Uber Shows Its Flying Car Prototype (cnbc.com)

Uber has unveiled its "flying car" concept aircraft at its second annual Uber Elevate Summit, which showcases prototypes for its fleet of airborne taxis. From a report: The flying cars, which the company hopes to introduce to riders in two to five years, will conduct vertical takeoffs and landings from skyports, air stations on rooftops or the ground. Ultimately, company officials say these skyports will be equipped to handle 200 takeoffs and landings an hour, or one every 24 seconds. At first, the flying cars will be piloted, but the company aims for the aircraft to fly autonomously. The prototypes look more like drones than helicopters, with four rotors on wings. Company officials say that will make them safer than choppers, which operate on one rotor. They'll fly 1,000 to 2,000 feet above ground and will be quieter than a helicopter, producing half the noise of a truck driving past a house.

Comments

Wrong Focus

[sycodon]

People keep shooting for complete automation when all that's needed really (in flight) is a system that will reliably get you off the ground, back on the ground and hold a course while staying in communication with ATC if necessary and avoid other aircraft and controlled airspace.

Make no mistake, a, "Flying car", is an aircraft first and car second. Putting someone with no flying experience in this kind of vehicle is a bad idea all the way around.

You can make it automated enough that learning it would be something like getting a different class driver's license, but expecting to get grandma one of these to take her to the picnic is a really bad idea.

Re:Good idea

[Junta]

The issue is that micromanaging multiple rotors is, relatively speaking, a solved problem and that's generally the drone use case that is considered 'solved' (translating a high level maneuver to the appropriate rotor actions). Cars do not have this as a challenge, rolling the car forward and turning it left and right is not something that requires a 'drive by wire' sort of system, so there isn't really that much of an analogous challenge

Autonomous drone navigation without a remote pilot is not a solved problem, much as it is not a solved problem for driving.

Even assuming there were some examples of autonomous drone deliveries for small packages, the problem is the amount of damage a 10lb drone with payload can inflict accidentally is different than something weighing several hundred pounds. Additionally the speed is going to be different, drone deliveries are not generally looking to move at hundreds of miles an hour (can be patient, no human passenger, the benefit is mainly skipping circuitous road defined paths). So on top of being heavier, they would be wanting to move probably an order of magnitude faster, generally.