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Passenger-Carrying Drone Gets Symbolic Approval For Test Flights In Nevada (theverge.com)
The Verge reports: "Chinese company Ehang caught our eye at CES earlier year, with the firm unveiling an autonomous quadcopter prototype it said was capable of ferrying human passengers without a pilot. We were wary of these unproven claims, but Ehang is obviously forging ahead with the vehicle. The company recently reached an agreement with Nevada's governor's office to develop the Ehang 184 at the state's FAA-approved UAV test site. However, this news should be taken with a pinch of salt: the Ehang 184 still isn't approved for testing by the FAA itself, and the company has yet to show a fully working prototype." Submitter kheldan adds this commentary: This should put you drone advocates' and self-driving car advocates' faith in your ideals to the test: Would you step into one of these and let it fly you away somewhere? I wouldn't!
Ehang says it plans to begin testing at the FAA-approved site some time later this year. Some of the difficulties it will have to face include creating an autonomous navigation system that can detect small obstacles like power lines, creating and regulating fixed paths for air travel, and managing the limitations of battery life (Ehang claims the 184 has a maximum flight time of 23 minutes).
Medical and rescue missions come to mind. 23 minutes is a lot of time for a prototype carrying someone.
What's with the slashdot luddites? I feel like you'd be the same group of people to say the same thing about the horseless carriage or that new metal 'bronze'.
Quick, convenient point-to-point transportation that's not subject to traffic jams? You're totally right, nobody wants that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Seriously, what's the point? Given that the flight time is 23 minutes, this is virtually useless for any serious travel.
Nobody is going to use a quadcopter for long distance travel. That is not the use case. It would be useful as a short distance shuttle, say from a rooftop in downtown SF to SFO, or downtown NYC to JFK.
Furthermore, it's likely to be far more expensive than services like Uber and Lyft.
Yes, and Uber is more expensive than riding a bike, and a bike is more expensive than walking. People are willing to spend money to save time.
it solves a problem that doesn't exist and never will exist.
Except that there are many existing businesses that offer piloted helicopters for about a thousand dollars an hour, to do pretty much the same thing this drone does.
I once paid $300 to ride in a helicopter over Mauna Loa. It was worth it. I would have been happy to save money and take a drone instead, as long as it had a reasonable track record of safety (maybe established by hauling cargo to remote roadless sites).
But I'm still not believing that there's any market at all for such things.
If there is a market for fire trucks with long ladders, there is a market for this device.
I think this would be a good use-case for an airframe parachute http://cirrusaircraft.com/innovation/airframe-parachute/.
This should put you drone advocates' and self-driving car advocates' faith in your ideals to the test: Would you step into one of these and let it fly you away somewhere? I wouldn't!
Sure, I'd be happy to, once it has actually been developed and the kinks worked out.
This is a totally solvable problem, it just requires time and money.
I've been flying for 15 years, the computer is a better pilot than a human is, in terms of control. Then it just becomes decision making ability. That needs to be worked on, but for fixed flights from point A to point B, known locations, that is totally doable.
As for "emergencies", yes they happen, but the reality is, not actually that often. For example, the number of pilots who have real engine failures in helicopters is actually lower than the number of injuries and deaths from training for them.
Frank Robinson (of Robinson Helicopters) actually proposed to the FAA that auto-rotation practice be stopped, because so many people were getting hurt doing it in his R22 compared to the few that actually had an engine quit.
23 minutes of flight time can get you to many more places than 23 minutes of drive time in San Fransisco, New York City, and Los Angeles.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
1. Little wizzy blades are not efficient. Helicopters are more efficient, and fixed wing aircraft are even more efficient.
2. 23 minute flight time, but what is the recharge time? Certainly longer than getting another victim^H^H^H^H^H^Hpassenger in.
3. What is plan B when something goes wrong. I've flown quads, and sometimes the processor does something unplanned.
4. wizzy blades near the ground, how long before someone gets hurt by these blades?
5. Prototype aircraft usually gain 20-100% weight by the time all the required stuff goes in, performance goes down.
Many times you see quad copter fliers get the idea the scaling them up is a good idea. The reality is, that the economics don't work, they aren't efficient.