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thanks for watching techwiki click the subscribe button then enable

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notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any future videos at the turn

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of the 20th century people had all kinds of fantastical visions of the future

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everything from weather machines to firefighters that looked like batman but

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one idea kept popping up over and over again the flying car and now here we are

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almost 120 years later we have real-time

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video chat and robots that can clean your house hey we even have tinder too i

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guess but flying cars still seem like almost as much of a fantasy today as

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they did back then turns out it's just gosh darn difficult

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to make a vehicle that's as good in the air as it is on the ground oh and then

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there's the human element if you think the motorists in your city are bad at

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driving in 2d just imagine giving them each a pair of wings but that doesn't

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mean that more personal air travel will never happen passenger drones that aim

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to make short trips a little easier are in development today but how do these

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differ from the flying cars of our dreams well for starters passenger

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drones are purpose-built for air travel only and unlike airplanes they usually

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don't even have wheels instead they rely on vertical takeoff and landing or vtol

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just like the drone collecting dust in your garage right now this means that

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they shouldn't need airstrips or even a dedicated landing pad like helicopters

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since they're so much lighter but what about safety well there are a number of

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approaches to this similar to the hobby drones that people fly around to capture

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video and spy on their neighbors some current passenger drone projects are

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meant to be operated remotely by a command center the ehong 184 for example

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doesn't even have any controls inside for the passenger except for a screen

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that allows them to enter their destination others though like the one

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in development from astro aerospace are fully autonomous and are designed to get

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you from a to b safely with nothing more than on-board sensors to measure speed

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balance and altitude essentially making them bigger versions of the retail

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self-flying drones you can pick up now for under three grand so maybe it will

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actually help matters that you won't have to rely on your idiot next door

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neighbor to pilot the thing but there are other considerations as well like

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their hobbyist cousins passenger drones aren't designed to stay in the air for

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as long as 747s with many models currently in development intended for

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quick trips across town or maybe to the next city over ehong for example is only

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certifying their 184 for 10 miles or 23

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minutes of flight not exactly eye-popping but certainly better than

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driving 10 miles if you live in some horribly congested place like la or even

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here in vancouver for that matter with that said gradual improvements to the

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technology already have some pretty big names in the transportation sector

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looking at the possibility of using passenger drones as the backbone of an

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air taxi service in cities around the world uber for example is currently

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looking for a third city to join la and dallas as launch locations for its uber

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air service to debut in 2023 which will transport up to four passengers per

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drone and airbus is looking to launch their own line of four cedar drones that

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can cruise up to around 75 miles per hour and passenger drones may be able to

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take you even farther and faster later on down the road as german company

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lilium recently tested a small aircraft that combines vtol with actual electric

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jet engines to travel across its 300 kilometer range in just one hour and

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these guys also intend to market an air taxi

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but of course there are many legal and political hurdles to clear before we're

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all zipping around in the air in drones and it's likely that many of these drone

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air taxi services will also feature human pilots on board until safety

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concerns with fully autonomous flight can be completely resolved but even

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though we might have to wait a few years and wait and see if these drones won't

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just become another form of luxury travel for the rich the tech might have

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real potential to make our cities a little less congested like a self-flying

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benadryl tablet wait bennett who writes this honestly

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