Clearly you don't live in Melbourne or Sydney, let alone near their CBD's!

Self-driving cars have so many challenges it isn't funny. The first ones were driving nearly 10 years ago, so far they've progressed from testing to...more testing. Compare the drones of 10 years ago to today.

Autonomous drones will be around well before autonomous cars are speeding up traffic flow. The benefits of autonomous drones don't require everyone else to have one as well.

Yep. For the average motorbike rider 120km/hr around city streets would be safe enough as long as there were no other traffic/pedestrians/dogs on the road.

When you look at the extensive research done re motorbike accidents around town (rural is different) it is mainly the 'unexpected' car turning across the bikes line of travel that brings the bike down. If all the cars were computer controlled cars, i.e. drone cars, with vehicle to vehicle/bike 'awareness' then a drone car would have the ability to sense a bike coming along at 120km/hr and avoid an accident.

I suspect motorbikes will ultimately be banned from drone car roads though the way motor bikes have demonstrated the ease of driving around town at high speeds (we've all seen that daily commuter super bike go by us at warp speed and wondered how he does it year on year) gives a fair idea the speeds drone car traffic will attain. Considering there will be no more stopping for traffic lights the apparent speed benefit flying drones have at present will be negated.





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I think the first computer drive car were being developed in the early 1980's. It were a van that were full of computer hardware.

No argument that flying drones are ahead of drone vehicles. Though the future may not be as far away as you think. Here's a short film of Melbourne traffic in 1910. Note the 1 car: https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=730_1507755653
A mere 20 years later and it were wall to wall cars and traffic jams...





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Now, a Melbourne council wants to ban all remote-control items, be they toy cars, planes, drones etc from their areas.

And you still think these drongos will allow a full-sized helicopter to land in their parks or streets, without a pilot?

Will. Not. Ever. Happen.

Charlie I'm marginally more optimistic than you. I know it takes far too long sometimes, but Drongos ,crooks and halfwits eventually are recognized for what they are.

A year or so ago at our local council elections we turfed out a puffed up hopeless mayor plus a number of useless councilors. Soon after the CEOs of the airport and council left to pursue other interests along with the useless airport 2IC and the arrogant hopeless ex politician who was chairman of the aerodrome board.

It's depressing that our town will never recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars these pretenders lost us but at least the bastards are gone.

It's a pity the incoming council didn't have the required guts to drag the lot of them through court. If nothing else it may have discouraged future trash from playing wide and loose with other peoples money.

I started this thread to show it will happen. Those against the idea use parochial arguments. There is a whole world outside some small Australian council.

Fujii I'm sorry if you interpreted my council spray as being against innovation. Indeed the opposite is true. The reason for my post was to inspire others to rid themselves of the all too common handbrakes on our society.

Once the Naysayers are made powerless then the innovators can get on doing what they do even if they come from a small town. This is an aviation forum and I seem to recall a couple of lads from a small town called Dayton did rather well for themselves.

Maybe they had an enlightened council but more likely they were sensible like most of us and told their council nothing.:E

rutan, not at all. I thought it was a good example of power hungry minor bureaucrats.

I think you'll find there were no greeny muppets around there to say "nay"..:hmm:





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Yes but they seemed to have grasped the basic principles quite well. The current iterations of supposed human carrying drones are hell bent on ignoring them.

There is a reason why helo's have mostly single rotors with low RPM high aspect ratio blades. Aside from the energy efficiencies and mass inertia capability and large disc area which makes autorotation capable it also has vastly less failure points.

Unless the current crop of multi multi engine drones have found the secret fountain of light weight energy they're screwed from the outset. I suspect they're all just one discarded wafting woolies shopping bag away from disaster.

First thing they should do is apply this software to the current air traffic control system, see if it helps with congestion.

Well, as long as there are no bad guys out there who would be more than happy to create massive carnage by bringing about multiple mid-airs, either by introducing rogue drones on 'suicide' missions or interfering with the radio control, then I'm sure it will go swimmingly. Having overcome that obstacle there is the small matter of liability insurance, particularly third party. I have a pretty good idea what the insurance market will have to say about pilotless drones or aircraft.

A segment on tonight's "news" showed a four-seater, with remarkable room inside, graced with the leggy models who advertise leather lounges from Franco Cozzo, getting ready to depart from a spacious rooftop heliport, along with 2 or 3 others.

It "lifted off", powered by 2 piddly little 2-metre rotors, and zoomed away. I could barely hear the commentary, I was laughing so hard. But it sure as heck didn't attempt to have any sound effects from the screaming rotors, just graceful violin music.

Yes, it did say that NASA people were involved with the ATC software, but didn't say if they had anything to do with the aircraft.

In 1906 skeptics in the European aviation community had converted the press to an anti-Wright brothers stance. European newspapers, especially those in France, were openly derisive, calling them bluffeurs (bluffers).

The Paris edition of the New York Herald summed up Europe's opinion of the Wright brothers in an editorial on February 10, 1906: "The Wrights have flown or they have not flown. They possess a machine or they do not possess one. They are in fact either fliers or liars. It is difficult to fly. It's easy to say, 'We have flown.'"[97]
In 1908, after the Wrights' first flights in France, Archdeacon publicly admitted that he had done them an injustice.[

I understood it that NASA are just doing the anti-collision and routes software and not designing the aircraft in any way.

I'd been wondering for a while who was going to develop the route software for these machines. When there's literally hundreds of them buzzing through our skies it's going to need to work well! I assume NASA is more than capable however if there some smart cookies out there in Aus I'd be forming some kind of company and or start on an offering in this area. Those StarWars high ways in the sky are looking more like reality every day.

30 years ago I was told I would soon be flying out of Badgerys creek, 20 years before that Qantas cadets were told they would be Concorde captains in 6 years.
I wont hold my breath.

Just what them inner city residents want. A plague of screaming drones flying past their veranda's..:ooh:





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