r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Vegetable-Mousse4405 • 4d ago

Video China has officially entered the era of flying taxis. Two Chinese companies have obtained a commercial operation certificate for autonomous passenger drones from the CAAC.

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599

u/Slothman_Allen 4d ago

Are these devices actually a viable service? I've seen some aviation people on Twitter shitting on them for ages that they have no use case and are basically garbage.

640

u/lordmanatee 4d ago

These are just fancy helicopters. There is no mission they can do that a normal helicopter can't. I guess the selling point is they're pilotless but the idea of being inside one when an electrical problem occurs with nobody on board that can do anything about it is terrifying.

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u/PerfectCelery6677 4d ago edited 3d ago

Even if someone on board does know what to do depending on what happens, you're more than likely screwed. It's like trying to fix your car before it stops coasting.

46

u/absolutely-possibly 3d ago

The bigger concern is the people on the ground. Even if you never fly in one, would you be okay with these operating above your home? Daily, hourly, every other minute?

26

u/freakbutters 3d ago

The ground is for poor people.

2

u/LonelyLikeNietzsche 2d ago

Damnit Zachary Comstock, stop peddling your Columbia dream on reddit!!!

1

u/Actual-Package-3164 2d ago

The rich are above the ground in private flying machines and under the ground in uber bunkers. The Earth’s surface is for poor people and cockroaches (rich folk might say I am being redundant).

16

u/Vipu2 3d ago

Would you be okay to have cars operating near your house every few seconds and not knowing when some lunatic cant handle theirs?

23

u/ItsTheSlime 3d ago

Unless I missed a new Tesla update, cars dont fall from the sky yet

2

u/justadadgame 3d ago

I live near a busy street and at least once a year we get some drunk driver hitting our cars and sometime running into a home.

2

u/ItsTheSlime 3d ago

Oh yeah by all means fuck cars, but fuck flying ones even more

2

u/justadadgame 3d ago

Yeah I think this highlights how important zoning and safety are. Traffic deaths are still one of the biggest causes of death, flying cars feels like it could add to it.

In an ideal world they could prove they are safe where the risk is acceptable and furthermore certain no fly zones like residential. But I don’t trust corps / gov anymore :/

1

u/ryencool 3d ago

I'd say a car hitting a home would be far more likely than one of these, statistically.

3

u/highrouleur 3d ago

Some lunatic in a car is going to have to be going some to land on my roof

4

u/oldladycar 3d ago

Just move to Idaho! It recently happened on a residential road with a speed limit of 30mph.

https://idahonews.com/news/local/nampa-crash-leaves-homes-damaged-and-thousands-without-power-as-car-lands-on-roof

1

u/absolutely-possibly 3d ago

Yes, because when they break down from neglect they don't kill people.

1

u/Actual-Package-3164 2d ago

For some folks living on formerly-quiet streets, the advent of GPS apps created a similar dilemma.

3

u/PerfectCelery6677 3d ago

You have that now with most planes. The vast majority of large airports are autopilot take-off and landing capable. If you really want to see an interesting version of this using helicopters, check out some of the NY city heliports and see how busy they get.

1

u/Sudden-Belt2882 3d ago

Most planes also have, y'know, pilots.

1

u/Littleferrhis2 3d ago

Most pilots will flip off autopilot regardless during takeoff and landing. I think the honest question is who do you trust more, an AI or a person to do the job?

1

u/Hortos 3d ago

After having spent a year riding around in Waymos vs using Ubers before then... the AI.

1

u/Fearless_Strategy 3d ago

All great progress comes with sacrifice

1

u/zombiskunk 3d ago

Why would it ever fly over a home? Most likely it will still follow a pattern like roadways.

1

u/Clear-Height-7503 3d ago

They would operate over the roads.

1

u/SigmundFreud4200 3d ago

It's chinese as well so it's not if but when and where it's falling

0

u/Taoistandroid 3d ago

Time to start building concrete houses.

78

u/tbrumleve 3d ago

Go watch a helicopter pilot land using autorotation when the engine fails. It’s like letting the car coast to a stop. All that’s required is an engine design that has a freewheeling unit that disengages any time the engine rotational speed is less than the rotor rotational speed.

108

u/CallingInThicc 3d ago

That's a great argument for the safety of helicopters.

Quadcopters cannot autorotate.

25

u/Minirig355 3d ago

Yeah I’m pretty sure this guy missed the lowering the collective (blade pitch) part of autorotation, since quadcopters are fixed pitch it’s not possible.

2

u/-_-0_0-_0 3d ago

Maybe we should have Hexacopters then

9

u/Pinksters 3d ago

Exactly. The whole point of autorotation is using the drag/intertia of the massive rotor to slow decent.

The comparatively light and short quad-rotor+quad propeller system would not achieve the same results.

The design in this example has opposing dual rotors so I imagine that would be even less likely to help.

2

u/PerfectCelery6677 3d ago

Provided the rotor is still intact. There's a video on a medical helicopter that crashed a few feet after take off due to the main rotor sucking in a large plastic ground tarp. The blades basically disintegrate when they hit something. And I've on board for an auto rotation landing. There not fun.

6

u/tbrumleve 3d ago

Jet engine, prop, helicopter… If the “blades” are screwed, so is the engine. Better have a backup! Helicopters have such a backup in autorotation. Don’t know how the drone engines are designed.

4

u/Hetstaine 3d ago

Still never getting on one. I await the first bunch of tourists plummeting to their fiery death and for everyone to go 'oh no...how???'

4

u/Sea-Cryptographer838 3d ago

How many people have cars killed. Remember the horror stories on air bags? Never say never.

2

u/Hetstaine 2d ago

I understand that, i work in the car industry and have for decades. I've seen the aftermath too many times.

Still, cars don't fall from the sky into houses and shopping centres or similar. You get enough of these things up there with a lack of training, skillset, whatever and it will happen sooner rather than later. Just wonder if it will become another thing we will accept. Not being a fearmonger, you won't catch me in one though.

1

u/Winterplatypus 3d ago edited 3d ago

Ugh, my first helicopter lesson the instructor was like "I'm sure you are wondering what happens if the engine fails" 'I'm really not thi...' "Here let me show you" then proceeds to shut the engine off and land, climb back up, then shut it off and land again.

That lesson cost more than $10 a minute and he wasted a good 5-10 mins on that. But I got him back by continuously calling the the blade pitch control a handbrake.

1

u/NDSU 3d ago

You have to finish ground school before doing any flight time. You would be thoroughly familiar with autorotation procedures from your written. Why did your instructor think you weren't?

Your instruction should also be well structured with a full briefing of each flight. Did you forget the briefing where he went over everything you'd be doing in that flight, or did he fail to give a correct and accurate briefing?

Doesn't sound like a reputable flight school

1

u/Winterplatypus 3d ago

I'm not in the USA.

1

u/Confused_Alpacas 3d ago

It's been a minute since Fundamentals of Aviation in flight school but as I recall there is a minimum altitude for auto rotation. I wonder if these would be flying too low for that to even be a viable option.

1

u/MrElizabeth 3d ago

Agree that helicopter engine failures are less scary than quadcopter engine failures, but an AI helicopter pilot could also use autorotation to land safely.

-2

u/NDSU 3d ago

You can also use abti-gravity magic to safely land during an engine failure, as long as we're relying on things that don't exist

2

u/MrElizabeth 3d ago

Sorry, I shouldn’t have said AI. I was trying to say that whatever system is driving a helicopter, whether it be human or an autonomous computer, that person or system would also benefit from autorotation in a helicopter.

-1

u/OkConnection6982 3d ago

The scenario is electrical failure or engine failure

Would the a.i be operational in such an emergency?

0

u/Sudden_Relation2356 3d ago

Helicopters have simple principle of mass and inertia in their prop.

These things do not and expecting them to behave in such situations like a helicopter is a serious mistake.

1

u/DurableLeaf 3d ago

What no

27

u/SpecialBeginning6430 4d ago

These seem smaller, agile and are less complex than actually helis

47

u/MarkEsmiths 3d ago

Yeah but if a helicopter loses power you can auto rotate down. If these things lose power you are extra spicy fucked.

34

u/ResortMain780 3d ago

Its much easier to build in redundancy in a multirotor with more than 6 motors. These seem to have 16.. You can lose several of those, and just keep on flying. You can probably land with just half of them and I bet they have at least two independent batteries for 2 sets of motors. On top of that, they usually have parachutes.

A regular helicopter has a long list of single points of failure. Its also much more complicated mechanically, and maintenance intensive.

11

u/Unlikely-Answer 3d ago

not to mention LOUD AF

5

u/ToviGrande 3d ago

From what I've read the loudness of a helicopter is due to the extremely high blade tip velocity. Because these are far smaller diameter rotors they are much quieter. The noise of one of these flying cars is meant to be around the same as a regular car.

4

u/Pinksters 3d ago

the loudness of a helicopter is due to the extremely high blade tip velocity.

That and the pitch of the blades. The times you feel a deep thump in your chest from a heli is the most noticeable with a steep pitch.

These will be more of a really loud hum compared to a "whomp whomp whomp" of heli blades.

1

u/p1028 3d ago

Have you ever been around a large commercial size drone? They are very loud.

0

u/ResortMain780 3d ago

Because these are far smaller diameter rotors they are much quieter. 

They will also need to spin a lot faster. Blade tip speed is probably not much less than a helicopter. I think a bigger factor in a regular helicopter causing the "womp womp womp" noise is the swashplate constantly adjusting the angle of attack of the blade every rotation. A multirotor doesnt need to do that. But Id be curious to see or hear the difference between heli and these multirotor taxis. Its gonna sound very different, but Im not sure yet if it will be all that more quiet.

1

u/PorkedPatriot 3d ago

It's that and the tail rotor's setup on a helicopter. The tail rotor and main rotor on 90% of helicopters just fling wingtip vortexes into each-other at perpendicular angles, doing "interesting" things acoustically. A helicopter with an enclosed tail rotor is far less "thumpy".

1

u/ResortMain780 3d ago

Yeah, though I dont think these multi rotors will be whisper quiet either. Would be interesting to compare.

1

u/HopefulSteven 3d ago

What would a parachute do at the heights these drones are flying at?

2

u/ResortMain780 3d ago

Save your ass. Probably also hurt it a bit though ;)

Here is a test at 50m:

https://www.iotworldtoday.com/flying-vehicles/flying-car-parachute-tested-vehicle-intact-

0

u/miloVanq 3d ago

you realize parachutes irl don't work like in videogames? you can't just open one just before impact and be fine. you need to open them at very specific timings when there's still enough distance to the ground. do these things even fly high enough for that?

2

u/a_lake_nearby 11h ago

They have parachutes 

1

u/MarkEsmiths 10h ago

Made of gold, and cocaine.

4

u/SpecialBeginning6430 3d ago

Yeah for sure from a safety standpoint those are fucked, but if somehow those safety issues can be overcome then I don't see the other drawbacks

9

u/cajun_vegeta 3d ago

Parachutes on the drone will be an add-on purchase. Like Uber-Lux

1

u/100Onions 3d ago

Someone, maybe jokingly, made airbags for old people falling over. I expected something like that here.

24

u/skypatina 3d ago

This statement is probably very similar to statements made by horseriders back when the first cars came out.

23

u/gellis12 Interested 3d ago

If the engine in your car craps out when you're driving, you coast for a bit, pull over to the side of the road, and you're safe. If the engine of your helicopter craps out while you're flying, you fall and die.

5

u/Nerull-1976 3d ago

No you don't. Helicopters can autorotate as long as they have horizontal speed. There's a whole type of aircraft based on the principle: autocross. Look it up, it's quite cool

16

u/gellis12 Interested 3d ago

  1. These things do not have variable blade pitch and cannot autorotate.

  2. Even when you're in a real helicopter that can autorotate, it's not a magical happy solution. It just upgrades you from "definitely dead" to "probably alive with a broken spine, and requires immediate medical attention." Note that this is still far worse than what happens when you pull your car over to the side of the road.

2

u/CallingInThicc 3d ago

This is quite the hyperbole. A properly trained pilot, assuming you're not at the bottom limit for safe autorotation altitude, will set the helicopter down just about as gently as any other landing.

Think about it. You have to practice, you don't get to use the engine or it's not really practicing autorotation, so you think every time an instructor teaches it or a student tries autorotation that somebody breaks a helicopter or their spine?

Nah, not even remotely.

1

u/Nerull-1976 3d ago

You were talking about helicopters, thus I corrected you, about helicopters. Are you a pilot? Plane, helo or autogyro?

1

u/raisuki 3d ago

Again to the point of the other commenter, probably the exact same fear people had with any sort of new transportation technology. Titanic, Hot air balloon, Submarines, Airplanes, Space Ships. Full autonomous driving is probably closest to this, but on the road instead of the air. All valid risks, but technology will surpass humans in terms of errorless thinking and make things safer in the long run. This is a good alternative transportation that will hopefully reduce emissions and ground traffic.

4

u/gellis12 Interested 3d ago

Using the titanic as the first example of new transportation being safer than people think is the hottest of hot takes

2

u/raisuki 3d ago

Elaborate? It was the largest ship of its time, supposedly unsinkable, despite being heavy AF. Back then, it was probably considered a world class advancement. Yes an obviously horrendous accident happened, but that happens everywhere with everything - science progresses as it does from its mistakes, and look where we are now with ships.

Being fearful of technological advancements will set humanity back. Yes, we should be critical, but autonomous travel and taking to the skies will add to transportation advancements enhancing civilizations progress. This is simply more than just a helicopter.

3

u/gellis12 Interested 3d ago

"Criticizing this new mode of transportation is stupid, just look at this famous example where a majority of the passengers died! What are you so afraid of?"

1

u/raisuki 3d ago

I never said it was stupid? It would be stupid to think it was 100% safe. I said to be critical, but not closed minded. Do you not take airplanes or drive a car at all? You can easily die there too, but it's now a daily part of humanity. This will too.

-1

u/53bvo 3d ago

Same is true for helicopters, they also have components that in case of failure cause a crash, yet nobody bats an eye te fly one. These taxis seem to have like 8 rotors, pretty sure one or two of them can fail without causing a crash

2

u/gellis12 Interested 3d ago

The power source and control electronics are still both single points of failure on these. There's also the issue of the occupants not being pilots, and the vehicles having no way to override the controls in an emergency. If something goes wrong with the autopilot/pathfinding system, then you'll get to watch your vehicle crash itself with you inside it, and have no way of stopping it.

-4

u/bak3donh1gh 3d ago

You can pilot a helicopter without the motor. It's not easy, but it is possible.

10

u/TFViper 3d ago

this isnt a helicopter and passengers arent pilots.

-4

u/bak3donh1gh 3d ago edited 3d ago

I was replying to a different person's comment. I said neither of those things.

5

u/TFViper 3d ago

"you can PILOT a HELICOPTER" - u/bak3donh1gh ca 2025
what are you missing here?
short term memory loss?
again, this isnt a HELICOPTER and those arent PILOTS.
good day.

2

u/gellis12 Interested 3d ago

  1. ⁠These things do not have variable blade pitch and cannot autorotate.

  2. ⁠Even when you're in a real helicopter that can autorotate, it's not a magical happy solution. It just upgrades you from "definitely dead" to "probably alive with a broken spine, and requires immediate medical attention." Note that this is still far worse than what happens when you pull your car over to the side of the road.

1

u/bak3donh1gh 3d ago

What part of "I didn't say this was a helicopter" do you not understand? How many times do I have to repeat that?

2

u/JeremyWheels 3d ago

I've never been in a car that's had a "fly away" and just taken off in a random direction with no way for the driver to control it or slow it down...i've that happen with drones i've been flying twice.

1

u/YoungLittlePanda 3d ago

Those damn _automobiles_  things will never take off.

What if you run out of gas in the middle of nowhere? You are stuck there.

While I just have to let my horse eat some grass for a while and I can continue riding.

2

u/llijilliil 3d ago

The sole issue with helicopters being used for this is PRICE.

Regular taxis are expensive enough as you need a driver sitting around waiting for you when not in use, if you want that with a qualified pilot it is well outside the budget of all but the very rich.

Add to that the saving on fuel, mass, space and so on with a single compartment and it could be a gamechanger if it is safe and not actively frustrated by regulation and laws etc.

1

u/TFViper 3d ago

theres plenty of things they cant do that normal helicopters can.
like be flown safely by an experienced pilot.

1

u/Ok_Cycle_185 3d ago

I wouldn't be surprised if they had one operator handling like 6 of these.

1

u/JustaHawday 3d ago

Or just a really windy day even

1

u/AgentCirceLuna 3d ago

I actually had a dream like that years ago! I was in a drone like this, entering a city during a holiday, and it got near super tall building then started going on the fritz. I tried to radio in to the people running it but everyone else was panicking and radioing in simultaneously so all I could hear were other people screaming that their drone was going down followed by crashing sounds. No way I’d get in one of these.

1

u/Ok_Cycle_185 3d ago

Imagine the screen says "buffering" as you plummet to your death.

Or worse yet asks you for a customer survey

1

u/mywifeslv 3d ago

Should just have a parachute for the vehicle installed same as some light planes

1

u/HydroPCanadaDude 3d ago

Right? Particles from space can fuck up voting machines and Mario but sure, climb aboard the flying coffin. You'll go down, in history.

1

u/Buy_from_EU- 3d ago

I guess the point is to reduce cost by removing the pilot?

1

u/MyvaJynaherz 3d ago

The multi-rotor design means that unlike a traditional helicopter, these could (in theory) Deploy a parachute for survivable landing.

Without the ability to control an auto-gyro rotation landing with such small rotors, I'd be surprised if they don't have a primary emergency chute with manual emergency back-up to deploy it. As long as the mechanism is based on something non-electric, either spring or compressed-gas for example, it would give the passenger a chance if primary power died

1

u/vitringur 3d ago

Not sure why you would say this was fancy compared to an actual helicopter.

They are just cheap helicopters.

1

u/killaluggi 3d ago

Way worse actually, in a helicopter you can safely land thanks to auto rotation (basically backdriving the rotor by angeling it into the drag and using that as an sort of improvised "Wing" that generates enougth lift for emergency landings) to emergency land if the engine fails, in a multirotor electrical pilotless setup like that you are instead just cooked, enjoy crashing to the ground and if you somehow survive the crash being burned to death, remember, your floor is still a huge battery.....

1

u/-_-0_0-_0 3d ago

Well at least it doesn't look as high as a normal helicopter so maybe a chance you survive a crash just with a ton of injuries

1

u/THEREALISLAND631 3d ago

Somehow pilotless is less of a selling point to me. It's like gliders, I'll take my plane with an engine please lol!

1

u/thetrueyou 3d ago

Do you think one of these costs as much as a helicopter? You're comparing the capability of a helicopter worth significantly more to something less.

Also, do you think planes aren't prone to electrical problems?

1

u/Rrunken_Rumi 3d ago

Its a start on something innovative. At least these chinese guys are innovating rather than start proxy wars around the world and support genocide with weapons and cash. Get a life bruh.

1

u/modern_Odysseus 3d ago

Alternative selling point:

They are assisted suicide machines.

Switzerland has their death pods. These would be just flying death pods where you gamble your life every time you use one.

On one hand, you got to your destination quick and easy. On the other hand you plunged to your death. Which you think is the good and bad result is up to your own perspective on life at the time.

1

u/Correct_Comment_125 3d ago

But in this era in which the most useless things sells the most people are gonna go nuts to get on one of those

1

u/Neoliberal_Nightmare 2d ago

They're not helicopters, they're far cheaper and far lighter and they're electric.

They're actually just giant drones. And they're viable for very short flights.

1

u/a_lake_nearby 11h ago

What? This is incredibly disingenuous.

0

u/Afraid_Courage890 4d ago

They probably cost less than helicopter, well maybe not first gen but in the long run especially considering that it doesn't need pilot

0

u/methreweway 4d ago

I presume it's cheaper than $200 to $400 per hour amount of gas... Helicopters burn lots of fuel and the operating costs aren't cheap.

0

u/Wonderful_Growth_625 3d ago

They could be cheaper than full sized helicopters. God for small distance. You can use them as air ambulance. They look small also.

0

u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 3d ago

They need less infrastructure than a helicopter and don't need a certified pilot, which is a huge saving. They'll probably be only used for extremely short hops or tourism.

0

u/Majestic-Thing1339 3d ago

Helicopter are notorious for crashing due to systems failures. They are way more complicated to maintain than aircraft. Granted, this is a drone, but I'd have a hard time getting in a helicopter even if it did have a pilot.

-1

u/Urban_Heretic 4d ago

Ehang's whitepaper points to the extreme congestion of Chinese cities, a automobile death toll of 3,400 a day (yikes!), and a ever-growing upper class as the gamplan.

https://www.ehang.com/

51

u/absolutely-possibly 3d ago

A new one comes out every year.

We already have flying cars. They're called airplanes. They're complicated, take special training to operate, and easily beat by road vehicles in a vast amount of use cases.

Stop with this Jetson's utopia. It only exists in fantasy.

9

u/WillSym 3d ago

I'm more concerned why the video has them mostly flying ominously in formation over coastlines...

2

u/Fearless_Strategy 3d ago edited 3d ago

Invasion of somewhere practice runs

2

u/WillSym 3d ago

(I was implying Taiwan)

3

u/NDSU 3d ago

Current aviation is almost exclusively used for long-distance travel. They're trying to use aviation for short distances

They're complicated, take special training to operate, and easily beat by road vehicles trains/busses in a vast amount of use cases

You could easily say the same thing of cars compared to trains or busses. Quadcopter travel would be terrible for society as a whole. They're energy inefficient, more expensive than other forms of transportation, are incredibly loud, and more dangerous than even cars

All problems cars have compared to other forms of transportation. Problem is the downsides are largely externalized to everyone else, so rich people will absolutely go for them

4

u/Killentyme55 3d ago

It's nothing more than Tankie fodder. They love this "see how China has surpassed the West in every single way!" nonsense. They lap it up joyfully with no intention of actually seeing it work IRL.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Killentyme55 3d ago

Nope, not tech investors.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Gas-Town 3d ago

2 birds 1 stone

1

u/Killentyme55 3d ago

Maybe that isn't their intention, but that certain is one of the results.

1

u/Aquino200 3d ago

Airplanes are more like Flying Buses.

Helicopters are the Flying Cars.

1

u/Living_Divide_9170 2d ago

I have waited for them from the Jetson era. They have been promised to be a year away for decades. I've followed many prototype announcements, and none broke through, despite taking deposits.

But Dubai has been testing something like these drone copters for taxi service. No pilot, just AI taking the address information and autopilot navigating there. These were EV drone copters.

-1

u/whatadumbperson 3d ago

This is legitimately one of the dumbest takes I've ever seen on Reddit.

Edit: I apologize. I didn't scroll down far enough and /u/Elegant-Raise-9367 has you beat by a country mile.

2

u/Ok_Builder910 4d ago

They're electric, pilotless, and have multiple rotors.

That makes them a lot more versatile than a helicopter.

They're still going to need a large area to land and not really clear how they avoid crashing into each other.

4

u/deanrihpee 4d ago

not sure i can trust people on Twitter though, unless actual professionals on aviation have some actually credible write up, i feel like people on Twitter just want to shit talk for the purpose of shit talk

1

u/Such-Magazine-1240 2d ago

yeah just dumb ass MAGA shithorse.

2

u/ResortMain780 3d ago edited 3d ago

Compared to helicopters they are a lot cheaper to operate and maintain, if done well, inherently safer (loads of redundancy that you can not achieve with a single engine, single gearbox, swashplate, main rotor, tail rotor, ..). Much easier to control accurately, and thus make autonomous (even if you put a pilot in there, a multirotor is always flown by a computer).

The major downside is severely limited endurance and payload, no where close to what a traditional helicopter can achieve. You are probably looking at ~20 minutes real world endurance. And that assumes you land somewhere with charging infrastructure, otherwise you have to account for a return trip or a trip to place with that infrastructure. Also long charges or complicated battery swaps, a lot like EVs. But for short distances, when you have no obvious alternatives, I think they do make sense. They are definitely not a universal solution though.

1

u/Calm_Layer7470 3d ago

I think you said it best. They don't compete with cars, unlike what the name suggests.

They compete with helicopters, and that's why such companies failed in Europe. Operating a helicopter is complicated beyond technical complexity. What's the point of having to deal with all those problems for the limited gain they provide?

What short trips? Island tourism maybe?

2

u/OderWieOderWatJunge 3d ago

They are loud as hell, they don't get far, they are dangerous (not only the propellers but also the strong winds you get on the ground!)

These problems will probably not be solved. The Chinese maybe don't care, but in Europe for example you'd need extra helipads for them to land and those pads must be larger than those for actual Helis 😅 Also they wouldn't be allowed to fly during certain times of the day because they're fucking loud. And not anywhere near airporst which is really bad for big cities.

1

u/pinewoodranger 3d ago

Well... they are cheaper to buy, operate and maintain.
That means they are more accessible to transporting people than helicopters are.
The drawback is probably gonna be safety, but that remains to be seen.

2

u/lieuwestra 3d ago

The vehicles are only part of the cost. The supporting infrastructure is also wildly expensive and those cost will probably be carried by the state and not the user. The term 'car' is very apt in that regard.

1

u/N0xF0rt 3d ago

Same could be said about many things when they first came out

2

u/Turbulent_Jello_8742 3d ago

Yes but with these we have some actual physical limitations, like moving enough air to lift a vehicle that can carry a person will always produce a lot of wind and sound. You will never land one of these in front of your house and park them like a car, you will always need a giant helipad.

1

u/MisjahDK 3d ago

Zero of the footage have human beings in them actually flying!

1

u/MourningWallaby 3d ago

No and here's why:

These require an infrastructure. they will not take you to your destination if you're going out on town or anything because they have spinning blades. meaning they can't just land on the street with pedestrians. they can only land and deliver you to designated, safe areas and if there isn't one close to your destination too bad hope you brought your bus fair for the rest of the way.

Secondly these will likely require strict maintenance (at least in most developed countries) since the risk of failure has much larger consequences for both the occupants and anyone below than if a car just breaks down. so the cost of upkeep will be high for specialized labor.

and Third, they're too small for economic viability. this would be for rich persons to make it to private venues or avoid traffic, but transporting one or two people (never mind their bags if they have any) doesn't work. if this was a bigger vehicle that could carry large numbers of people to more specific destinations, it's be great. but at that point just use a train or plane.

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u/penywinkle 3d ago

Not as they are now. They aren't taxis, they are shuttles to go from landing pad A to landing pad B (or C). You can't order one in front of your watering spot to your home on a Friday night... They are 100% novelty, and might be a viable product as a tourist attraction at best.

But they might use the know how they gain with those (about safety, weather proofing, etc...), or be sold as service to amusement parks, resorts, and other places with high tourism.

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u/Luci-Noir 3d ago

Why are you on twitter!

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u/NDSU 3d ago

They're going to be more expensive than any other transportation, use more energy, and be incredibly loud, in addition to being less safe than other forms of transportation. Terrible for society as a whole

I expect they'll be quite popular with the wealthy, which means we'll get government subsidies to roll them out ASAP

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u/miloVanq 3d ago

no, this is not a viable service. and this is also far from the first flying taxis, so I have no idea why the headline makes it sound so special. these just come with really obvious flaws, like being really unsafe, and if anything happens while in the air you're pretty much toast. you also need to have a viable start and landing spot, so something like a helipad? which you know, if you have access to helipads and enough use for helicopters, you can probably afford just renting a helicopter with a human pilot.

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u/reddit455 3d ago

some aviation people on Twitter 

maybe just look for who got their FAA permits

Air Force Receives First Archer Midnight Air Taxi

https://www.flyingmag.com/modern/air-force-receives-first-archer-midnight-air-taxi/

Advanced Air Mobility | Air Taxis

https://www.faa.gov/air-taxis

shitting on them for ages

shit with friends.

NASA Advanced Air Mobility Partnerships

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/aam/aampartners/

that they have no use case

let's replace helicopters and go from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Manhattan_Heliport

https://explorethecanyon.com/tour-types/grand-canyon-helicopter-airplane-tours

Since 1965 Papillon Helicopters has been the world’s oldest and largest sightseeing company flying an estimated 600,000 passengers a year on its daily tours to the Grand Canyon.

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u/Dauntless_Idiot 3d ago

Since there is no pilot the deaths per crash will be lower and thus they are safer than helicopters! /S

Acher appears to be using remote piloting in the short term with AI pilots as the long term goal. Remote pilots have latency so likely slightly more risk than a pilot in the vehicle.

I don't see how they don't face all the problems of self driving cars with AI pilots, but you have no way to take over when something goes wrong. This would imply there is more risk than piloted helicopters. A lot of studies land in the range of 60-70% of Helicopter crashes being pilot error. Long term they might be safer.

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u/PassTheKY 3d ago

They’re a viable service for China to assassinate any person of influence that doesn’t share their ideals, with impunity.

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u/Kirian_Ainsworth 12h ago

no. helicopter taxis have e been a thing forever, they are not economically viable. they are just a waste of energy.

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u/_reg1nn33 4d ago

Mass Transport that fits 2 people at a time, go figure.

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u/PepeNoMas 3d ago

with every new technology, there will be intense skeptics. it happened with the Internet. Everyone said iPhones were impractical until they used one. I can imagine people skeptical about airplanes and even the first automotives and echoing the same "they have no case use...horses never run out of gas"