johnbpatson

Seem to remember Diamond not having engines for a while – like you say things are not straight forward.
For these new electric passenger drones though, the problems are as much political than aeronautical.
Even if they get past the certification bodies, and Velocopter could not, they have to get political acceptance to overfly cities because their main forecast use is as “air taxis.”
And, at the moment, I do not see any big city, outside China where what the people think does not count, where this will happen.

kent.misegades

You miss the point entirely. There is no market for these things, and the basic laws of physics favor greatly fossil-fuel powered aircraft. The Chicoms tend to buy companies that are essentially bankrupt. Not exactly a good business plan. Cirrus is an exception since they have long had a problem with weak cash flow and needed a sugar-daddy. The ex of a former CEO used to be my neighbor and described to me how they burned through investor cash like crazy.

Arthur_Foyt

Whilst the idea of flying cars has drained vast amounts of resources over the last 70 years, it’s comical to think that “it’s time” to keep trudging along. If one could work w/o current rules for certification, operation, security and local codes then yea, it just might be doable. Bending rules that far would require serious money for corruption rather than for engineering to get it “approved”…

dcmarotta

Screw electric flying doohickeys. Is that hotel in BC anywhere near a grass strip? I could be convinced to take my 180 across the border for that.

1 reply

Steve_Miller

I’m trying to game out what the end vision of these AAM devices is. If it’s simply about accessibility from tight locations throughout a city, helicopters have existed for a very long time. So, it must be about cost. A Blade flight to JFK from the NYC heliport is about $95. So, we’re shooting for cheaper than $95 for a typical 10-20 mile flight. Ideally, we also want more pickup and dropoff locations (although we don’t currently have heliports everywhere, and there are reasons for that the AAM guys will still need to solve).

For the economics to work out like the investors want it to, there will need to be many aircraft, many flights, and many vertiports. Given the reaction to the Texas Amazon drone delivery facilities, it seems highly unlikely anyone wants these things whizzing over our heads at all hours.

So, we need them completely silent, completely safe, either with way more air traffic control or automated air traffic control systems, we need access to real estate that has never been open before, there must be really cheap flights, and high volume recharging stations along with power infrastructure. This sounds a lot like the VLJ “revolution” we were promised. The Eclipse was supposed to be $800k and we’d all fly private because there’d be so many and they’d be so cheap.

I’m not entirely sure what I’d use this service for. Traveling to the airport would be nice, but Blade does that already. Going to a baseball game would be nice, but how they’d get 50k people into and out of a stadium is just mathematically impossible with AAM. Going to pick up groceries doesn’t really make sense. Going on a road trip doesn’t make sense either. So, what’s the use case?

KlausM

This is a good time to watch China. If there is an eVTOL demand then following the Chinese lead will let us know. The Very Light Jet (VLJ) just doesn’t have the demand that the investors thought it did. Who knows if enough people care about flying over city traffic or not?

MrMilkshake

I’m all in… let’s do it Russ.

Tom_Waarne

AAM for public usage is a pipe dream but could just be an advantage for military uses as these agencies whether Chinese or Western have deep pockets and crave technical superiority.

rniles

Not grass but a nice regional airport 10 minutes away.

Raf

It’s not just tech. It’s politics, public resistance, and physics, as Patson, Miller, and Kent point out. No real market, no clear use case, and no path around noise, cost, or infrastructure.