
The High-Stakes Race to Build the World’s First Flying Taxi - mhb
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/technology/flying-taxis-lilium.html
======
Valgrim
We should just bury the idea of replacing ground cars with their flying
counterparts. Not that it is a bad idea to develop electric VTOL vehicle, on
the contrary, but ultimately they are going to replace the existing flying
fleet: helicopters and planes. Moving people around cities is much more safe
and efficient using trains, buses, taxis and bicycles. Moving people a bit
less wouldn't hurt too, with more vertical development, more remote-working,
next-door delivery and mixed-use zoning.

~~~
fortytw2
I think you're neglecting to think about moving people around in rural and or
remote areas. Where I grew up (eastern NC) the ability to travel as-the-crow-
flies would massively cut down on time to get places, many roads take 30-45
miles of driving to go what might be 15 miles in the air.

In that kind of area, there's not the population density to support any kind
of mass transit (or even really taxis) and the distances are too far for
biking to be practical. Readily available electric VTOL would revolutionize
rural America. Not much to worry about in terms of air congestion, either.

~~~
Robotbeat
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.

~~~
Retric
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.

~~~
Robotbeat
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.

~~~
Retric
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](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.

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

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j9461701
The thing that sinks most of these flying car or flying taxi initiatives is
the noise problem. Because airplane engines are so darn loud, all flying cars
are forced to operate away from built up areas whether or not they're capable
of vertical takeoffs and landings. Which makes them inherently redundant, as
you're already having to drive out of the city to get to your flying car - at
which point you could just drive slightly further to an airport and get on a
conventional plane that boats vastly higher cruising speeds and fuel
efficiencies.

If not for the fact that airplanes are noisier than a fox stuck in a trashcan
rolling down hill, we'd already have flying taxis of a variety of different
forms that take off and land on top of sky scrapers. The youtuber mustard did
a recent video exploring one such concept:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkJOm1V77Xg)

Using ducted fans and an electric motor both reduce noise, so time will tell
if we've finally achieved a "city acceptable noise level" out of one of these
designs at long last.

~~~
Anechoic
FWIW, most (if not all) of the big tech companies working on flying cars or
UAV are aware of the noise problem and have in-house teams working with
research labs & consultant on the problem. Now whether or not they _succeed_
is another issue because it's a hard problem.

There is at least one prominent tech firm that appears to think they can
mitigate these issues in a year or so, which is... unrealistic.

~~~
hanniabu
Anybody familiar with how the military creates stealth choppers that aren't as
noisy? I'm assuming it has to do with blade design, but would these changes be
applicable at smaller scale and would it be enough of a sound reduction?

~~~
starpilot
The most promising theory is that the "stealth hawk" used actuated micro flaps
on its blades' trailing edges to reduce noise and vibrations. I would put
money on this being true. Flapped blades have been studied in academia for
over a decade, it's definitely an engineering problem now and has clear
benefits.

[http://www.helijapan.org/pdf/general/general05/Friedmann/Jap...](http://www.helijapan.org/pdf/general/general05/Friedmann/Japan-05VF-
notanimated_PART-1.pdf)

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chrisa
The one thing I keep thinking about is turbulence...

Generally, small airplanes are moved around a lot more by wind gusts - which
means some people get really motion sick in smaller airplanes. That could be
quite a shock for people who are used to bigger airplanes.

Does anyone know how these really small multi-rotor air taxis are with
turbulence?

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Robotbeat
I think there's a point to them, but honestly CTOL electric "thin haul" is
more important. There are all these regional/rural airports that are under-
utilized. It will be hard for electric aircraft to break into the jumbo jet
market for the next couple decades. But conventional take-off, extremely high
aspect ratio wing electric vehicles could efficiently and cheaply transport a
dozen or more passengers at hundreds of miles per hour at distances of between
50 and 500 miles (a range usually serviced by turboprop planes, which are less
efficient and no faster than electric planes) without requiring new
chemistries or extreme architectural approaches.

I hope someone takes up the challenge. We've got Eviation's Alice, but most of
the other players are focused on these eVTOL aircraft or hybridized jets (the
hybrid part is a big challenge in itself and offers only modest efficiency
advantages).

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jedberg
You can already get a ride from Manhattan to Kennedy airport in 10 minutes for
about $100, via helicopter.

~~~
skizm
Last time I checked it was closer to $250. Where are you seeing $100? I'm
genuinely asking because I would definitely pay that.

~~~
jedberg
It may have been an exaggeration on my friend's part. I've never actually
taken the helicopter but he has. Maybe the rate changes based on how in demand
it is?

Here is an article about someone who spent $120 back in July:
[https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous-
helicopter-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/blade-continuous-helicopter-
flight-review-nyc-jfk-airport-photos-2019-7)

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neonate
[http://archive.is/Zwaw4](http://archive.is/Zwaw4)

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ben_w
I’ve been thinking about this recently. Would it be fair to say that the
engine is the single most expensive part of a combustion-powered aircraft, and
that batteries are the single most expensive part of a battery powered
aircraft?

If so, I expect this sort of aircraft to become quite viable quite soon; if
not, then I would be surprised.

~~~
gvb
Certification is the single most expensive part of an aircraft.

The more "off-nominal" an aircraft is, the harder, and thus more expensive, it
is to certify. Commercial aircraft (which a "flying taxi" would be) are also
much more expensive to certify than general aviation aircraft.

Drone-style "air taxi" aircraft are very different from a systems,
reliability, and redundancy point of view than fixed wing (can glide) or
rotary wing (can autorotate) aircraft. The FAA is comfortable with those types
of aircraft. Convincing the FAA that single and multiple failures (e.g.
battery failure) won't cause a drone-style aircraft to fall out of the sky is
going to be very expensive.

As an example, it took many years and multiple attempts to get the FAA to
certify composite aircraft. Ref:

* Lear Fan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LearAvia_Lear_Fan)

* Beech Starship [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Starship)

* Cirus VK30 / ST50 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_VK-30#Variants)

* Piaggio P.180 Avanti [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaggio_P.180_Avanti)

I don't believe there were any commercially successful aircraft that were
primarily composite before the Boeing 787.

~~~
nradov
For certification purposes the FAA categorizes drone-style aircraft as
"powered lift".

[https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotor...](https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/rotorcraft/)

~~~
gvb
Thanks, that's very helpful.

Looking at Wikipedia's entry
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_lift)
I don't see any commercially successful aircraft. There are some military
aircraft[1], experimental aircraft, and a some unsuccessful commercial
aircraft. None is "drone style" yet.

Being the first to type certify a new style of aircraft is very difficult and
expensive, which was my point with the list of composite aircraft. Composite
aircraft (in my mind) seems much less of a change than powered lift. Maybe
ballistic recovery systems[2] will make powered lift certifiable with a
reasonable level of effort. The nice thing about BRS is that it is already
flight proven and accepted as an emergency recovery system.

[1] The military is willing to take more risks - helps that the jets have
ejection seats. The Osprey had 12 hull-loss accidents with a total of 42
fatalities (no ejection seats and it cannot autorotate). Ref:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accide...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey#Accidents)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Recovery_Systems)

------
WhompingWindows
I thought of an alternative idea for travel in somewhere like NYC. If you want
to cross at certain points of the river, you may need to wait for public
transport or use a bridge...

What if we used a combination of drone technology and powerlines...instead of
a drone needing to have its own batteries on board, what if there was a power
line suspended across the river that it ran along, similar to a street-car.
The drone, let's say it holds 2 or 4 people per trip, would basically be a
mini flying-on-a-line taxi. It would travel only along the power-line, thus no
navigation or control systems needed, no pilot needed.Presumably it could have
a much lighter frame due to no battery needed, and you could power it off the
rapidly decarbonizing grid.

The downsides I see now are the safety risks if a part flies off, the noise
may be intolerable, and you'd need to construct the lines and hold them up
somehow. And obviously, you'd need to engineer the product and face the
realities of the physics, which I don't know much about.

~~~
sksksk
You've just described a cable car... Medellin has an extensive metro system
and one line is a cable car.

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davidhyde
I wonder what the big secret idea is. Something visually obvious from the fact
that they covered it up. An aerospike electric engine maybe? I guess you
wouldn't have the same issues you have with cooling such an exit that you have
with chemical propellant.

~~~
0xffff2
What are you referring to by "covered it up"? All I can see is pretty standard
looking aerodynamic cowlings.

~~~
davidhyde
Take a look at the image titled "An engine, covered by a cloth, in Lilium’s
acoustic test chamber"

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sbussard
Apparently not the world's first
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Airways)

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JackPoach
Hype=everyone talks about it. Are there a lot of people believing in flying
taxis?

~~~
0xffff2
I'm a government researcher working on this exact thing and even I don't
really believe it. That said, there is a tremendous amount of interest from
commercial entities, which is what drives my work. I'm probably not allowed to
name any specific companies, but there are certainly a large number of
companies that believe enough to be investing significant amounts of money
into the idea.

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mhb
It's curious that the article calls these airplanes "jets".

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nathell
Not a single word about greenhouse gas emissions.

~~~
LeonM
The aircraft featured in the article is powered by electricicty, so it doesn't
emit any greenhouse gas.

~~~
0xffff2
The power still has to come from somewhere. If these vehicles are sufficiently
inefficient, they could well be worse than cars in terms of emissions.

~~~
grumpydba
Hence the huge need for nuclear power.

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baybal2
> Can Flying Taxis Live Up to the Hype?

Because they are not technically sound, and they are not commercially sound.

There are existing air taxi services, and they tend to go bust during every
economic downturn.

~~~
base698
Sounds like it will probably be a breakout success then. Most things that are
wildly successful have "it's not going to work" opposition. Then it's
rationalized after the fact when it does.

~~~
dragonwriter
The fallacy here is “affirming the consequent”: you are taking a principle
(which I'll accept for the sake of argument) of _if_ something is to succeed,
_then_ it will have had “it won't work” opposition, observing the presence of
the fact described in the “then” clause, and concluding that the “if” clause
must be true.

But even if the principle is valid, you can only conclude the then clause
(conclusion) from the if clause (premise), not the reverse.

While most breakout successes may be mocked as impossible, most things mocked
as impossible do not turn out to be breakout successes.

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AllegedAlec
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines)

~~~
ohduran
Thought exactly that!

~~~
mhb
Yes, we all did. That's why it didn't need to be said.

