
Hyundai and Uber Unveil Autonomous Pods, EVTOL Aircraft, & Hub Ecosystem at CES - apsec112
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/14/hyundai-uber-elevate-unveil-autonomous-pods-evtol-aircraft-hub-ecosystem-at-ces/
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heyflyguy
The more I read these articles, the more I want to start some kind of citizen
regulatory or acceptance body. I'd develop environmental conditions, failure
modes and noise sensitivity tests for all of these air taxis to abide by.

As a manned aviator and after having spent 10+ years now playing with drones
and working with drones, I am very skeptical of these safety claims and noise
promises.

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mdorazio
You want to recreate the FAA? They already regulate and sign off on most of
the things you mentioned before aircraft carrying passengers can fly.

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heyflyguy
I think what I want is something like the AOPA or AMA, but for consumers /
citizens.

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CoolGuySteve
It's funny this news just came out.

In my part of Brooklyn, loud low flying helicopters from Blade and Uber have
been a complete nuisance all through the holidays. People have been taking
them from south Manhattan to JFK.

They're not supposed to fly lower than 1000 feet but I can read the numbers on
the bottom these things so clearly they're flying lower than that to save
fuel, maybe around 500 feet.

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toomuchtodo
Check the ADS-B historical data to see if they're sub 1000 feet AGL, if so,
report to NYC and FAA authorities.

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FabHK
Does ADS-B report AGL, MSL, or pressure altitude? I thought it was the latter
(like the transponder), but I might well be wrong.

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toomuchtodo
Reports both geometric and barometric/pressure altitudes. You can work back to
AGL from geometric and GPS coordinates.

[https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/faq/#g7](https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/faq/#g7)

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CaptainZapp
Wouldn't it make more sense for Uber to try to achieve profitability instead
of chasing pipe dreams, which will never fly?

Sure, you can employ dirty tactics to fight regulations, government agencies
and cities. But I don't think you can do that when it comes to (ab-)using air
space.

Even drones are about to be regulated. This will be shot down, not literally,
in a jiffy.

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ctack
Uber is aiming to be a big player in the future autonomous space, but seeing
how difficult a problem level 5 autonomy is proving for cars, they are looking
at the sky taxi thing instead because autonomy is going to be actually
achievable in that space.

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CaptainZapp
I don't know about the US, but herearound the sky and what flies there is
_massively_ regulated.

And those are regulations you don't want to fuck around with.

You may be, for example, flying over military controlled airspace. I don't see
it that anybody can just jump into his flying car and just fuzz around at her
or his discretion.

There's a reason why flight plans are filed for _every_ flight.

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ctack
Regulation is something autonomous vehicles will deal with a lot better than
human pilots.

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halfjoking
That is Uber's secret sauce - they defeat regulation better than anyone

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superbrane
It looks like it is more marketing than reality :). The keywords from their
description "piloted initially and eventually autonomous"

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Already__Taken
An electric aircraft is still a big deal.

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blendo
4 passengers at 180 miles/hr for 60 minutes.

For that, I’d guess they’d need upwards of 200 kW of battery, no?

Not gonna happen until batteries give us 1000 Wh/kg or so. In year 2030,
maybe.

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walrus01
They are doing the design and engineering work of the craft itself, as a
separate thing from the batteries. I think a big assumption on the part of a
lot of these is that the battery Wh/kg and Wh/litre ratio will dramatically
improve in the future, and they'll be able to take those new batteries from
their manufacturers and integrate it into their ready-to-go aircraft.

Lots of other mechanical and airframe engineering work to do in the meantime
while waiting for better batteries. Software/automation controls related to
operating in busy air space. Stuff like the tilt rotor mechanism, avionics and
radio systems, automated navigation, soundproofing, seats and interior,
airframe carbon fiber layup, etc. They can create a finished and highly tested
craft with all of the engineering problems solved for various subsystems
_except_ the batteries.

I don't see any problem with designing something that currently only has 20
minutes of flight time with a battery that is X watt-hours capacity, N size, Y
dimensions and Z weight.

An aircraft manufacturer as we know it today doesn't manufacture a lot of the
very complex and most costly subsystems of their craft. Best example would be
small jet turbines, or petrol powered engines. They rely on engine
manufacturing specialists for that. My theory is that it's unlikely a VTOL-
air-taxi-manufacturer will become so vertically integrated that it
manufactures its own special batteries. Similar to how a small business jet
manufacturer today buys turbofan engines from engine-manufacturing-
specialists, they'll be buying batteries from companies dedicated to the sole
purpose of manufacturing high Wh/kg aircraft batteries.

Provided that the new magical future battery can be similarly cooled and
managed and will fit into the available specifications of "X times 5 watt
hours", N, Y and Z, they can do all of the R&D _except_ for the battery, and
hope that the market and technology catch up with them to create a 80 minute
flight time craft.

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starpilot
Top speed is 180 mph, range 60 mi. For comparison, a carbon Cabri G2 helo
cruises at 100 mph with a range of over 400 miles.

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fsloth
60 mi range is pretty good for lots of use cases.

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filereaper
>5 to 7 minutes for recharging

The article is light on specifics but this stood out to me, most Tesla's take
longer to charge. I'd imagine an aircraft would need more power than a Tesla,
so how are they transferring energy so fast that automobiles can't do it but
aircraft can?

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noodlesUK
It may not be a particularly large battery, as it’s got to take off
vertically. It’s not a very long range either, just short hops.

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pishpash
Seems like not having enough range is a much bigger problem than for a car.

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C14L
Drones are loud, because they have to move a lot of air in order to stay in
the air. There is no way around that noise. Flying taxis and the like are only
good for the few people sitting in one. They are very bad for everybody else.

