'lend NHS staff their salaries mid month'.
Is there really?
I understand that for non-fungible, perishable goods such as organs or test samples there might be a need (though a helicopter would do just as well), but when it comes to supplies, it will be significantly cheaper to just make more of them and stock up on them at each hospital rather than moving them back & forth (not to mention that this particular trial only ranged for 40 miles - this is something a car can easily do).
It won't work unless it's cheaper than the alternatives, and I can't see it being cheaper than just optimizing logistics elsewhere to ensure you have a big enough stock of medical supplies to not need regular drone deliveries (and when you do, a helicopter is an adequate backup plan).
It's very very easy to be cheaper than a helicopter. Drones can require zero or minimal labor, move fast, and run on electricity.
If we can have them carry a decent weight and have good reliable ways to get them from and to where they need to go, they will revolutionize delivery. Door dash will be obsolete.
In addition, the Amazon/DoorDash model isn’t even what we’re talking about here - this is a predefined, specific route with the last mile still handled by conventional vehicles, so it is even worse.
If we could all have landing pads like we have mail boxes, something with a fence, it would be much better.
You don't leave it free space because then you have all sorts of drones whizzing around in all sorts of random and uncontrolled directions and that creates a lot of clutter that will cause crashing.
But yes, quick delivery for organs is great - if this is enough commercial demand to make a drone superhighway worthwile/viable though is another question. Also these drone superhighways drop at a specific point at the end of the highway - so you still need to pick it up from the superhighway 'Skyway hub' and get it to the end customer.
When I looked at the Coventry Skyway project last it looked like it was started by a team who had nearly no experience in aviation or logistics so it did make me a bit sus.
There is an awesome (volunteer) organisation in the UK called Blood Bikes[1] that operate all over the UK.
The training is pretty intensive, it's something I'm considering doing after I get a full license (and 2 years and advanced) because it's an amazing thing to do.
I don't see how a big, bulky, human-piloted helicopter could be in any way better than a specialized, lightweight unmanned vehicle.
Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment.
> Yes, in the very long run, drone transport for these things would be better due to emissions/etc, but IMO the country has more pressing problems at the moment.
A country always has thousands of more pressing problems, the issue is that nobody orders them the same way. The best you can do is to solve more than one problem at a time.
Costs benefits are obvious but there are always drawbacks, especially when every fail may mean 1 dead person.
And that you bought your property so badly placed is unfortunate, but the result of your own choices (or more like lack of thorough research). If you bought it next to highway so should all car traffic in the area be banned?
Helicopters can operate with VTOL.
Almost every hospital, at least everyone that does transplants, will have a landing pad.
Also, you might be transporting organs from a smaller place to a big hospital - donors that got into an accident probably didn't take care to have it near a helipad.
Perhaps before they had that, this same line of thinking might have concluded they didn't need one, as they already had a car park.
Watch an actual organ being transported through London [1], back in the mid-1980s. Situation is worse today, if you talk to EMR drivers.
I didn't say it would solve it.
And let's not forget to tax the damage they cause in terms of pollution. Keeping things in the air requires way more energy than moving them over land. And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide).
What are you comparing this to? Does this include the energy and pollution needed to move a human, and a vehicle to safely accommodate that human?
> And there are other negative externalities (noise and visual pollution), and also physical danger (these things might crash or collide).
Are these not also the case for human-driven vehicles, which endanger more people (if a motorbike crashes then the rider has low odds), and create noise and visual pollution? I assume the latter means "I don't like how it looks"; if so then does a road look nicer than a drone your eye can't resolve unless you're fairly close to it?
It's a legit thing that's happening here. It may or may not come to fruition.
It's not quite as stupid as this gimmick ( https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnso... ) but there's no surprise here.