this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2023
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And those were considered for use as "flying taxis" and they failed for the same reason these will: Flying and landing in cities is dangerous, which is why airports are built very far away.
It's also expensive as fuck.
Even if you have electric flying helicopters, the rotary component makes them very expensive to maintain as blades and components need to be replaced sometimes every 500 hours or less and require constant safety checks and inspections.
Imagine how many taxi cabs have a malfunction of some sort every year. Now imagine that taxi cab crashing into a building or crowded street if it had a malfunction instead of just cruising to a halt on the side of the road.
Great data, now what's the equivalent for small scale electric motor based helicopters? Considering you're essentially talking about the maintenance requirements of chemical powerplants and rotor wings lifting 10+ times the weight. That's like saying because you have to do pre-operational checks on semi trucks during your trip that it's too expensive to drive cars.
Do you not realize we already have thousands of aircraft flying that this could already happen to? It's really strange to have you guys cherry picking this as a thing to be concerned about when aircraft that could fall out of the sky are already over your head right now.
Redundancy is the name of the game, if you have more than the amount of engines you require, then you can have a couple fail and still remain airborne. It's also why VTOL designs are safer as they have some lift potential even with a dead-stick scenario.
Yeah, unless you know literally anything about aircraft. Which im sure you don't. Or do you have more years in Aircraft maintenance than me?
Thanks for the strawman, it does however give me an idea of the kind of maintenance he's talking about and why it's required on larger platforms but not on smaller electric motors like what eVTOL prototypes use.
People are in here claiming that because larger helicopters need a 30 day inspection that electric motors are going to have the same level of maintenance and servicing requirements. In reality we would probably adapt by creating something in between a private pilots license and whatever certifications ultralight and paramotors enjoy to get off the ground. That would no doubt include training and certification on basic operational maintenance.
All the airports I can think of have people living near them. Several are inside major cities.
Airports are quite large though.
Any of those airports have skyscrapers next to them like in big cities?
At least one. Hong Kong.
These drone cars won't be cheap either.
Because it costs a lot more energy to keep something in the air and move it forward, than it is to move it forward on the road.