[yholio]

It's a nice toy, but the problems of personal aerial vehicles were not about electric motors vs ICE:

- Massive amount of sound pollution, current crop won't be allowed near cities in significant numbers; that's why the presentation videos are always silent.

- Exceptionally energy inefficient and limited speed, due to the way lift is achieved; it makes zero sense to spend 10 times the energy to travel at speeds comparable with what can achieved on the ground with the right infrastructure.

- Very limited safety guarantees, can't be safely used by an untrained pilot, typically can't be flow at all over populated areas etc.

Maybe they could reach for a market that can tolerate these drawbacks, ex. air ambulances, and build on that.

[paul_f]

You nailed it. They never seem to mention how load these things are. The use case is more of a dune buggy or jet ski. An expensive toy.

[BurningFrog]

An air ambulance that flies above roads is actually a real good idea!

[yholio]

Airbulances are definitely a killer app. The loud noise is a feature, it makes people look up and make room for landing. A 0.005% chance of crashing on its built in airbags, and possibly damaging property or squishing somebody, while completely unacceptable for a personal recreation vehicle, would be ok for a device that can save a life every few flights. You can also find suitable infrastructure - helipads - on many urban hospitals.

Forget electric, it needs the highest density fuel system to allow at least an hour of flight, maybe a LPG fuel cell, or a piston engine geared with electromagnetic power couplers to the propellers for very rapid dynamic response.

A two person craft, lifting maybe 250Kg overall to allow for medical gear, the medic operates during liftoff/landing then autopilot takes you to predefined hospitals on predefined flight paths that are known to be safe.

This should be a thing already.

[nradov]

That's just silly and completely unrealistic. We already have helicopter ambulances. They work, but have a relatively high accident rate due to being called to fly frequently in bad weather and near obstructions (trees, power lines). The FAA and crew members won't tolerate something that's even more dangerous for domestic civilian use.

There are no such thing as predefined flight paths that are known to be safe, at least not in the areas where air ambulances have to operate. There is always a risk of collision with other aircraft operating under VFR. And a human pilot is always needed to cope with in-flight emergencies that autopilots can't handle.

There could be a limited use case for military casualty evacuation drones. The military is researching those for use in combat zones where sending a manned helicopter would be too risky.

https://taskandpurpose.com/gear-tech/army-drone-helicopter-m...