[jillesvangurp]

Initially yes. But the way this starts snowballing is some cities showing they are cooler than others by allowing these things and demonstrating it is fine. Then envy will force the issue and regulation will catch up in most places. IMHO autonomous flight will be the drive this. By the time regulation catches up, having a pilot on board is not going to be a thing any more. Also practically speaking, training that many pilots is just not going to happen in time for that to matter. E.g. deploying 10K of these things would require as many pilots (at least) and they simply don't exist right now. Going from a few hundred to a few thousand will happen relatively quickly but from there to e.g. a few hundred K won't happen until autonomous flight is ready to scale. IMHO we're looking at 15-30 years here for this to happen. With autonomous prototypes flying today, that's a conservative estimate. IMHO the biggest bottleneck will indeed be legal & regulations.

Short term, these things will mean helicopters that currently service rooftops in many cities will be replaced by slightly more of these things flown by professional pilots that will have increasingly less to do as these things start flying themselves. I also expect an increase in heliports. E.g. Manhattan only has a few right now.