
Larry Page is quietly amassing a ‘flying car’ empire - 0xbxd
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/19/17586878/larry-page-flying-car-opener-kitty-hawk-cora
======
newfocogi
I think Musk's quip that most people would want their own personal flying
taxi, but no one wants their neighbor to have one, is pretty insightful. As
building density increases and our structures continue to scale in the third
dimension, our transit system needs to as well and going down instead of up
appears much less disruptive/dangerous. Of course, only time will tell what
wins out - it won't necessarily be the most efficient option, as history of
transit systems has demonstrated.

~~~
poof131
We will go up not down. The only limitation is legal, not technical nor
economic. Working through the regulations will take a bit of time but is
already underway with the FAA’s pilot programs. The problem people are missing
in the industry is that it took years for the FAA to lay out the
infrastructure and rules for the national airspace. It will take time to work
this out for autonomous drones, which will operate on a much larger scale.
Cities and states will play a key role. It’s not going to be a VFR free-for-
all with collision avoidance, but very much mimic class-A airspace but between
200-400’ and will be fully autonomous. As an F-18 pilot, I use to hate drones,
but I’ve been converted. We are at the palm pilot point for UAS. Musk’s
comment about noise is correct, but that is solvable and no reason to go back
in time and try to dig our way out of our transportation and infrastructure
problems. Imagine a world with bridges on demand. Drones enable that future
not tunneling machines.

~~~
elicash
Who wants to look up to the sky and rather than a beautiful sunset see a
thousand drones? There's a word for that: pollution.

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jpm_sd
All of these concepts have the same problems:

* loud * short range * no auto-rotation * no passive stability * almost no unpowered glide

Accidents waiting to happen. Never something that you will want to have
zipping around your residential neighborhood.

~~~
at-fates-hands
This doesn't even touch the idea of training people to fly.

I've been studying for my Remote Pilot license just to use my drone
professionally and the amount of information you need to know is at times
overwhelming. I seriously can't imagine how you would administer a test like
that to license people to fly their cars.

~~~
molteanu
That doesn't seem to be an issue: _You have got enough happening in your life
without having to learn how to fly. But what if flying across town was as easy
as hopping in a rideshare? What if Cora could fly for you?

Cora will combine self-flying software with expert human supervision, so you
can enjoy the ride._ [0]

[https://cora.aero/](https://cora.aero/)

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SurrealSoul
Flying cars seems like a horrible idea.

Pros: Alleviate ground congestion, potentially go faster

Cons: Landing, air congestion, higher risk than driving

I know this is still super fresh, but honestly moving our already horribly
unsafe daily communte up several thousand feet in the sky doesn't make much
sense to me. I seen people survive horrible car crashes, I haven't heard of
anyone walking off a 1-on-1 plane crash

~~~
icebraining
Flying cars seem great for rare occasions (including actual emergencies - ie,
flying ambulances that could safely land on a residential street), not for
daily commuting.

~~~
SurrealSoul
like a helicopter?

~~~
icebraining
Hard to fit an helicopter here, but cars enter well:
[https://praqualquerlugar.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/alfama-...](https://praqualquerlugar.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/alfama-4a.jpg?w=800)

~~~
SurrealSoul
hard to imagine landing a car there

~~~
icebraining
The BlackFly doesn't seem wider than two regular cars, so I don't see why not.

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growlist
I dread the future that includes traffic above our heads on anything like the
scale of the traffic currently on the roads.

~~~
ainiriand
The traffic over your head is actually many times bigger than road traffic.

~~~
bytematic
Is this a joke on the physical size of aircraft/spacecraft?

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gilbetron
I just imagine all the traffic on the ground, but now in the air. Because with
flying cars you don't get to just fly where you want, as people fantasize.
There needs to be aerial lanes, and they will be packed. Sounds like a shitty
world.

Also, whenever you see an accident or a car pulled over with mechanical issues
imagine that happened in the air - where do you think flying cars will end up
in that situation? Cars are dripping and leaking stuff all the time, where do
you think it will end up with flying cars?

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sokoloff
I still can't think of flying cars as anything other than a terrible
compromised aircraft married to a terribly compromised car. There are 15K
airports in the US. Drive a few miles over to one and get in a proper airplane
seems like a better plan for most use cases I can think of.

When I see the average driver competence on the roads, I don't see most of
those people successfully commuting in a flying anything over the course of
their lifetime.

~~~
tntn
> When I see the average driver competence on the roads, I don't see most of
> those people successfully commuting in a flying anything over the course of
> their lifetime.

Ah! But AI, you see! They'll fly themselves!

~~~
hamilyon2
Fully automated flying is much different from fully automated driving and
arguably easier to pull off. Barrier is lower, so we will probably see it
implemented in near future.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It’s already been implemented for a few years now. Planes can even easily take
off and land on their own now.

~~~
nradov
Automated landing systems are only in very limited use, and require active
monitoring by qualified human pilots who can immediately take over if
something goes wrong. In general autopilots don't cope well with mechanical
failures.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
They can land by themselves, but the safety envelope demanded by the FAA and
industry just means that they don’t. The ability is there if needed in a
pinch.

~~~
nradov
Sure they can land by themselves as long as nothing important breaks on the
airplane during the landing sequence. If something does break then the pilot
may have to intervene at a moment's notice. The pilots aren't just kicking
back, they're actively flying the aircraft even though they aren't directly
manipulating the control surfaces and throttles. That's why aircraft carrying
paying civilian passengers will continue to need a rated pilot onboard for
many years to come.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Yes. And if they aren’t monitoring locally they are monitoring remotely.

But the level of automation right now in aircraft is dangerous: enough that
the pilot’s job is really boring, not enough that the pilot isn’t occasionally
needed. We all know how that works out in practice.

~~~
nradov
Remote monitoring is insufficient for passenger carrying flights due to
communications latency and reliability problems. It might be tolerable for
cargo flights though where risk tolerance is higher.

The excellent safety record of scheduled commercial flights contradicts your
claim that the current level of automation is dangerous. We have proof that it
works well in practice.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This isn’t my claim, it ia well known problem in the industry. See

[https://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/10/28/bhana](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2009/10/28/bhana)

[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114262...](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114262744)

[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/airline-pilots-
depend-t...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/airline-pilots-depend-too-
much-automation-says-panel-commissioned-faa-flna2D11625301)

[https://jdasolutions.aero/blog/airbus-announces-a-
response-t...](https://jdasolutions.aero/blog/airbus-announces-a-response-to-
the-pilot-automation-interface-problems-it-is-a-reactive-solution-maybe-
theres-a-proactive-one/)

Etc....

~~~
nradov
If it's such a problem then where are the incidents? This is much ado about
(almost) nothing.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The automated systems have made flying safer at the same time creating a new
danger that needs to be managed. It isn’t rocket science, like how self
driving cars rarely get into accidents and when they do it’s news because the
human driver wasn’t paying attention.

The bored pilot problem is only going to get worse as technology marches
forward, even if the fatality rate keeps going down.

~~~
nradov
Bored pilots aren't a problem if passengers are safe. There are many thousands
of commercial flights every year so we know the current safety levels aren't a
fluke.

On the other hand we don't know yet whether self driving cars will actually be
safer. They're only used in very limited times and places so there's no way to
do a fair analysis.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Bored pilots are a problem if you are a pilot, or if you want to keep pilots
alert and happy. Bored pilots also have already led to more than a few
accidents, so the FAA definitely cares.

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dzdt
Larry Page is not an idiot. Flying cars have giant unsurmountable flaws that
should be apparant to anyone who is not an idiot. What gives?

~~~
bobsil1
New tech = not insurmountable

~~~
gilbetron
The tech is the easy part, it's the logistics and ramifications for failures.
Blow a gasket on the road, and you come to a gradual stop. Do it in the air,
and you have a minor disaster if anyone is underneath you.

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Fifer82
Is a Flying Car just essentially a big drone with more noise? Do we need the
Car part? Also why are we building big drones, can't we just have mini
electric helicopters?

~~~
jlebrech
the "car part" is the human error part. also less accountability for the
manufacturer.

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no1youknowz
Saw this the other day [0]:

As battery technology gets better and with a similar vehicle as the one in the
video is paired with AI to do the flying. I think it will be a viable
technology in the future.

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhKTCbbqbaE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhKTCbbqbaE)

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socrates1998
Wouldn't it be better if they had a driving component as well?

I can't imagine everyone could take off from their own homes? That would just
be so chaotic and dangerous.

I would think it would be better to drive to a designated spot and take off
from there.

Still, I love these things and would absolutely love to see them work.

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elvirs
average consumer has proved to be a very irresponsible car owner and shitty
operator of the vehicle. and given the fact that people got more distractions
behind the wheel compared to 20 years ago such as checking emails, checking
into flights, disputing a credit card charges or whatever little things that
you need to get done often and can be done over the phone. it would be better
for everybody if these flying vehicles were not sold to everyone and only well
paid professionals were allowed to operate them as taxis.

~~~
shusson
my assumption is that they would be autonomous...

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sigi45
In Munich politicians asked to plan in airtaxi spots to be build/considered
for the rebuild of our main train station, while I have to throw away liquids
above 100ml in the airport!

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mtgx
Hopefully his flying cars are not like all the other Google hardware products
(released in "beta" for hundreds of dollars with a ton of issues).

