Uber releases autonomous air-taxi plans
 

Today, Uber gave CBS News a first look at design models for its new air taxi, which it hopes to fly by 2020.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/08/...otype-elevate/

Yawn. Do you really think this is viable given today’s ATC constraints, ubers track record with autonomous ground vehicles, the track record with autonomous planes and loss of datalink or other mechanical issues in general, a lack of pilots until they get their autonomous stuff figured out in a decade or two (at least), and many other barriers to entry.

If you want to read how truly off the rocker and far from reality they are, read the white paper here https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf. After perusing that yesterday on an overnight, I felt confident that they won’t be taking my job anytime soon, or disrupting the intra-city commuting market. Their assumptions are largely off base. I think this is my favorite: “We can expect that the price for a 45-mile pool VTOL, which would replace a 60-mile automobile trip, could approach as low as $21 for the 15 minute journey.”

If it took an aerospace company and the government decades to design/build/fly V22s, which is operated by 2 professionally trained pilots and has the backing of the DoD for mx/ops/support, and sustained some crashes in development and operations, how the he77 is a tech company going to build a VTOL, with new (currently nonexistent) technology, flown by a single $50k/year pilot until they can get a computer to replace the pilot, and not have disastrous results? One autonomous car, with a driver, kills someone in Phoenix, and makes massively bad press for them. Can you imagine a VTOL with 4 riders and a driver crashes into a street/parking lot/house and kills 5-10.

And they can’t keep burning $2-4.5 billion a year forever. At some point they will have to start making money and stop hemorrhaging it. At least they got kalanick out. And maybe they will get an IPO done next year. But I don’t think you’ll hail an Uber air taxi anytime soon.

They want to achieve $21 for a 15 minute VTOL ride that covers a 60 mile car trip distance. That’s like manhattan to white plains or SWF. A helicopter does a 15 minute trip for roughly $200 a seat for less distance than that. They are really going to replace current technology for VTOL (helicopters) with new tech and with economies of scale and reduce that price 10x? Good luck with that. Taking Uber 3D is a much more expensive and difficult proposition than they can handle.

I agree this is more a marketing/PR gimmick than anything. Just like Amazon's drone delivery service.

No mention of FAA approval.
Certainly don't see that being quick.

I can picture it now, a uber drone blocking an arrival with it's hazard lights on because the idiot driver tried going the wrong way down a one way street.

This business model, once the technicalities and legalities are resolved, will be severely limited by people who don't want flying cars buzzing their neighborhoods all day and half the night. Going to be limited to points A and B which are not in, or too near, residential areas.

Not to mention this in the middle of possibly the biggest pilot shortage of all time. We don’t make $9/hr and fly our own planes. It isn’t a valid consideration economically.

Making $200 round trip gross on a two hour turn pays the pilot nothing. Good luck with that in 2020.

This will work out great!

Right up until the first Uber air car craps itself and flies into a stadium at halftime....

And that will be the end of that.

Or flight into icing.

Haha!

True!

That's where this technology is going, it's not the threat of fully autonomous, it is the threat that Boeing/Airbus can make a commercial jet that requires a sport type license to operate. Maybe it's single pilot, maybe it's two pilots making $50K year, because it's no longer a skilled profession.

Hey, why not. What could possibly go wrong. ;)

What ****es me off the most about these tech companies is their smug attitude to change the status quo. They put this out there to convince the world how innovative they are, but fail to mention the multitude of regulations they’ll have to overcome, or the dangers of having flying taxis. Do they honestly believe they’ll be flying these in 1.5 years?

2020 lol...good one.

Hey, I saw blade runner like 5 times so I *know* it can be done!!!!1111one

(haha for the humor impaired)

The Robots are Coming!
 

CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences, the leader in retrofit autonomous aviation technology speaking about the future.

https://www.facebook.com/AuroraFligh...3523500033424/

As a student pilot, I just do not understand why anyone would be behind destroying an upper-middle-class career which is becoming a rarity in America.

Money, lots of money

Why spread that money around 50 or 60 thousand pilots when instead it could be in the hands of 10-15 CEOs?

That's hilarious.

Don’t worry. The robots are a long way off. The more experience you get the more you’ll realize that there is a lot we do that can’t be replaced wih programming. And the people who would program us out of aircraft would need the exerience we have in order to even come close to safely automating what we do. It’s a Catch-22 and nerd fantasy. Learn to fly if it’s your passion and enjoy a wonderful career.

Exactly. It's as much a government/political problem as a technical one.

Executives see great potential... naturally. Congress not so much.

There is consensus in industry, congress, and even the public that small short-range drones can open up new economic arenas... those will have to be unmanned due to their size, but that does not translate to automated airliners.

Replacing airline pilots will have little to no economic benefit to the public, won't be a "game changer" in travel, will require a vast up-front investment with no near-term return, and still have unresolved safety ramification.

The FAA wants nothing to do with any of it. they don't have the skills, funding, or initiative. They also don't get paid or rewarded to take risks. The only way the FAA is touching any of it is if they are ordered to do so by congress or the executive branch (actually I think congressional involvement will be required due to the need for significant additional funding).

You can safely tune out the background noise from silicone valley and industry associations... the former have more vision than understanding of the problem, the latter will run anything up the flagpole just to see who salutes.

Um, first of all congrats on graduating high school.

Secondly, dump everything you learned about the US being a representative government. It belongs more or less entirely to wealthy corporate overlords. Every descision it makes is in their interests. The end goal is to have no middle class, no unions, just all the currently wealthy even wealthier leaving the rest of us in servitude to them.

Once you look at things this way you will realize that all the "stupid" descisions the US goverment makes on everything from trade, to foreign policy, to domestic programs suddenly make perfect sense.

If I were you I would drop out of flight school and go into finance. Seriously.

I think you're giving government waaaay too much credit... they couldn't conspire their way out of a wet paper bag :rolleyes:

Hey guys, I just wanted to clarify that I completely understand the business side of this and it’s a no-brainer from an executive point of view but I am saying from the customer point of and regulatory point of view that not having pilots would be a stupid thing to support.

If you’ve learned anything about NextGen and the ADS-B implementation process you’ll feel pretty secure as a pilot that you’re career will be around for awhile. NextGen has been in the works for at least 15-20 years and ADS-B (one step of NextGen) has taken years and supposedly won’t be implemented fully until 1/1/2020. To get a fully autonomous airliner up and going and all pilots out of the cockpit is an absolutely massive task (and an absolutely massive understatement).


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The robots are coming! :eek:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Wcg5m34fw

You just summed up corporate America........

I don't think any of us will have to worry about our jobs being replaced. I for one look forward to the automation as it replaces the drogs of society with better suited machines.

Hypothetical no power scenario
 

I'm not sure if this the right place to post but I have a question for any commercial or military pilot. If you are at 30000' and travelling 460 mph and then lose all engines. Now you're losing 7000 feet per minute headed down at a 20% slope then at 2000' AGL you pull the nose up what happens next? I realize different aircraft handle differently. I'm curious about fighter jet and about commercial airliners. What would happen next in the scenario. I'm not a pilot yet. But planning to start learning to fly this year. Thanks!

I'm sure your future flight instructor will be able to answer that question for you.

Generally the same for all airplanes, although glide ratio and performance varies by design. Commercial jets are very aerodynamic, and don't have obnoxious propellers acting as windmills in the breeze, so they actually have a much better glide performance than a small piston plane, probably about twice as good.... much better than 20%!



On losing all engines you setup for "best glide" speed. This gives you max time and range to figure out where to go. Max time aloft speed and max range speed can be slightly different from each other, depending on the design.



When it's time to land you wouldn't pull the nose up at 2000', you'd slow and stall the plane. You would normally extend flaps and gear, adjust pitch slightly to keep the speed you need (lower speed with flaps). You would flare (increase pitch) within about 50' above the runway to reduce vertical speed at touchdown.


For airliners, this has been done successfully several times (Sully, Gimli Glider).


Many fighters have the glide ratio of a brick and if glided in would arrive with very high speed and descent rate. For that reason the procedure for loss of all engine(s) is often to simply point the plane where it won't hurt anybody and then eject.

...............

This is a good summary of what's going on with AI right now, and matches with the rumblings I hear from friends in industry. In addition to airline pilots, looks like taxi and truck drivers will have job security for at least another generation...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/t...hallenges.html

https://www.wired.com/story/self-dri...rs-challenges/

https://www.computerworld.com/articl...utonomous.html