What happens in the event of a main power bus failure?
- Battery Energy can be distributed around the airframe and divided between the motors with no need for a main power bus.
- Each motor can have sets of independent stator coils.
- Each set of motor coils can have its own, independent Electronic Speed Controller
- Redundant flight control computers can be provided
- Vehicle can descend safely despite losing one or more motors.
Lack of redundancy is not a problem for multicopters.
Battery capacity, battery life and certification are problems for multicopters.
Electric passenger aircraft development is where fixed wing was 100 years ago, when all sorts of strange aircraft appeared in the sky with various numbers and configuration of wings and engines.
Similarly, there's no real consensus at the moment of what the final shape of an electric aircraft will turn out to be.
The controllability, stability and performance of the current crop of quadcopter drones, with just four moving parts, hints at what electric aircraft might be able to achieve.
It's interesting times.