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Comment by tyre | Hacker News Reader

Ain’t no way you want flying taxis in Manhattan. If two collide or one fails, you could kill dozens of people.

Maaaaybe instead of the tunnels and bridges, to increase throughput during rush hours, but even then we’re trying to have fewer vehicles in Manhattan, not more.

Also, I cannot imagine what it would be like to go through an intersection during the winter. You would be hit with a wall of cross-cutting wind tunneling down 50 blocks that no airborne device is going to handle well. Absolute nightmare.

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Right. This wouldn't be point to point on the Manhattan grid, but from Manhattan Island back and forth to the airports.

Helicopter. Already exists.

Helicopters have a significant safety problem.

https://stopthechopnynj.org/safety-and-terrorism/?utm_source...

More people are killed in motor vehicle accidents in a single month in NY than in all of the incidents listed on that page spanning 58 years.

I like the terrorism section here, which lists zero terrorist attacks (because there haven’t been any) and loads of supposed risks…

And yet!

Drone like flying vehicles are much safer and cheaper than helicopters. Or will be at least.

I don't really agree with that. Helicopters can auto-rotate, drones can't. If something goes wrong with a drone system, it is going to crash hard guaranteed and likely doesn't have any meaningful control on the way down.

How will they be?

Literally any failure of the aircraft means you die.

No they have multiple engines and can survive failures.

Well yeah, it would be like a cheap helicopter you can rent. What is so bad about that.

"Cheap" and "Helicopter"

That's where the problem is.

It's certainly not crazy to imagine that you could cut the costs of a helicopter-like aircraft that was purpose-made for relatively short, relatively low-speed, relatively light load duties.

The energy cost during operations is very relevant, too, which is why you see things like tilt rotor designs with wings/bodies to generate lift.

When Airbus was doing the math on these a few years ago, the pilot cost was also one of the main concerns, so it was "autonomous or bust", and they ended up investing a lot on the autonomous side (not just the aircraft but also urban traffic management, etc).

It sucks when they hit airplanes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Potomac_River_mid-air_col...

> If two collide or one fails, you could kill dozens of people.

How is that any different from an automobile navigating the ridiculously crowded streets?

Presumably, if you're going to bother with flying vehicles, it's to free up space on the ground below.

To fill with other uses, say pedestrians.

Taxi falls, pedestrians get crushed bellow, but now the vehicular speed isn't 20-30 mph tops, but the terminal velocity of the vehicle.

mv^2 is mean.

Much worse, obviously.

That's not at all obvious to me. Please explain. Both are approximately car sized and both are likely to hit pedestrians.

In a place with fewer pedestrians I'd buy that airborne vehicles might have a higher chance of hitting a person because they could crash somewhere that a traditional taxi couldn't. But when the place is packed wall to wall with people an arms length away I don't think that applies anymore. At least it doesn't seem self evident to me.

Consider that not all malfunctions of a car leads it to crashing into things. The fuel system, the engine, the transmission and even the steering can completely break down and the car will still came to a stop. They are equipped with redundant brakes, and are always supported by the ground.

At the same time an aircraft is much more precarious. If anything in the fuel, engine, transmission, props, or control surfaces go wrong it will come down and fast. They have much more potential energy than a car (because they are high up). They also typically have much more kinetic energy because they have to move faster to maintain lift if they are fixed winged, or they have to have fast rotating parts if they are rotary winged.

In crowded streets cars obviously go slow, and in any case most traffic accidents don't result in a car starting accelerating uncontrollably until it runs into a building.

Even a 20 m flight height means the taxi will reach 72 km/h before it hits the ground.

> Both are approximately car sized and both are likely to hit pedestrians.

Would you rather be hit by Skoda Octavia travelling at around 20mph out of control, or a "flying taxi" travelling at 110mph out of control?

Because that's how fast it would be travelling when it fell on you.

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