All electric personal flying machine

[GPowers]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/L75ESD9PBOw[/youtube]

Some day will the electric car be replaced with the all electric multicopter?

 

[LakeLeaf]

Some day will the electric car be replaced with the all electric multicopter?

The guess-o-meter is going to have to get a whole lot better!

 

[Nubo]

Some day will the electric car be replaced with the all electric multicopter?

The guess-o-meter is going to have to get a whole lot better!

As well as the average driver!

 

[GPowers]

As well as the average driver!

That is one of the surprising things. They will be autonomous flight based on GPS. So anyone will be able to fly one.

Here is a video that explains it a little better.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/OEkV80W8dWM[/youtube]

PS: do not know why the youtube tag are not working??

 

[garygid]

They would have to make GPS control all the 2D (ground) traffic first, then work on 3D control.

They should be doing automated control of the airspace now, but ... cannot seem to get it together.

 

[LakeLeaf]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/OEkV80W8dWM[/youtube]

PS: do not know why the youtube tag are not working??

Must be time to renew at the super-gold membership option

 

[CWO4Mann]

As well as the average driver!

That is one of the surprising things. They will be autonomous flight based on GPS. So anyone will be able to fly one.

Here is a video that explains it a little better.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/OEkV80W8dWM[/youtube]

PS: do not know why the youtube tag are not working??

This would likely be semi-autonomous flight. There are always conditions which require a human pilot; this is one of several reasons why the various Drone systems used by the military have qualified pilots behind the stick. Having said that, it is certainly possible today -- repeat today -- to operate a 100% autonomous flying machine, but with the factors of bureaucratic rules, wrangling special interest groups, pilots unions, and the usual bunch of hysterical NIMBY folks, I sure won't see 100% in my lifetime or most of yours either. If you take away the run up and taxi, the big flying machines out there are on autopilot almost from the get go which might as well be autonomous flight .. albeit with a couple of crew members siting in the driver's seats. Assuming they aren't trying to get their laptops loaded with Windows to work like those two idiots who took the long way around to Atlanta (or where-ever).

2 dos limpiras worth ... ymmv

Dave

 

[TonyWilliams]

Assuming they aren't trying to get their laptops loaded with Windows to work like those two idiots who took the long way around to Atlanta (or where-ever).

Northwest Airlines, SAN to MSP.

I don't want to see autonomous flight, either. Although the plane is indeed on autopilot for much of the flight, when the crap hits the fan, it isn't computers fixing it and getting the bird safely on the ground.

One of the most automated airplanes in the world wasn't worth much when a flock of geese disabled it over New York a few years ago.

 

[CWO4Mann]

Assuming they aren't trying to get their laptops loaded with Windows to work like those two idiots who took the long way around to Atlanta (or where-ever).

Northwest Airlines, SAN to MSP.

I don't want to see autonomous flight, either. Although the plane is indeed on autopilot for much of the flight, when the crap hits the fan, it isn't computers fixing it and getting the bird safely on the ground.

One of the most automated airplanes in the world wasn't worth much when a flock of geese disabled it over New York a few years ago.

What Tony said.

Dave

 

[Nubo]

Google the "Moller SkyCar"; which has been vaporware since I was a young man. It's just a fundamentally flawed idea that flying something equivalent to a Harrier can be made into something that doesn't require extensive training, discipline, and aptitude -- apart from the physics hurdles.

 

[mitch672]

Google the "Moller SkyCar"; which has been vaporware since I was a young man. It's just a fundamentally flawed idea that flying something equivalent to a Harrier can be made into something that doesn't require extensive training, discipline, and aptitude -- apart from the physics hurdles.

I was wondering how long it would be before someone brought up Paul Moller.
At this point, he's likely to pass before his dream is every realized.
He has made good progress on the lightweight high horespower wankel engines, and is selling them to the military for applications there..

 

[CWO4Mann]

Google the "Moller SkyCar"; which has been vaporware since I was a young man. It's just a fundamentally flawed idea that flying something equivalent to a Harrier can be made into something that doesn't require extensive training, discipline, and aptitude -- apart from the physics hurdles.

I've given some more thought to this after my first off-the-cuff posting. I am guessing that with a sophisticated artificial intelligence system in control we could see a completely human's-hand-off flight from start to finish. Really, considering the various challenges the autopilot faces even in a level and calm air envelope, modern AP systems are pretty darned good.

Where the modern autopilot fails, however, is when it has to "guess" at conditions the parameters of which fall outside the system's data base and/or learning system. It can learn from one condition, but if that condition is the one which flies it into the ground, then what?

Pesimist that I am , let's go forward --- let's take a rotary wing aircraft flying nap of the earth, at night, with flocks of starlings and owls pissed off at the rotor noise and blast, your odd tree limb, unforeseen high tension power lines that the local utility forgot to mark, the GPS cutting in and out because a low-bidder connector has chosen that moment to flop around, and a couple guys on the ground with a night vison device sight on their 12.7mm heavy machine gun who are really pissed because you are on their turf, and your hemorhoids are bugging you again.

Personally, I want to see Dr Susan Calvin work the problem and get that positronic brain into the cockpit. And remember that when Dr. Cal Meacham thought the DC-3 he was flying in to Arizona was a "robot airplane", Engineer Jorgasnovara was really at the controls of the Interocitor.

Dave