- I am really excited to se electric aviation start to enter the market. A lot of people point out the battery density / jet-A difference and it is valid, but it isn't the whole story. Jet-A has a much lower conversion to useful work than a battery, an electric power train (minus the batteries) has a lot of opportunity to shed weight (no bleed-air, fuel plumbing, less need to safety systems). There are a lot more opportunities to explore interesting airframes because electric can be placed in unique and more efficient ways (hence the eVTOL in this story). The basic physics change a lot too. We will see how high altitude flight shakes out but there is a big potential to go higher so that more efficiency can be gained, again needing less energy. The big point here is you can't simply compare electric to gas turbine and only swap the fuel for batteries. It is a totally different set of design parameters and it has so many amazing opportunities to be better.
- The venture money behind some of the larger and more prominent electric VTOL air taxi/helicopter-plane things seems to be betting that by the time they get the hardware design, software, user interface and general safety systems to 100%, battery technology will also have become a lot better.
I'm referring to Joby, Archer, Wisk and similar.
The range is not really good right now with batteries at 255Wh/kg and much worse energy density than Jet-A fed into turbine(s). None of the evtol companies are big enough or vertically integrated enough to come up with some miracle 500Wh/kg battery on their own, so they're relying on market pressure generally to cause their battery subsystem vendors to make some significant breakthroughs.
More directly related to the PR, I saw the video of the JFK to Manhattan test flights and they're being done with only the pilot on board.
- Clearly no Scottish people with oversite on naming! Loads of wee jobbies flying around!
- Looks like noise pollution.
Wouldn't the city be better when the wealthy have to deal with the same services and quality of life as everyone else -- not (literally, in this case) elevating themselves above others, while making everyone else's life worse?
by albertgoeswoof
13 subcomments
- This so inefficient it’s painful to watch. It’s about 14 miles to go from jfk to manhattan. A train could do this in 20 minutes or so. A train could ship thousands of people in one go, supports millions of ordinary people in their daily lives, and doesn’t cause excessive noise pollution at street level (not to mention the climate, safety, and infrastructure benefits)
In London a new train line was built deep underground from Heathrow all the way through central London and out the other side. It stops all the way, travels further (19 miles) and still only takes 25 minutes, so don’t pretend it can’t be done.
Instead of supporting people we solve problems for the 0.001% who will give us a quick buck, while we pretend we’ll one day be rich enough to ride these things
- I'm very dubious. Primarily because this goes from landing pad to landing pad. You'll still need transportation from the pad to wherever you're going. A taxi goes door to door. And what's an extra 20 minutes if you're sitting the whole time?
by janalsncm
2 subcomments
- > The five-bladed propellers have a low tip speed, with twisted blades designed to reduce the “whop, whop, whop” of a helicopter to the volume of leaves rustling in the wind
I think they must mean when it’s high overhead. Based on the video, it’s still pretty loud up close.
- I wonder what it's like flying in one. People are scared of planes, but flying in helicopters is way scarier.
- It actually flying: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DXrvm_LAAR8/
by CWwdcdk7h
2 subcomments
- Aren't air traffic controllers already overworked and understaffed? How does adding hundreds of tiny helicopters fit in that picture?
- Will this be any less ridiculously loud than the conventional helicopters that fly over Brooklyn all day ferrying people to JFK?
- Seems awfully tiny for any real total capacity. Should scale it up to size of say large railway car size so dozens if not hundreds of people at one time. This would also cut down cost and allow wider range of population that is no limited from use to use it.
by felooboolooomba
3 subcomments
- Can it glide in case of a prop/motor failure? Or something resembling a helicopter's autorotate? Or is the passenger just SOOL if that happens?
- I'd rather be in a helicopter than one of these in the case of total engine failure, and I don't really trust helicopters!
by hyencomper
1 subcomments
- Awesome! Joby needs trained pilots so that may be a bottleneck to scaling. I am guessing they would have to create autonomous air taxis like EHang to scale.
by sourcecodeplz
1 subcomments
- Looks awesome. Wonder what happens if one engine fails, it will adjust itself probably.
- Apparently nobody with Scottish heritage was involved in selecting that name.
- That's a funny name - look up the Scottish slang "jobby".
- Reminder that New York Airways used to operate helicopter flights to the top of the Pan Am building until a 1977 accident killed five people.
- [dead]
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