Joby operational demo flights
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Ed Haywood
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That is one of the target markets for the single seater. I think they could replace or supplement life flight helicopters in some environments too. And there are probably military applications for medevac too.
JVerb
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Not yet. This is where the battery density becomes an issue. Joby looked into this and realized with the weight and vertical power limitations, it's not feasible. Maybe one day, but again, we already have helicopters.
I did see a state (Virginia??) is testing single seat for rapid response. My wife is a paramedic, so she kind of laughed at that one. With limited tools, there's not much a paramedic can do until the bus gets there in the first place. Even CPR can only be done for a few minutes before the person needs a break and a hand-off. If it's serious enough to need that rapid response, it's probably serious enough to need real tools/meds/etc, too.
They're a long way off from this being viable, but at least it's a step.
In this manner, yes. But as mentioned, for patient transport no. While my info is a bit dated, in several areas, plans have been made to incorporate this ability within the existing public emergency services and provide a rapid response of trained personnel and advanced equipment to a scene within a city center.
However, on the patient transfer side, it too will be a priorty once the hybrid powered eVTOLs hit the scene. For example, Honda elected to skip the battery only eVTOL and went straight to a hybrid model which will have the performance to accomplish that mission. There is even talk Honda will offer an EMS configuration as a factory option.
The military has been involved with the eVTOL developement since day one with Electra and Joby being big players on that side.
Yes we do, but helicopters are not permitted or severely limited, to operate in the same urban areas that an eVTOL will operate. So if you look at the overall plans for airspace use, you'll find airplanes and helicopters are regulated to their respective sections of the NAS and eVTOLs, eSTOLs, and UAS will be regulated to NAS areas not used or are used in a limited fashion by conventional aircraft. Even where those areas do overlap there will be segregated routing or something similar as this planning has been ongoing since the early 2000s on a number of levels.
midwestpa24
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So let me ask this question, what makes eVTOL different operationally over existing helicopters? Why will they be allowed to operate differently? How does a difference in powerplant change the operational structure?
tspear
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Velocity173
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They’re working on it. To me this all hype and marketing. A new toy that they can brag about. But it has such a limited operating envelope, the odds of it being any benefit to the local public is slim. The country is already drastically short of paramedics but yet we’ll spare one so they can sit around all day next to their cool EVTOL and do nothing.
Volunteer Medics Will Fly This One-of-a-Kind Electric Aircraft
Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft could cut emergency response times.
www.flyingmag.com
JVerb
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Why do people keep believing evtols will be able to operate nearly indiscriminately within our existing airspace system, and in urban environments? First, they're going to severely restricted to VFR and low wind conditions, Second, airlines aren't decreasing their flights; airspace is at an all time high for traffic right now, and in many places that is the limiting factor for growth. Just this month the FAA told ORD no more flights; they're capped at a number less than last year, because the airspace is full (according to FAA). Why do people believe they'll be able to drop a few hundred evtol in the same space and they'll operate all over like little busy bees?? Seriously?? Come on. Get real.
I know it's been worked on since the 2000s, and I also know it hasn't been sorted out. The real world trial periods this year will be huge for this. We've been preparing for this for several years; I'd love it for them to be successful; I'll make a lot of money if they are, but I am very cautious (as everyone in aviation is) in expectations because I have a very hard time believing in the business model right now. The technical.challenges of developing and building the aircrafts were the easy part; it's just engineering. The real challenge is public acceptance, operating costs, consistency, availability, and safety. Several of those are not up to the individual company; a major disaster by any of them will impact them all.
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JVerb
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Noise. That's pretty much it. Helicopters can be restricted in use because of their sound. Other than that, not much.
Manufacturers claim "cheaper operating costs", too, but that has no real world numbers behind it. We're all in aviation here...we all know low volume, cheap, and certified aircraft, never go hand in hand.
40YearDream
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The helicopter usage capital of the world has got to be Sao Paulo; must be lots of seriously rich people in that town! https://www.google.com/search?q=hel...&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on
Sadly, most of what drives that is a horribly overloaded road system.
JVerb
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Houston used to have a huge helicopter presence in the '80s thanks to the oil & gas industry, but sadly a few jerks ruined it for the rest of us as the city clamped down with helipad ordinances. There's a restaurant out by me that has "helicopter parking" that gets used on a regular basis, but it's not the same.
Hengelo
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JVerb
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AED's are 70-90% effective if in the first couple minutes of the attack. After that, it drops ~10% every minute longer. If it takes 10+ minutes, they're virtually useless. So maybe, if you've got them staged all over the place. You'd need a lot of them. Probably cheaper to buy an AED for every household.
UngaWunga
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Will eVTOL/sVTOL aircraft be able to auto-rotate like a helicopter or glide like an airplane with an engine out?
JVerb
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I wonder how many blades they'll be allowed to lose and still fly.
Lindberg
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The, "If it can't solve every problem, it can't solve any problem," argument is always heard loudly in these threads.
I guess it's less interesting to talk about how cool it is that these things are actually hitting milestones.
Lindberg
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How many blades can a helicopter lose and still fly?
There’s been a ton of political pressure on the government to facilitate the technology, so the certification pathway has long preceded the manufacturers.
The manufacturers had been clamoring for a certification pathway so that they could get certification out of the way and be able to pounce on market opportunities as the battery technology improved. The FAA the published powered lift rule in 2024, yet to my knowledge no manufacturer has completed the process.
I suspect it’s hard to get through the certification process when batteries limit your test flights to 15 minute intervals.
It’s a very interesting market but I think we’re ultimately going to see this industry pivot back from powered lift to primarily winged aircraft. It’s just much more efficient with the current technology.
Hengelo
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AED access is a real issue, as efficacy does seem to drop about 10%/minute. that said, we're still dispatching fire/ems trucks to try and get them to people in time. I could see fire stations having a small fleet of drones on the roof...
JVerb
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Sorry to balance hopes and dreams with reality. May as well wish we could teleport everywhere and not have any of these pesky physical realities constrain us.The, "If it can't solve every problem, it can't solve any problem," argument is always heard loudly in these threads.
I guess it's less interesting to talk about how cool it is that these things are actually hitting milestones.
JVerb
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Does a helicopter have multiples? These aren't helicopters; they do have redundancies. That's supposed to be one of their benefits...How many blades can a helicopter lose and still fly?
Hengelo
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Looks like people are already on it.
JVerb
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Very true. But, there's a lot more equipment in an ambulance that's substantially better than an AED. Even with that, CPR success rates are extremely low in the grand scheme. Shockingly low honestly. ~10% outside a hospital, and still only ~20% inside a hospital.
(My wife is a paramedic; it's sad how bad technology really is for medical emergencies)
Lindberg
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The great thing about defeating strawmen is that it doesn't hurt anyone else's hopes and dreams. About the only disappointing thing you've said that relates to the original thread topic is that the pricing is per person rather than per ride. And that's not all that disappointing, since demand will exceed supply either way.
Lindberg
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So these are safer than helicopters. Got it. I thought you were saying the opposite.
Lindberg
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Hengelo
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True, and a hospital ER is even better. But any dope on the street (...?) can operate an AED. I have personally saved (returned to normal rhythm) more than a few in my days on the Fire Department.
Now a "bag & grab" vtol drone would really be something...
Now a "bag & grab" vtol drone would really be something...
Lindberg
Final Approach
It's already in testing. And this wouldn't be difficult to implement. Many cities are already dispatching drones as a first-response to 911 calls, so it would just be a question of integrating the AED drones alongside those programs.
Drones Now Deliver AEDs During Real 911 Calls in First-of-Its-Kind U.S. Study
DURHAM and CLEMMONS, N.C. – Every minute counts when someone’s heart stops. In the U.S., more than 350,000 people suffer cardiac arrest each year, and fewer than 10% survive. Most of these emergencies happen at home, far from lifesaving equipment.Now, for the first time in the United States, a...
And my question has always been why do people keep believing eVTOL and UAM are the same as conventional aircraft and rules? But nowhere did I state indiscriminately. Perhaps reread my post? And if you have been following this since 2000, you’ll will have seen the routes and corridors being developed for strictly eVTOL and UAS traffic where no conventional aircraft can fly which is kind of the whole point behind UAM.
Another big shift between conventional NAS rules and UAM rules is the inclusion of state and local DOTs in the eVTOL/UAS route development and infrastructure planning. Post 8 in this thread provides a good example of this. So while you believe its appears to be all chaos, its not, nor has it been. Since the initial UAM ATC system was tested 30 years ago and worked as designed down to street-level, you’ll find the UAM/eVTOLs NAS will be managed at the same level as other NAS areas, or maybe even better.
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No serious UAM/eVTOL contender is considering a quad rotor configuration. Every serious UAM/eVTOL contender has plans for contingency management and redundancy.
Nauga,
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A number of things. A better comparison is what they have in common: they both can fly vertically and carry people. Beyond that there are quite a few things different.
Mainly noise levels and the ability to operate at street-level which is why they were developed in the first place.
An eVTOL is a completely different aircraft and is not merely a powerplant change.
Ed Haywood
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Electric and hybrid power trains make designs possible that are not practical to engineer currently, such as quadcopters and tilt rotors. ICE versions are so complex and expensive that only one country has an operational tilt rotor and nobody has quads. With electric motors, both are trivially easy to engineer.
Multiple and tilting rotors make other things much easier, such as autonomous or highly automated operation. Hovering and transitioning a traditional helicopter takes a skilled pilot. Literally anyone can hover a quad.
Multis and tilts can be made with much smaller rotor footprints, and rotors can be enclosed.
Operationally the smaller blade footprint, enclosed rotors, and increased automation makes them safer to operate in dense urban areas.
Helicopters are complicated and dangerous beasts. A rotor strike in most helos is a catastrophic event for those in the aircraft and often those below it. Electric multis can be designed to make that less likely and less catastrophic.
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2-Bit Speed
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I want to know why aircraft carrying less than ten people per flight are expected to reduce congestion. Doesn't seem like mass-transit. At best, this will be a party-trick for those than can afford to 'fly over the great un-washed.'
It definitely is. And as good a system as it is, they will also be one of the larger adopters of the eVTOL technology from what several friends who work/live there have told me.
No. There are multiple electric motors that are controlled by NASA's distributed electric propulsion technology (DEP) that when it detects the loss of 1, 2, or 3 motors depending on the system design, it will adjust the RPMs on the remaining motors to keep the aircraft level and land in a survivable manner. At least that is what happened in 2 out of 3 prototype incidents. However, the eVTOL certification standards are based more on redundancy and failure probabilities. For example, your typical eVTOL motor uses independent double windings which basically provides a motor within a motor powered by separate electrical supplies.
Based on current experience, 3 blades. In one prototype incident, they had an entire propulsion unit break off due to blade loss during a test with another propulsion unit turned off on the same side. It landed level but hard.
As stated earlier, the endgame to this is "mass-transit" in the big picture once the technology matures with the current estimates in 20 years. Just as NYC instituted a congestion tax for certain city center areas, this is the problem UAM was created to mitigate. So the current mindset that this will not be for the everyday citizen is mistaken based on the planning dockets and references out there. And again this is what has driven the massive investment in this industry on a global scale.
StraightnLevel
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Looking at it from basic principles of physics, this doesn't make sense.
Energy <=> cost.
On a per-passenger basis:
Small VTOL flight energy requirement ($$$$$) >>> Small fixed-wing energy requirement ($$$$) >>> Large fixed-wing energy requirement ($$$) >>> Small ground-based transportation energy ($$) >>> Large ground-based transportation ($).
Helicopter/eVTOL >>> light plane >>> airliner >>> personal car >>> bus/train.
Simply put, if the energy efficiency of the motors, batteries and charging systems become high enough to reach the cost points being proposed, ground-based transport will also become an order of magnitude less expensive, rendering the comparable cost delta between them similar, even if at a lower level. No matter what you do, it will always cost 10x as much to lift someone and move them through the air as it does to roll them along a road or train track. This is direct from the basic physics and energy equations - not open for serious debate.
Velocity173
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Put everything you have into Joby stock. I’m calling it. 
midwestpa24
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Again, we are not allowed to operate conventional aircraft in these low altitude airspace due to safety regulations. What do eVTOLs do differently that make it suddenly ok to operate a commercial passenger carrying aircraft at "street level" or in these special routes and corridors. The technology is cool and could be the next gen of aviation, of that I have no doubt. But I think its a stretch to expect 100 years of aviation experience and safety regulations to be dismissed and rewritten because we created a new type of aircraft. Just wait until an unpiloted passenger flying Uber flies into the side of a construction crane like a couple of Amazon delivery drones did recently.
And that is still skipping the economics. The idea that this will be an Uber style affordable option I think is highly unrealistic. The cost will eliminate probably 95% of the population from being a customer. Other than what some have suggested that the governments will subsidize the cost of the aircraft and infrastructure to support it. Which sounds a lot like the idea of coast to coast high speed rail in the US. Whos picking up that bill, and will it ever materialize or be just another government boondoggle?
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Ed Haywood
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Now do the cost to build and maintain roads and tracks in high density urban areas, or the economic cost of sitting in traffic for two hours to cross a bridge or tunnel. Remember the Big Dig in Boston? 24 billion dollars and 16 years.
Cost is meaningless unless value is factored in. Bicycles are far cheaper than cars, but we all still drive.
UngaWunga
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I was going to go on a rant about underfunded public transportation/subways/commuter rail lines/buses being much more efficient "mass transit" and that this looks like another way to erode true mass-transit....
Because everything outside of city centers was designed around the automobile. You can't get anywhere in suburbia without a car. In many places riding a bicycle is just dangerous due to poor infrastructure and ****bag drivers.