Nice (but short) summary of the current state of the art.
Dubai is racing to be the first to put drone taxis in the air. In June, its Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed an agreement with a German start-up Volocopter to test pilotless air taxis towards the end of this year. The firm has received 25m euros (£22m; $30m) from investors, including German motor manufacturer Daimler, to develop the 18-rotor craft capable of transporting two passengers at a time.
Dubai's RTA has also teamed up with China's Ehang and is testing the drone maker's single passenger Ehang 184 "autonomous aerial vehicle".
In February, ride-sharing giant Uber poached Nasa chief technologist Mark Moore and set him to work heading their Project Elevate - "a future of on-demand urban air transportation". Airbus, the French aircraft maker, is also working on a prototype air taxi, Vahana, saying it will begin testing at the end of 2017 and have one ready by 2020.
"If one crashes, who's ever going to take a drone?"
Who's going to take a car if one crashes ? Or a balloon ? Or if a ship sinks ? The same thing was said about space tourism. Then the inevitable happened to Virgin Galactic, and people still press on. Deep down, we know that accidents happen. Truly zero risk is impossible. Trying to achieve it is completely counter-productive.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41088196
Nobody seems to have thought through the problem of air traffic control, waypoint navigation, nor yet any of the practical or liability-related details related to any of this. They might get away with this sort of thing in Dubai, where Maseratis full of joyriding Saudi princes full of expensive booze routinely get in serious trouble - try that shit in any European or North American metro area. It's like an inverted wedding cake over those cities. Nobody moves up there without a forest of permissions from ATC.
ReplyDeleteYes. I was an aircraft mechanic and had to deal with idiot pilots.
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