loco wrote:
United ordered 200.
Ordered… so they are first IF this ever happens. Which ihmo it won’t.
Alone the quantities are stupid. If you have dozens of those contraptions PLUS drones flying in this airspace, it will become ultra congested, hence risk of collision is about as large than when you see a swarm of insects fly.
Insurers will reject that after the first few accidents if it goes that far. ATC will reject it, as it is unmanageable and takes so much airspace out of the already dense space, that it will massively disturb other activities. SAR organisations will fight it as in those numbers and over cities, they will impair their own operations.
I think it is ultra B.S in the way they dream it now. That quad copters may become a segment in the UL branch is a real possibility. And they might make neat little devices for that, maybe safer than others, but before they go commercial, LOADS of problems have to be solved, some of which are not solvable with the current structures.
We have done this before in many threads e.g. here. That thread was 5 years ago and nothing has changed.
Dreams don’t create technology. R&D does, potentially. Despite a fantastic amount of R&D going into electric cars, the tech needed for this is not even remotely on the horizon, never mind at any meaningful discount to current helicopter options that would be needed to create the hyped mass market.
This whole thing is BS elevated a couple of orders of magnitude above the general marketing BS we see everywhere else.
Will it happen? Probably. Will it happen in my lifetime? Possibly.
There was a time not so many years ago when commercial helicopter pilots could make a living flying for photo and film shoots.
Much of that work is now done with drones and many of the pilots who saw this as a lifetime career are now out of work or have made a career change. Drones can go places you would never take a helicopter.
And some professional camera mounts and the camera itself weigh much more than many people.
Look at the cost of helicopter charter. It is huge.
What factors would make these cheaper? I cannot think of any. Turbines are expensive but they are only a small part of the cost of a public transport heli operation.
The DOC of a twin turbine heli is c. 1-2k/hour. Electric propulsion will shave a bit off that but against that you have the lower utilisation because the thing cannot be charged up in a few mins.
So, I call BS on all these rotary public transport projects.
That’s simply unbelievable.
Delayed response…
Guess age shows. Exactly the same our whatever adjective parents once thought 
And once these thingies reliably flying, no need for Uber.
And that’ll be another big chunk outta our VFR GA airspace gone 🤬
Peter wrote:
That’s simply unbelievable.2 years to get it certified.
Not needing a runway definitely makes it more viable as urban transportation.
That’s simply unbelievable.
2 years to get it certified.
8 motors, 4 battery packs, and one pilot. United ordered 200.
Quadcopters are even worse than helicopters in terms of inefficiency. The RC ones and drones basically brute force themselves into the air (a bit like an aerobatic plane with a 1:1 thrust ratio hanging on the prop). Ones big enough to carry 2-4 people will also make one hell of a racket, and will be a lot more complex than a drone (if a motor fails on a drone, it will fall out the sky – but this is not a big deal for something weighing 2kg and not carrying anyone). It can only ever be niche, like a helicopter. The pilotless aspect won’t make them significantly cheaper – already 95% of the cost of running a helicopter is not the pilot’s wages and a quadcopter will be even more complex to maintain than a helicopter.
All this assumes that quadcopters will ever work for human transport, meeting AOC safety requirements, etc.
I don’t see this happening for decades, regardless of battery technology and how the recharging problems are approached. Quadcopters need a huge amount of power.
