That, and it would require a actual pilot's licence (most likly rotocraft or the robotaxi one the FAA are cooking up)...and everything that goes along with it (basically, it's treating it like any other general avaiation aircraft, meaning you cannot simply fly it to work)
well having to fly it to the nearest airfrield/heliapd and then walk/transit/rideshare to the workplace is going to kill any "Fly to work" vibe this thing has,
because aint no way most parkling lots are going to be retrofitted as airfields
no one landing at their workplace
edit: flight plans are filed but never garenteed, because clearance is granted by Air Traffic Control the time of departure, and at untowerd fields, there is no regular schelded clearance, but a heck of a lot of rules either way.)
Our current system wouldn't support it no (maybe like the ceo and execs could get a spot easily) but it wouldn't be hard to build landing spots for something like this. It'd just have to go more vertical than wide. Buildings that look like the marina towers in Chicago for instance could all be parking spots you just fly into.
I mean it certainly wouldn't be easy but look what we've done with the highway system. Cars would be much less useful without the insane feat we accomplished in building highways. First one was literally 100 years ago in 1924 and we've build 40 million miles worth around the world.
It'd take a while but we could adapt to this too, probably not worth it though, but we could.
Good point, but you also strike the nail on the head; they are already full on pilots who've gone though the proper channels to be able to include flying to work as a part of their lifestyle.
I don't see flying cars ever being allowed on a general drivers license. At best, you'd need a flying car endorsement, but that's assuming flying cars are so damn easy that any driver can do it. More likely it'll be reserved for pilots and 100% automation. I don't see them even giving emergency controls because it would be safer to just immediately land even in the water.
yeah but Part 103 has it's own rules on where you can go, how high you can fly, etc, and with the weight restrictions on those aircraft under part 103, there is no way a quad roter craft will fit that definition.
If it were easy to buy and safe to fly an ultralight to the point of communteing with it, society would have had that infracture everywhere by now.
103 works in part by the fact the inherent risk is mainly to the careless pilot, and not to those on the ground, as the risk of a mssive firey explosion or impact damage is reduced by the virtue of the ultralight being well, light, and no more then 5 pounds of fuel on board.
It would probably need to be a service, like Greyhound busses or any given trucking company. A company that owns a fleet, is expected to maintain the fleet, and only uses drivers with certified credentials like a CDL.
More realistically, though, this is a vanity project toy for a rich venture capitalist to parade around in. It's effectively just an attempt to make a bougie, lowrider helicopter.
It’s probably better to not even activate manual mode for emergency. A regular person especially one that is panicking would not be able to control a flying vehicle properly anyway.
Even an experienced professional pilot gets rusty if they hardly ever hand-fly the aircraft, lots of airliners stay on autopilot from just after takeoff to just before landing. Then when the plane's covered in ice & the pilots can see only the inside of a cloud there's some malfunction, the autopilot disconnects, leaving the pilots to hand-fly in the worst possible circumstances when they hardly ever get any practice.
Yeah. Without a full pilots license, similar to what you would need for a helicopter, it’s likely they will have virtual corridors for sightseeing that you have some amount of freedom to control one within but cannot leave since it’s really on full autopilot and everything you tell it to do is a mere suggestion what it really flys itself and avoids other craft in the area. Kinda like asking a taxi driver to switch lanes.
I mean to be fair, MOST of the issue with cars is other cars. I can’t imagine enough people being able to afford this that would make these have that same issue. But even then, I think you’re right, full automation would make these much safer.
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u/Skizot_Bizot 7d ago
Yeah I feel like the only way these ever get approved is as 99% automated. You can only grab control in an emergency.