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owyn 3 hours ago

"Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft are on track to provide urban air transit within the next few years, targeting the high-margin commuters who traditionally buy premium vehicles."

Okay. So... flying cars? Don't think so. Robotaxis make sense where taxis make sense and you can get by without a car already. The demographic decline is real.

kimixa 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There's the simple physics of a vtol craft when landing needing to push down a lot of a air very fast just to lift an average human - plus the weight of the craft itself. There's a reason helicopters today don't land on street corners even if there's no rotor clearance issues. And these "personal" VTOLs don't seem any lighter than a helicopter of a similar size - for example the "Air One" is twice the mass of a Robinson R22 - ~400 vs ~970 kg empty.

The idea that they would be common enough to seriously disrupt "personal transport", even restricting to the "premium" market as it's known today is crazy. Imagine a fancy party where every 10 seconds everyone on the red carpet is being blown away by the backwash of someone landing - also disrupting everyone else trying to land there at the same time.

justaman123 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They are talking about unmanned drones that operate as flying taxis. They have them in China. We will never have flying cars after 9/11 showed how flying objects can damage property.

tyre 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It's not 9/11 that will kill it but people not wanting 2 tons of metal flying overhead. The occasional helicopter is one thing. Having hundreds of these flying around, when one can clip a building from a gust of wind and go plummeting into bystanders is a no-go.

Not to mention the noise. Residential neighborhoods will ban these immediately (and some won't have a choice because they have, you know, trees.)