who needs a pilot license?

Heck I've known of people who not only flew without a pilot certificate but flew their own planes! Plenty fly IMC without an instrument rating too. Y'all be careful out there.

tenor.gif
 
Sales pitch was very light on actual hardware. It’s not going to be very quiet, especially in the VTOL phase of operations. 12 large-bladed fans = noise. And it doesn’t look very smooth. Tons of form drag in the forward flight mode with all of those parasitic fans sitting there catching wind. Cool toy.
 
I'm a just a complete moron, or is taking off while not "flying" seems as silly as having a drive motor on the landing gear. It just doesn't make energy management sense to me.
 
I would think (hope) it would have a manual mode of operation. I like the idea of having an airplane mode, giving it the ability to glide to a landing with no power.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I would think (hope) it would have a manual mode of operation. I like the idea of having an airplane mode, giving it the ability to glide to a landing with no power.
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Or, one of these:

upload_2018-3-18_12-20-57.jpeg

Oh chute!
 
It seems as though several companies have attempted to do this same idea many times in the past, and then they slowly fade away and you never hear another word from them.
 
You can fly ,without the ticket,or IFR ,when not rated,till you get caught. But who’s watching us.
 
Ravioli said:
I'm a just a complete moron, or is taking off while not "flying" seems as silly as having a drive motor on the landing gear. It just doesn't make energy management sense to me.
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Yes and yes.
 
Some 40 years ago we had a local guy that would rent a Cherokee 140 and take his buddies up, do x country rides, and fly whenever and wherever he wanted. He boasted he had stopped his dual instruction shortly after he soloed but decided he didn't need a PPL. No one ever questioned him or bothered him. He quit flying when the rental plane was sold.
 
Ravioli said:
...It just doesn't make energy management sense to me.
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I don't think it actually works, other than in someone's dreams.

Every time I see another one of these "gonna revolutionize the world of flight" electric jelly beans, I refer to what I think might be the closest thing available today...the Robinson R22.

It weighs just under 1000 lbs empty, carries about 450 lbs of which 120 lbs to 180 lbs is fuel (without/with auxiliary tank), so about 330 lbs remaining for two people. Requires a rotor diameter of more than 25 feet to lift it.

Does anybody think a two passenger autonomous electric commuter jelly bean, with all those motors, batteries, the obligatory ballistic parachute and so forth is going to weigh any less than a R22? Just because it's allegedly "zero emission" does not exempt it from the laws of physics.

Call me when the FAA says its good to go.;)
 
GRG55 said:
Does anybody think a two passenger autonomous electric commuter jelly bean, with all those motors, batteries, the obligatory ballistic parachute and so forth is going to weigh any less than a R22? Just because it's allegedly "zero emission" does not exempt it from the laws of physics.

Call me when the FAA says its good to go.;)
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Not to mention they had the glass heavily tinted so you couldn't tell they didn't have a person in there.
 
GRG55 said:
I don't think it actually works, other than in someone's dreams.

Every time I see another one of these "gonna revolutionize the world of flight" electric jelly beans, I refer to what I think might be the closest thing available today...the Robinson R22.

It weighs just under 1000 lbs empty, carries about 450 lbs of which 120 lbs to 180 lbs is fuel (without/with auxiliary tank), so about 330 lbs remaining for two people. Requires a rotor diameter of more than 25 feet to lift it.

Does anybody think a two passenger autonomous electric commuter jelly bean, with all those motors, batteries, the obligatory ballistic parachute and so forth is going to weigh any less than a R22? Just because it's allegedly "zero emission" does not exempt it from the laws of physics.

Call me when the FAA says its good to go.;)
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On those lines .... whose gonna do the W&B in these machines? I will be really pizzed if I sit in one of them and a computer voice comes on and tell me get off u fat arse.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The battery weight alone will be prohibitive until the technology makes it feasible. At that point the rest of the vehicle will be obsolete. I call that theory Lachlan’s Razor.
 
mscard88 said:
Heck I've known of people who not only flew without a pilot certificate but flew their own planes! Plenty fly IMC without an instrument rating too. Y'all be careful out there.

tenor.gif
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Hill Street Blues reference gets you an extra point today, but also dates you. Great show, though.

WannFly said:
On those lines .... whose gonna do the W&B in these machines? I will be really pizzed if I sit in one of them and a computer voice comes on and tell me get off u fat arse.
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Reminds me of when my wife and I went for a little heli tour in Hawaii. I was the only person who noticed there was a scale built into the step up to the ticket counter. I pointed it out to Karen while another couple bought their tickets and she said, “That’s sneaky.” Then I pointed out that I was going to get the center rear seat. “How do you know?”

“Everyone else who has a ticket here wears skinny jeans and the pilot who’s walking in over there is also a twig. I’m definitely the center ballast right under the rotor shaft. No way he’s putting me outboard of any of you.”

And, I was. LOL. EcoStar. Interesting helicopter. The ex-pat Aussie military guy flying it was a nice guy, too. Said Hawaii is hellaciously expensive to live in.
 
denverpilot said:
Hill Street Blues reference gets you an extra point today, but also dates you. Great show, though. .
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Well I ain't hiding my age ya know. :)
Yes, I liked that show a lot. A different cop show than the normal ones. But then I don't watch a lot of TV anymore anyway, unless a Three Stooges Marathon comes on....
 
denverpilot said:
Hill Street Blues reference gets you an extra point today, but also dates you. Great show, though.



Reminds me of when my wife and I went for a little heli tour in Hawaii. I was the only person who noticed there was a scale built into the step up to the ticket counter. I pointed it out to Karen while another couple bought their tickets and she said, “That’s sneaky.” Then I pointed out that I was going to get the center rear seat. “How do you know?”

“Everyone else who has a ticket here wears skinny jeans and the pilot who’s walking in over there is also a twig. I’m definitely the center ballast right under the rotor shaft. No way he’s putting me outboard of any of you.”

And, I was. LOL. EcoStar. Interesting helicopter. The ex-pat Aussie military guy flying it was a nice guy, too. Said Hawaii is hellaciously expensive to live in.
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Did he fly left seat? Our pilot on Kauai was an Italian feller who flew left seat in the Hughes 500 we rode in.
 
Ryanb said:
It seems as though several companies have attempted to do this same idea many times in the past, and then they slowly fade away and you never hear another word from them.
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Yep. It's probably the next Moller Skycar.
 
Lachlan said:
Did he fly left seat? Our pilot on Kauai was an Italian feller who flew left seat in the Hughes 500 we rode in.
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Yeah he did. Seemed like they’d set up the aircraft a bit for it, too. His gear that played music and voice overs when he was busy talking to ATC was angled his direction, but maybe it was on some sort of movable mount. Didn’t look that close.
 
While I'm generally supportive of environmentally-friendly technologies, whenever someone talks about an electric conveyance being "emissions-free," I want to ask them what emissions-free source they're going to get the energy from to charge the batteries. I realize that fixed power plants have the potential to have lower emissions per unit of energy, but lower emissions is not emissions-free.
 
Well there's less chance of hitting a pedestrian with a flying jelly bean, I suppose. This is sad news, but somehow I can't help but think it was inevitable. Maybe all the public officials going ga-ga over anything that makes them appear tech savvy need to step back a moment.
http://abc30.com/woman-killed-by-se...ntified-as-company-suspends-testing-/3234630/

A self-driving Uber car hit and killed a pedestrian Sunday night in Tempe, Arizona, police said, in what appears to be the first case of a pedestrian death caused by an autonomous vehicle.

The vehicle was in "autonomous mode at the time of the collision, with a vehicle operator behind the wheel," Tempe police said in a statement.

The female pedestrian, identified as 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, was walking her bicycle across the street outside the crosswalk when she was struck, police said, adding that an investigation is ongoing.​
 
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