Passenger Drones Explained
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
964 words · ~4 min read
0:00
thanks for watching techwiki click the subscribe button then enable
0:03
notifications with the bell icon so you won't miss any future videos at the turn
0:07
of the 20th century people had all kinds of fantastical visions of the future
0:11
everything from weather machines to firefighters that looked like batman but
0:15
one idea kept popping up over and over again the flying car and now here we are
0:21
almost 120 years later we have real-time
0:24
video chat and robots that can clean your house hey we even have tinder too i
0:28
guess but flying cars still seem like almost as much of a fantasy today as
0:32
they did back then turns out it's just gosh darn difficult
0:36
to make a vehicle that's as good in the air as it is on the ground oh and then
0:41
there's the human element if you think the motorists in your city are bad at
0:44
driving in 2d just imagine giving them each a pair of wings but that doesn't
0:48
mean that more personal air travel will never happen passenger drones that aim
0:52
to make short trips a little easier are in development today but how do these
0:57
differ from the flying cars of our dreams well for starters passenger
1:01
drones are purpose-built for air travel only and unlike airplanes they usually
1:06
don't even have wheels instead they rely on vertical takeoff and landing or vtol
1:12
just like the drone collecting dust in your garage right now this means that
1:16
they shouldn't need airstrips or even a dedicated landing pad like helicopters
1:20
since they're so much lighter but what about safety well there are a number of
1:25
approaches to this similar to the hobby drones that people fly around to capture
1:28
video and spy on their neighbors some current passenger drone projects are
1:32
meant to be operated remotely by a command center the ehong 184 for example
1:37
doesn't even have any controls inside for the passenger except for a screen
1:41
that allows them to enter their destination others though like the one
1:45
in development from astro aerospace are fully autonomous and are designed to get
1:49
you from a to b safely with nothing more than on-board sensors to measure speed
1:54
balance and altitude essentially making them bigger versions of the retail
1:58
self-flying drones you can pick up now for under three grand so maybe it will
2:03
actually help matters that you won't have to rely on your idiot next door
2:06
neighbor to pilot the thing but there are other considerations as well like
2:10
their hobbyist cousins passenger drones aren't designed to stay in the air for
2:14
as long as 747s with many models currently in development intended for
2:19
quick trips across town or maybe to the next city over ehong for example is only
2:24
certifying their 184 for 10 miles or 23
2:28
minutes of flight not exactly eye-popping but certainly better than
2:31
driving 10 miles if you live in some horribly congested place like la or even
2:36
here in vancouver for that matter with that said gradual improvements to the
2:40
technology already have some pretty big names in the transportation sector
2:43
looking at the possibility of using passenger drones as the backbone of an
2:47
air taxi service in cities around the world uber for example is currently
2:51
looking for a third city to join la and dallas as launch locations for its uber
2:56
air service to debut in 2023 which will transport up to four passengers per
3:00
drone and airbus is looking to launch their own line of four cedar drones that
3:04
can cruise up to around 75 miles per hour and passenger drones may be able to
3:09
take you even farther and faster later on down the road as german company
3:13
lilium recently tested a small aircraft that combines vtol with actual electric
3:19
jet engines to travel across its 300 kilometer range in just one hour and
3:24
these guys also intend to market an air taxi
3:27
but of course there are many legal and political hurdles to clear before we're
3:32
all zipping around in the air in drones and it's likely that many of these drone
3:36
air taxi services will also feature human pilots on board until safety
3:39
concerns with fully autonomous flight can be completely resolved but even
3:43
though we might have to wait a few years and wait and see if these drones won't
3:46
just become another form of luxury travel for the rich the tech might have
3:50
real potential to make our cities a little less congested like a self-flying
3:55
benadryl tablet wait bennett who writes this honestly
4:03
big thank you to our sponsor squarespace simple powerful beautiful squarespace
4:07
offers 24 7 support via live chat and email and it's only 12 a month and you
4:12
get a free domain if you buy squarespace for the year they offer responsive
4:16
design so your website scales to look great on any device and every website
4:19
comes with a free online store if you do that whole e-commerce thing cover page
4:23
is a feature that allows you to set up beautiful one-page online presence in
4:27
minutes are also a thing and also you can now tag and sell products from your
4:32
squarespace store on instagram easy start a trial with no credit card
4:36
required and start building your website today when you decide to sign up for
4:39
squarespace make sure to use the offer code Techquickie to get 10 off your
4:44
first purchase so thanks for watching guys like the video dislike the video check out our
4:48
other videos and make sure to comment with video suggestions don't forget to
4:52
subscribe and follow us till the end of time the singularity is coming