
Uber says air transportation drones are closer than we think - raleighm
https://dronelife.com/2018/11/27/uber-elevate-its-closer-than-you-think/
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taneq
Electric Osprey-esque coaxial bicopter tiltrotor with ridiculously high disc
loading and unguarded props sharing ground-space with pedestrians and then
flying over densely populated urban centers? At a communter-friendly price
which will enable "transportation at scale"? Oh, it's exactly as close as I
think it is.

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fsloth
To my understanding the reason helicopters are expensive is the cost of
acquiring and operating the airframe.

I would imagine a scaled up drone-like airframe would be a lot more cheaper
than helicopter.

That's why I don't think "drones as flying taxis" is as silly as you make it
sound. Helicopters are used in urban areas. I don't see any fundamental reason
why drones would not work equally well but with more traffic since they would
be cheaper.

Like you point out, the unguarded props and so on mean it wouldn't be sharing
ground-space with pedestrians - not at least like cars do.

Unless..

I don't know if there any way to do an emergency stop to a large scale
electric prop. At least power saws stop instantly to stop cutting limbs away.
Maybe there could be a similar "proximity failsafe" in the props of urban
taxi-drones.

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supermatt
Power saws don't stop instantly. There is a massive amount of energy in those
spinning disks. There are some safety mechanisms available (atypically) that
use explosive charges to move the blade away and/or physically destroy it (in
the case of table saws), but you cant simply stop something with that much
momentum.

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ljf
/some/ power saws can stop instantly - if you try and touch this one with a
finger it will stop before it can do damage:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiYoBbEZwlk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiYoBbEZwlk)

~~~
Balero
The method these use, retracting the blade, and jamming it into a block of
metal to stop the momentum would not work on a aircraft.

This method (whilst pretty amazing) does not work outside of a static machine.
You would need a couple of tons of metal attached to each rotor, and thats
before getting into what would happen when you actually try and stop the
rotor.

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jacobush
I am sure it could be made to work. Some kind of shroud designed to crumble in
the right way, maybe start rotating itself partly. Not tons of metal. But of
course, it would make the airframe a heavier and you'd pay a cost for all
flights.

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lolc
Five years ago: We're in the best position to develop autonomous cars.

Now: Look we botched the cars but the airplanes are going to work on the first
try!

In five years: Nevermind those crashes we'll be dominating the autonomous
spaceship market!

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thereisnospork
I could see the business model working for short haul direct to destination
flights, think Bay area -> Tahoe/Yosemite. where driving is slow and
conventional airline infrastructure is ineffective. I am however quite
doubtful of their ability to engineer a safe consumer-grade osprey at an
appropriate cost-point.

~~~
sigi45
Imagine it is easy. The downside of it as well.

Whatever capacity that drone will have, it will cost more than a taxi. Now you
have already something with high risk and higher price. Who will use it? The
avg John Doe? Nope.

It is only usefull for a handfull of people. Probably people who have enough
money to use something quicker than a car on the road. Do i wanna have some
rich ass idiot flying above me in a city legally?

No.

And for everyone asking why: Noise and Risk.

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thereisnospork
It's a different use case than a taxi. Think 4-6hr drive times down to an hour
or so by air - without the hub-to-hub / security restrictions of commercial
jets.

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deytempo
What I distrust about a race is there is often the willingness to cut corners
to be a winner. In the case of an automobile, as long as it doesn’t
spontaneously explode, flip over when turning a corner at “moderate” speed, or
fail to stop when you break, the corner cutting results mostly in annoyance
and costly repairs. In the case of a flying vehicle, the list of potential
ways to have a very bad day goes up very quickly. The main reason we don’t
have it yet is because it isn’t necessary yet. It would require new dimensions
of traffic laws and safety precautions.

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whbk
s/air transportation drones/their ipo

Expect all manner of Hot New Things coming from their PR dept over the next
couple quarters.

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adrianmonk
> _Uber is partnering with a variety of aerospace companies to develop a VTOL
> vehicle that can overcome the limitations of using helicopters for
> transportation at scale: noise and cost._

What about energy efficiency?

Perhaps that's covered under cost? But if not, this could be a step backward
in a way.

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sschueller
Isn't the primary noise of a helicopter the airflow? Sure the engines make
some noise which you could reduce but how do you remove airflow noise and
generate enough lift?

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amelius
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that those drones would be
bigger than what most people think of as drones.

The typical consumer drone is small, lightweight, but has a range of a few
hundred meters even without payload.

The drone Uber is talking about is probably the size of a large suitcase with
rotors the size of bicycle wheels; the size would allow it to have a bigger
battery to carry some payload and to have a bigger range. I'm not sure if I'd
like to see this type of drone flying around in swarms in my city.

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lolc
Military drones are comparable in size. And we don't like to see those flying
around cities either.

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adrianN
Maybe if you lived in a city in a warzone you'd see more drones overhead?

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lolc
I don't think I would like that.

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londons_explore
Uber's opinion might be distorted by the high importance of being first to
autonomous drones / autonomous cars to keep their business model intect and
justify their valuation.

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jostmey
I'm worried about emissions from the aircraft, which I am guessing will
probably be gas powered. Airplane emissions are not as tightly regulated as
automobiles. In fact, airplanes are allowed to use leaded fuel [1]. Now
imagine a fleet of uber planes flying around constantly over your city.

1\. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lead-in-
aviation-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lead-in-aviation-
fuel/)

~~~
nradov
Leaded avgas is going away, although slowly. No one is developing new piston
engines or complete aircraft that use it. Any liquid fuels for new aircraft
are going to be unleaded gasoline or (more likely) kerosene.

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_archon_
Why is there no discussion of a this response: "Of course Uber says this;
they're heavily invested in this tech and want it to succeed."

I don't understand how a tech company that's developing a thing saying the
thing is being developed is relevant to bring to everyone's attention.

Why does this exist?

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JustSomeNobody
How is it not relevant? It's PR to keep excitement and anticipation growing so
that they can continue to get investors putting money into it.

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ninedays
Sounds the same than Samsung annoncing a foldable smartphone in 2012 and doing
the same every year until it inevitably becomes true. I highly doubt we are
that close to air transportation but I truly wish I were wrong.

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james_pm
A few "drones" flying through the air with 2-4 people aboard, looking down on
a traffic jam with hundreds or thousands of cars and this is going to "solve"
something?

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dboreham
Much closer than self-driving cars, I'd venture to suggest.

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sbhn
If you can pay the insurance, anything is possible

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scirocco
Airlines at LAX must love their LA plans...

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sigi45
I don't think so.

