For the naysayers.
 

"...They plan to add a ballistic parachute,..."

That shows confidence in their product..:)

I'm looking forward to that Jetsons future though after somebody else works out all the bugs..:cool:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jetsons





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Fantastic...the way of the future.
Flying a Robbo costs megabucks for a licence and is mechanically complex. Electric 4/6/8'copter is simple and easy to fly.

Altho my design isnt as shapely in the fuse, and has only 6 rotors...I have incorporated a central tube for a ballistic parachute.
Nothing wrong with that...having a safety feature to CYA is not a bad thing. It doesnt reflect on the quality of the idea or machine....its to save the operator and passengers lives in the event of some catastrophic failure of ??
Even a broken Robbie becomes a rock...and all the way to the ground...fatally.
Why not give yourself a chance of not becoming a rock.
There a vid about of another one in China, so...change is coming. Whoopeee !

[QUOTE=Flying Binghi;9914622]"...They plan to add a ballistic parachute,..."

That shows confidence in their product..:)

I'm looking forward to that Jetsons future though after somebody else works out all the bugs..:cool:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jetsons




I think Cirrus is confident in its product.

CA$A is talking about Geo-Fencing to prevent drones and non-piloted machines from operating anywhere near anything.

These drone heli-taxis, apart from the technical aspects of making them fly, haven't got a chance of operating in a built-up area.

Was it one of your ancestors that said this new thingy called an automobile will never beat horses because the law says a man waving a red flag must walk in front of it wherever it goes. (For safety of course):ugh:

I think it were only the Poms that had a red flag requirement. If you look at the actual way all the traffic interacted (Horses, trams, push carts, bicycles, etc) when cars first came out you'd probably see why the 'regulators' were a little confused about just what to do about it all.

Here's a film shot in a large Yank city before WW1 (note the lady's wearing Queen Vic era clothes) when there were likely only a dozen cars in the entire city. Note, the same cars are doing laps around the camera rig. Also note the pedestrians running helta skelta to avoid being run over by trams, cars and horse rigs. And most of the cars are right hand drive:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NINOxRxze9k

I suspect we are at a similar 'confused' stage with the new fanged drone traffic..:)








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Well, Rutan, where do you expect your UUUUber-heli-taxi to land to pick you up at your house, and to drop you at the Pitt St Mall? Your own front yard? The nearest park, full of kids?

I expect that initially they will operate to/from rooftops as do helicopters now only much cheaper, probably replacing helicopters. As acceptance grows, they will use dedicated terminals, perhaps built over train stations and multi storey car parks in the inner city. Use will be limited by lack of inagination.

Fujii, there has never been a rooftop helipad in Oz, and probably never will, other than those for hospitals, and they are generally on top of the carpark.

The public has rejected piloted helicopters in populated areas, and has never allowed a CBD heliport in Sydney, except for a brief period on a wharf in Darling Harbour. Many a council now has a specific policy prohibiting helicopter landings in their areas.

Look at a rooftop, it is covered with mobile phone antennas, aircon units, flagpoles. The greatest rooftop helipad was Pan Am, and after the disaster when a chopper rolled over and killed people on the rooftop and a piece fell into the street and killed a pedestrian, it was shut down.

Who is going to supervise an arrival/departure? No building owner will permit Joe Blow to wait on the rooftop for his Uuuuber chopper without somebody to cover their backsides for liability. In fact, nobody is allowed on ANY rooftop without massive OHS precautions, coveralls, tie-downs, fences around the edges etc.

This jetson-like dream of zipping through the city streets like in 5th Element, landing on rooftops and over train stations has no chance of working in our NIMBY society.

Those all sounds like last century arguments. The Royal Melbourne and Royal Children’s hospitals both have a HLS on the roof. The RCH actually has two. There are no obstructions because the designers planned ahead. The single Darling Harbour argument doesn’t stand up as the ones on the Yarra River in Melbourne have been successfully operated for years.

Basing your response on helicopters doesn’t stand either. Drones aren’t helicopters. The lift system is completely different. Instead of a large main and smaller tail rotor with associated failure problems, drones have multiple lift engines and rotors with designed in redundancy.

Another plus for drones is that they don’t carry hundreds of litres of flamable fuel.

Your rooftop OHS argument is also flawed. Many rooftops allow persons on then without the massive OHS (now WHS) precautions. They are often referred to as observation decks and used by the public. Melbourne has a rooftop cinema. There are rooftop bars. I was on a rooftop in Starbucks in Harajuku yesterday morning.

The change is coming.

Duh!! I said APART from hospitals. As a non-hospital, the Burj-al-Arab is the exception, but I understand there are very few PUBLIC-ACCESS helipads on rooftops, or attached to buildings.

Stand up against what? The likelihood of any heli landings anywhere in Sydney is microscopic. there is only one public-access heliport in Sydney, which is the one I helped set up in Parramatta in 1997. Landing anywhere else without written dispensations from councils is a legal minefield.

What is different about a rotating aerofoil generating lift? Your drone doesn't need anti-torque, but neither do the Kamov, Kaman, Hughes 600 series etc. But your drone is different in having fixed pitch rotors, which have their own problems.

Duh! But they aren't sharing that rooftop with a pilotless drone, are they?

But dream on, the world needs dreamers, but get a realistic dream, not some CGI.

65 Knt cruise! Compared to today's relative ground vehicle speeds in a big city traffic gridlock that's probably faster then a car. The problem for drones will be the soon to arrive computer drive cars will speed up car traffic flow dramatically. A 65Knt airspeed may end up being slower then ground based computer controlled transport.

The big issue with airborne city commuters will be noise. With the increasing residential accomodation being built in the city's the last thing people will want is a swam of screaming drone traffic overhead as they sit outside sipping latte.





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65kts is a tad over 120km/h and that’s in a straight line. That will take some beating in an urban environment.

..."That sounds like a last-century argument..."

If traffic fines wern't a concern the average motorbike rider would find 120km/h a comfortable speed around town..:)

As to the speed of computer controlled cars them computers 'think' a lot faster then we do. I'd imagine with an all car to car computer 'talk' link a comp-car could safely operate at the vehicles limits. Here's an amusing look at some comp-car intersection possibilities: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4SmJP8TdWTU

This is the more likely scenario: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r7_lwq3BfkY






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Binghi, that last computer sim looks like the opening scenes of the Dick Tracy cartoons from the 60s!

In huge cities like in Brazil...where they are into practicality over anal WHS...taxi choppers are routinely used to get across town...direct building to building top, saving great swags of time,by not battling the traffic on a circuitous route to get there.

Quieter drones will eventually be the replacement vehicle.
They can have a little red flag out the front too...but to indicate slip or skid as they go.

Probably have a ex Mars Robot, back on Earth after a re-fit as a "driver"

Q What do you call blokes who think and act like this?

A Temporary Australians.:}

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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