OK so here is a recent EVTOL article about an effort from Airbus:
CityAirbus NextGen - Urban Air Mobility - Airbus
Notice how this new “million flies” try to enlarge drones to carry people!
What made drones possible?
- Low payload weight,
- short flight time,
- inanimate payload (no passengers)
These three factors allowed:
a) an aerodynamically inefficient method of elevating it (model airplane propellers)
b) electric drive (short range allowed a relatively small amount of extremely heavy batteries)
c) less worry about safety and the “dead zone” near the ground - too low to use a chute if needed
d) no ability to autorotate in case of engine failure like a heck-of-a-lopter.
e) the possibility to deliver packages
In spite of all these factors, people are in love with drones! Now they are calling them “flying cars!” But there is a long history of flying cars - they aren’t very good at either being a car or being an airplane.
Also, I saw a video of a Blackhawk helicopter flying over some Eucalyptus trees with people picnicking below: The helicopter blew all the largest branches right off the trees, onto the ground below, and the people were running away! Probably some people were hit! It seems that wannabe flying-car inventors underestimate the impact of the downdraft from hovering.
Why do all these companies keep “developing” these extra-large drones, yet they never enter actual service? Remind you of anything? I guess the idea is you can ignore the “dead-zone” of low altitude flight where any failure will dump you onto the ground without time to deploy a chute or anything else. I guess they think their electronics, wiring, cables, connections, motors, computers, controllers, sensors, algorithms, batteries, etc., will be so failure-proof that “What could possibly go wrong?”.
I’m just thinking, despite any claims of safety, it would be a long time before I would get in one! Watch a few videos about airplane crashes. Nobody thinks it can happen to them! It’s always something nobody realized, that causes crashes. It’s always a big surprise. it’s often caused by a computer!