Flying Taxis...how dumb can it get?

LongRoadBob

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/flying-taxis_us_58d5e2aae4b03692bea63b72?iu580ys5jqfk249529&

of course, this article is devoid of details, and badly written, but people read these things (and if you see comments whenever stories like this come out the ignorance of the general public about all things flight related is staggering...but they VOTE!) and think "yeah, cool!"

First off, ten mile range? Does that include reserve "fuel" or power? Can go up to 11000 feet? How does that affect range? What about people that get apoxia at lower levels? What about weather?
Or controlled airspace? Or restricted airspace?

What about seperation, radio communications, weather issues? What about the general publics fear of flying? Emergencies?

The thing I don't get at all, companies with savvy investors pour (I assume) millions into projects like these and how can they have considered the real issues about this?

Maybe it's me. As a student I am in awe of how much knowledge just a regular PPL certificate takes, how much one has to know about everything related to flying including weather, navigation, flight systems, theory of flight, instrumentation, medical issues, the laws and regulations, best practices, and have demonstrated a level of mastery, and then you are still just a newbie until you out hours of the right kind of flying under your belt. I'd be, or I will be, proud of that knowledge and skill.
And I have huge respect for pilots.

But in a dumbed down world, where in the old days a pilot was repected, and people seemed to understand some of this, nowadays they get in an airliner thinking it's easy, and like some living room that just ends up in Chicago, or New York magically.

I watch people ignore everything about the flights in commercial flights, amazed they aren't checking out the view (when it is there) either of the landscape or the billowy clouds beneath, instead in their own little worlds playing games or watching movies. I've never understood that.
Take those same people up on a mountain and take away their iPads, and they'd go "oooh..." and "ahhh" "what a fantastic view" but put them in a window seat and they usually put down the shade or ignore it.

But many of them also would see this story and say "yeah, why not. Cool!"

I guess I'm a student pilot curmudgeon.
 
I guess what I really wonder when I read about things like this, how dumb are we actually as a society?
Ignorance of a subject is ok as long as people that are ignorant GET that they don't understand the complexity, or haven't gone into the specifics, haven't thought enough and need to learn a good deal more to even weigh in.

And that supposedly savvy bankers, or investors, don't know what they don't know has worried me a lot. We live in an age where people think they know everything, and have no idea or respect for experts.

I know that I am fairly smart, but also that I am ignorant in a lot of ways, I keep a good margin over what I think I know contra what I might be missing. The way we are heading as a society is like an ignorant opinion is equal to an experts opinion. We are doomed.

It's not as if this was always the case, such as we know elders always think the next generation is dumber, etc. this is something new, that society has no balance and no respect for people or systems. That they think whatever they think must be so. Critical thinking is not taught anymore, and anyone with "common sense" weighs in with as much authority as people that actually know.
 
Flying is easy.

Everything else is hard.

That's what people don't understand. The knowledge required and the man in the loop for when things go wrong is the important bit.
 
We had Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as our choice for president. It doesn't get any dumber than that. PT Barnum was a genius.
 
$25 for parts, and a spare car battery? That'll suffice for a GPS jammer, good for about 25 square miles - and we're gonna base our ATC system on it. . .
 
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