The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi

Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by Robotbeat on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @11:00AM (#21453515)

Indeed, Alaska has this problem and worse. The region relies heavily on seaplanes and short-take-off-and-landing aircraft for logistics. These eVTOL aircraft would be great in Alaska and especially in places without lakes. Places without a lot of flat area for landing, places like Papua New Guinea, have no good options at all right now, so these VTOL aircraft will be transformative.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by Retric on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @04:07PM (#21456707)

It’s not that difficult to learn how to fly a helicopter, you only need 20h with instructor before the first solo flight. While that’s just the beginning it shows getting the basic controls down is not the problem. Thus, these VTOL aircraft are only going to be game changers if they are vastly cheaper, which seems unlikely.

The real issue is unit sales being so low. The R22 is a popular and ‘cheap’ helicopter ranking #8 in total sales, but it’s sold less than 5,000 units worldwide over 40 years.

PS: Fixed wing aircraft are popular because they have a huge range of inherent advantages. VTOL sounds great, but the downsides are enormous.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by Robotbeat on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @05:20PM (#21457394)

VTOL share most of those advantages of winged aircraft. The reason eVTOL may well be cheaper is that they have a lot fewer moving parts than a helicopter (and much lower vibration, plus using cheaper, lower-maintenance electric motors instead of turbine engines) and much less (and cheaper) fuel. But it'll take good designs. The Lilium one seems non-optimal compared to the Heaviside.

And don't rule out eSTOL. I think we'll see more of that.

Helicopters have an operating cost per hour an order of magnitude higher than a comparable payload conventional aircraft. The purchase price per payload capacity is also nearly an order of magnitude different. It's not the operator cost that determines the difference in price between helicopters and CTOL.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by Retric on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @08:09AM (#21462114)

Helicopters are VTOL, I don’t know what you think it means but it’s just ‘Vertical Take-Off and Landing”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTOL “This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including fixed-wing aircraft as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors.”

Similarly, an electric helicopter would qualify as eVTOL. People generally aim for something more efficient in flight, but that’s a separate question.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by Robotbeat on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @09:18AM (#21462783)

You’re right. I meant VTOL with wingborne cruise, like the V-22.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by starpilot on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @06:06PM (#21457788)

It's hard to claim they're cheaper when they have a fraction of the range of gas helicopters. It's apples to oranges, the flying cars now are equivalent to electric golf carts in performance.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by woodandsteel on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @07:22PM (#21458478)

For those cases where their range is sufficient, they are vastly cheaper. And their range is going to increase over the years as batteries improve.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by FabHK on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @06:34PM (#21458062)

> Fixed wing aircraft are popular

Even so, only about 1000 single engine piston airplanes are sold every year.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by Robotbeat on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @10:11PM (#21459422)

But they last forever. For instance, there are still lots of single engine Piper Cubs (popular in Alaska for STOL capability) from the 1940s maintained, in use, and for sale:

https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/list/m...

(Additionally, a lot of general aviation aircraft have moved to turboprop in the last few decades.)

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by FabHK on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @08:52AM (#21462540)

It's about 500 single-engine turboprops per year.

You're right, they last forever, and so the market for new aircraft is tiny. Really a vicious circle: high costs lead to low volume leads to high costs.

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Re:The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi by benhurmarcel on Wednesday November 06, 2019 @02:37AM (#21460484)

The economics hardly make sense for a congested city. Forget it for a remote area.

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