You're arguing with the same smug , closed minded old farts who are also convinced that electric cars will never happen. No point trying to debate with that lot, all you get is the old "this is the way we've always done it and by gawd it simply can't be beat" rubbish.
I’ve seen no one say electric cars will never happen here, ever. Drama queen much?
Electric cars make sense for a very limited market space and are filling it. No problems with that at all.
Talk is cheap Jimmyjack……. and trust me, most of us "fogeys" have heard a lot of it and can spot it a mile away. Never forget that.
Seriously. The “brainiac” youngsters seem to be forgetting that electric has been around longer than gas and has not been used in traditional helicopters for real reasons. Switching to a quad copter doesn’t really change the physics or the realities of the weight of the batteries.
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@Ghery I’ve been building profitable systems for more than a couple of decades now. There’s nothing in the current business model of any of these prototypes that makes them magically profitable or extends their range.
I did a 300+ nm round trip today in my “70s tech” airplane, on about $150 in fuel. Let me know when the cute little quadcopters can do that and I’ll be interested. Except for that whole “no way to survive a complete power failure” thing. All I have to do is glide and land my fixed wing. Even a traditional helo can autorotate.
What do y’all suppose the insurance rates are going to be realistically on a multi-copter upside down lawnmower when a few people have died in them? It’s an honest economic question. What kinds of on board systems are going to be required for redundancy when they move out of the experimental regulations and into commercial passenger carrying? How heavy is all that stuff going to be?
I’m mocking the 20 mile range and the 20 MPH speed for a solid engineering reason. That’s “a bridge too far” when you stop building them cheap and experimental and light, and have to beef them up for passenger carrying in commercial or private carriage. The thing is too slow, too range limited, and won’t scale up to enough redundancy on board to meet requirements for commercial carriage.
Not to mention the realities of owning a helicopter. Where you going to land it? A suburban lawn? You think the ninnies in HOAs aren’t going to nix that? The parking lot at work? Yeah the boss will love you peppering his new Mercedes with gravel. If helicopters worked for personal travel, lots of people would be doing that already.
Maybe the roof of the WalMart? LOL.
I’m all for new ideas. Dummies who think old people aren’t make themselves to be morons. I’ve built a number of things the teams got patents on and were new ideas. The kickers are practicality and profitability. This thing has none.
And not much of a chance of having any unless batteries as energy dense as today’s, less likely to catch fire, and half the weight, are developed. Nothing in tech pubs shows any progress on that chemically.