JeppUpdater
Well-Known Member
I'm sure it'll do a great job of landing itself after it hits one of the aforementioned great eagles.
Larry Page's Self-Flying Taxi Set for New Zealand Test Runs
- Thread starter RDoug
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BEEF SUPREME
Well-Known Member
BOOM!!!!! My new signature.
NickH
Uber Driver
Oh it's a terrible idea, for all of those reasons. But not because it has lift rotors, a pusher prop and a wing. There's a good reason for that part.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Lots of people told the Wright boys to keep building bicycles too.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
Who's bending the laws of physics? The thing flies.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Some people just want to pretend that the inevitable isn’t inevitable.
🦈💜
Well-Known Member
The wright brothers and flying was a good idea. An “advance humanity to the next level” idea. Removing pilots from airplanes is not “a good idea,” and in no way advances humanity. It’s only “inevitable” because someone somewhere in academia with their head up their ass decided it would be, and everyone repeated them—just like they decided a decade ago that laptops would be dead, replaced by tablets. Who needs a keyboard when you have a touchscreen?
-Fox
-Fox
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
I know I certainly prefer my tablet 90% of the time.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
QFT. This I believe.
I was speaking affirmatively more about the approach they took to the systems to make the thing fly.
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
I've told this story here before, but I'll repeat it since its relevant, and because I'm bored....
Buddy of mine on a layover asks me to lunch. Brings his FO with him. We sit down and FO launches into marketing some gadget that is supposed to save you 90% on your electric bill.
A brief review (and I do mean brief) reveals that its a snake oil perpetual motion machine. Review of thermodynamics ensues, with the relevant math (on a napkin, of course, can't break the mood).
Argument then follows, about how we have to do "SOMETHING" to save the environment and the accusation that "you engineer types are the reason nothing ever gets done".
After lunch I ask my bro "WTF did you bring this cat along? He ruined my Old Bay Shrimp". His response? "Yea, I've been listening to his bovine excrement for the last 3 days, and I wanted to see you take him down. Here, give me the check".
Buddy of mine on a layover asks me to lunch. Brings his FO with him. We sit down and FO launches into marketing some gadget that is supposed to save you 90% on your electric bill.
A brief review (and I do mean brief) reveals that its a snake oil perpetual motion machine. Review of thermodynamics ensues, with the relevant math (on a napkin, of course, can't break the mood).
Argument then follows, about how we have to do "SOMETHING" to save the environment and the accusation that "you engineer types are the reason nothing ever gets done".
After lunch I ask my bro "WTF did you bring this cat along? He ruined my Old Bay Shrimp". His response? "Yea, I've been listening to his bovine excrement for the last 3 days, and I wanted to see you take him down. Here, give me the check".
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
I feel like I'm totally missing something in this thread, or something is going way over my head. Are you saying that the videos and stuff are doctored or that this thing is purely theoretical and doesn't actually fly or what?
I'm confused.
nibake
Powder hound
Me. Touchscreen keyboards are a cleverly contrived torture device imposed upon us by some evil villain hiding the the shadows.
Really though, flying behind CRTs and assorted 1980s technology, it is comforting and encouraging to know that there is a lot of money going into attempts at bringing innovation to aviation through a wide variety of startup companies.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Ever notice how every heavier than air fixed wing aircraft has pretty much looked like the wright flyer? Couple of wings, one or more engines? Whether it's a Spitfire or a 787 or a DC-9, everything is pretty much the same because of the constraints of the physical world we live in.
Ever notice how helicopters all pretty much look the same? Same problem.
When you use a surface, be it a wing or a rotor blade, to move through air and generate lift, it's going to look pretty much like every other one that's come before it.
Mixing the two together like a platypus is an evolutionary blind alley. It's not creative, it's a freak of nature that doesn't serve any purpose.
This thing is the Panda of the aviation world. It works because the rotors are lifting the body; the wing isn't doing anything most likely. If it did, someone else would have tried it in the past.
But wait! It HAS been done before!!! But the modern incarnations of this still look like helicopters, because the rotor is still providing the lift.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-97_Raider
There are also some tests being done by DARPA right now to do something similar, but a wing is being used in order to increase speed.
This thing has a top speed of around 100 knots, not the 250 the X2 produces, or the 275 knots of the OV-22.
And speaking of physics, there's a reason helicopters have a Max speed in the fluid that we live in.
https://www.decodedscience.org/why-cant-helicopters-fly-fast/22018
So maybe this guy designed this thing to take off vertically with the rotors, and then use the wing for forward flight? Now you've got a really draggy wing. But with that kind of a speed limit, what's the point? It's nowhere near as fast as a quadcopter could go without the extra mass and drag of a wing.
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
Small efficient brushless motors, lithium batteries, and inexpensive FBW flight computers haven't really been around that long.
Quads are great at VTOL but their performance relative to their energy consumption is dismal at best.
The Google design still looks like an energy nightmare with limited use as far as range goes as there is no way to get around all that weight and drag used for the single purpose of lifting off.
The German design is better and actually is kinda sorta similar to a NASA design of a new airplane using a bunch of electric motors on the top of the wing. This has the secondary purpose of significantly lowering stall speed and increasing low speed controllability.
This stuff will get to the point where kits are 3D printed and shipped to your door step where it can be assembled. No need for expensive molds or assembly lines doing high cost low volume production. The FAA of course will have a conniption...
The electronic brain behind it will make operating it like operating a self driving car. You are here, you want to go there, done. If you want to take over and hand fly, think Airbus. It won't allow itself to be put in a situation where it's uncontrollable. It will be just like operating a DJI quad today.
Of course there are other issues namely weather at this point. Avoiding other airborne vehicles is easy, there are already cameras that can detect traffic better than a human eye.
Quads are great at VTOL but their performance relative to their energy consumption is dismal at best.
The Google design still looks like an energy nightmare with limited use as far as range goes as there is no way to get around all that weight and drag used for the single purpose of lifting off.
The German design is better and actually is kinda sorta similar to a NASA design of a new airplane using a bunch of electric motors on the top of the wing. This has the secondary purpose of significantly lowering stall speed and increasing low speed controllability.
This stuff will get to the point where kits are 3D printed and shipped to your door step where it can be assembled. No need for expensive molds or assembly lines doing high cost low volume production. The FAA of course will have a conniption...
The electronic brain behind it will make operating it like operating a self driving car. You are here, you want to go there, done. If you want to take over and hand fly, think Airbus. It won't allow itself to be put in a situation where it's uncontrollable. It will be just like operating a DJI quad today.
Of course there are other issues namely weather at this point. Avoiding other airborne vehicles is easy, there are already cameras that can detect traffic better than a human eye.
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jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
JetBlue dumped money into this one from Joby Aviation. 16 pivoting motors that fold, propellers and all, into a pusher config.
Interesting.
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
Don't feel bad, Intel and Toyota bought in too.
JetBlue also bought in to Zunum Aero. Their target seat mile cost is 15% more than Spirit. Don't see that one working out.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Sorry, there was a whole lot of sarcasm attached to my reply that probably wasn't very obvious.
JetBlue isn't investing in stuff like this, or the potato farm, or stock buybacks because they're good investments. They're just places to park cash that aren't on the balance sheet.