Matthew H Fish
Lead Service Attendant
- Joined
- May 28, 2019
- Messages
- 499
I read a fascinating article from Rolling Stone on Joby Aerospace, a company that is developing eVTOL (electronic Vertical Take-Off and Landing) helicopters. The Rolling Stone article goes into detail about the biography of the founder, and for a Rolling Stone article, it seems less cynical than usual. It also seems a bit less skeptical than usual, too.
https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...r-taxis-flying-cars-joby-aviation-1234909157/For whatever reason, I read the entire article on my phone, but it is paywalled on my computer. I don't know how that will work for other readers.
Luckily, I found two other links, describing recent research by Joby and NASA on whether eVTOL air taxis could safely and efficiently bring passengers to an airport.
https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/nasa-joby-pave-the-way-for-air-taxis-in-busy-airports/
https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...Air-Taxi-Operations-Per-Hour-in-Busy-AirspaceOne thing to note--this was done with a simulated airfield, not a live test.
From what I have read about advances in materials, and especially in batteries, it is looking to be feasible that eVTOL aircraft can fly up to a 100 miles away at fast speeds, and I can certainly see how they would have a lot of uses.
But, as the saying goes, it also looks like Silicon Valley is reinventing the bus.
Even in this simulated study, the number of vehicles was 120 arrivals and departures combined. Since there are dozens of take-offs from a large airport, per hour, and each one of those airplanes might have hundreds of passengers, it looks like even in a best-case scenario, eVTOL air taxis might be handling something like 1% of the passengers coming to an airport.
So I can imagine that this would be a workable solution in some niche cases, but I don't see how it could scale very well. To fill up three airplanes per hour, you would need about 1000 eVTOLs landing at a heliport.
And obviously, this is another example of where trains are already a viable option. A train with 200 passengers (and luggage) pulling into an airport every 10 minutes is obviously a lot easier to handle than 200 eVTOLs trying to land in 10 minutes.
https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...r-taxis-flying-cars-joby-aviation-1234909157/For whatever reason, I read the entire article on my phone, but it is paywalled on my computer. I don't know how that will work for other readers.
Luckily, I found two other links, describing recent research by Joby and NASA on whether eVTOL air taxis could safely and efficiently bring passengers to an airport.
https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/nasa-joby-pave-the-way-for-air-taxis-in-busy-airports/
https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...Air-Taxi-Operations-Per-Hour-in-Busy-AirspaceOne thing to note--this was done with a simulated airfield, not a live test.
From what I have read about advances in materials, and especially in batteries, it is looking to be feasible that eVTOL aircraft can fly up to a 100 miles away at fast speeds, and I can certainly see how they would have a lot of uses.
But, as the saying goes, it also looks like Silicon Valley is reinventing the bus.
Even in this simulated study, the number of vehicles was 120 arrivals and departures combined. Since there are dozens of take-offs from a large airport, per hour, and each one of those airplanes might have hundreds of passengers, it looks like even in a best-case scenario, eVTOL air taxis might be handling something like 1% of the passengers coming to an airport.
So I can imagine that this would be a workable solution in some niche cases, but I don't see how it could scale very well. To fill up three airplanes per hour, you would need about 1000 eVTOLs landing at a heliport.
And obviously, this is another example of where trains are already a viable option. A train with 200 passengers (and luggage) pulling into an airport every 10 minutes is obviously a lot easier to handle than 200 eVTOLs trying to land in 10 minutes.
