Future of short range commutes?

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

The judge should have tossed the lawsuit and made the widow and the attorney pay all the costs of the people they sued.

Lawsuits have nearly crippled general aviation manufacturing in this country except fr experimental kit planes.

Amazing.

Back to the future of commuting: It is going to happen with VTOL UAS, it is just a question of when. 99% of the national airspace is empty outside of major airports.

Some interesting tidbits here on mid air and where they occur, when and what is the weather: https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/news/2021/06/14/plane-facts-midairs/

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, on of the many things we had to spend big bucks on was a full ADS-B upgrade for our 182. For us to get close to Class B airspace it is required. It is comforting to see where every other aircraft is in the large glass display.

If is 100% legal for us to roll out of the hangar, and take off and head north east and never talk to anyone and just stay away from Class B or any restricted areas and fly all we want. I just wonder how long before some idiot in his UAS ends up flying over Ft. Sill when the range is hot and ordinance is flying to the targets.

[Tervuren]

I would expect a UAS system to have pathing that would keep that from happening.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

I would expect a UAS system to have pathing that would keep that from happening.

No question, and "fences" in the software to prevent it.

A Quick Sea Story I have probably written about here before:

When I was the PMA for Navy/Marine UAS, I had two Global Hawks (AF high fliers) for test. We used them a lot.

The control station was across the street from my office at Pax River and I would have them call me when the GH was 20 minutes out from landing. GH's are big aircraft.

I would settle in at the LSO shack and watch final approach to touch down, They landed in nearly the exact same spot on the runaway every time, a CEP of feet. I just got a huge kick out of watching the landing. I started bring people from my PMA with me and they loved it.

UAS do exactly what you tell them: they are not hung over, tired, worried about finances or their girlfriend. They execute the flight plan to perfection.

Again, I'd much rather fly in a UAS transport aircraft than a manned Frontier Airlines **** can with a Baby Pilot making $30k a year living with four other pilots in a hovel.

[Fast Freddy 944]

Great, now we will dumbasses in flying cars, texting, doing lipstick, crunching into trees, each other and rainind down "flying car" parts down on us people on the ground. Idiocracy part 2...

[Seahawk]

First autonomous landings at sea, managed by yours truly. I took the pictures as well.

Fire Scout.





When men were men

[thor66]

Originally Posted by Captain Ahab Jr

People can't even drive cars safely so anything other than autonomous is only going to add more opportunity for people to crash into stuff

Sounds like that's a problem in England too (?)

I thought it was just us 'muricans

[sc_rufctr]

Utterly fantastic in every possible way...

Originally Posted by Tervuren

Forget driveable airplanes, just land where your going and forget the drive.



25 mile range, that would get me into Charlotte, where I could plug in, do my stuff, then come back.

I have no idea what the rules and regulations around this are, or will be.
25 mile range would be too short for a car, but able to take a direct route?
It'd work out fine for a lot people.
Around here a lot of the road system is spiral shaped, even if I did 25MPH flying, I'd get there a lot faster than 45MPH driving.

Automated would be great.

[wdfifteen]

I see this becoming big for delivery-type use. With people expecting yesterday delivery of goods retailers need ever quicker and more efficient delivery systems. WalMart will be well positioned to take advantage. They’ll have a landing pad fenced off in the corner of every parking lot, warehouses will have multiple landing spots on roofs. Rail could be used for long-haul, trucks for last mile, and UAVs for intermediate hauling. It will be a well-proven system before wide spread passenger use.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It will be a well-proven system before wide spread passenger use.

Aircraft certification is, as you know, a well worn exercise, especially transportation aircraft in the national airspace.

Most people get fixated on the "pilot-less" aspect. I do not.

The amount of redundancy in core mission avionics in UAS far exceeds any private plane flying today and I bet most transportation aircraft.

By "core" I mean GPS, six axis-gyros, auto-pilots, mission computers, etc. That stuff can be made quad redundant with little or no weight penalties.

The key will be in the the pitot-static (pressure sensitive) back-ups and in the power and propulsion, again, all part of the air vehicle certification.

Here is a screen shot from a flight test video last Friday. We are integrating a HAZMAT sensor in our Watchman Aircraft so the initial flights are indoors with a safety tether. We are doing what we call "fan tests" today and tomorrow before we go outside off tether.

Goofy I know, but we but large fans on the ground to simulate winds for take-off and landings. All part of the build up to certification with the FAA. Every minute of flight time is tracked as are power-on events with no take-off. We track everything.

This UAS is an 8 inch ducted fan. You can see the small electro-optic ball on the left in the picture. Amazing clarity.

[wdfifteen]

^^

I meant to make the point that it will be well-proven in use. I didn't mean to imply that developers or the FAA will take any short cuts, but there is no substitute for hours in use
EDIT:
... there is no substitute for hours in use to build public confidence.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

^^

I meant to make the point that it will be well-proven in use. I didn't mean to imply that developers or the FAA will take any short cuts, but there is no substitute for hours in use.

I know you worked with the Air Force so what I wrote was for others. There is a lot of misconceptions on unmanned aircraft.

I agree with you, btw...packages first, stack some hours and then propose a transition to unmanned transports with a pilot initially who can take control if required but is essentially along for the ride.

Edit: We have done some initial design work for two start-ups and get calls all the time from some of the larger companies chasing this. My partner is a known expert in ducted fan design.

Most are way underfunded in terms of understanding the road, a long and winding road, to a certified aircraft that is pilot-less. Revenue is more than a week away

[GH85Carrera]

Paul, how much noise does that ducted fan make on landing and take off?

I am sure it is far less than a small jet engine. Jay Leno has a Jet powered motorcycle and admits it is just insane. He said when he pulls up at an intersection is it funny to see everyone looking into the sky for the jet noise. And the neighbors are not happy if he fires it up in the morning to go to his "office" and play with cars.

I just wonder about that UAV flying over someone's house and making a lot of noise. Not that the average diesel delivery truck is stealthy. Our dogs alert us when UPS or Amazon pull up out front before the driver gets out.

It will be an interesting future. I just wonder about the reality of package delivery with UAVs, and the mandatory push from governments to electric cars will really play out. Those are two very different industries, but both are in their infancy, and will cause major changes to our way of doing things if they can be made to work on a large scale.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Paul, how much noise does that ducted fan make on landing and take off?

Actually much quieter and more efficient than a quad or octo-rotor with about a third the footprint for a given payload.

It is also safer because all dynamic components are inside the duct.

We are working the UAS below for a company that has a large contract to develop a package delivery UAS. Small footprint, can be tether or untethered and has a very wide CG and stability. Safety is also very good as is it's aural signature.

We have designed and flown the prototype. Their requirements are actually very well stated.



But you are absolutely right, noise will be an issue as will safety, sense and avoid, etc. I personally don't see wide acceptance for package delivery to homes for a while.

Their business plan is very compelling, however.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

I know you worked with the Air Force so what I wrote was for others. There is a lot of misconceptions on unmanned aircraft.

I don't know that much about unmanned aircraft. I do remember that a few years ago I stated that they take fewer personnel to operate and was surprised when you said no, they take more.

If the development process you go through is anything like what I did it is painstaking and often frustrating. We spent thousands of man hours fretting over the wing skin material for the C-17. There were factions concerned with weight savings, factions touting cost, factions worried about corrosion resistance. I left before the made a final decision, but the amount of time spent testing and discussing the tiniest changes in aluminum alloys was unbelievable.
Standing back and looking at it 40 years later I can see saving a pound of weight on that one system added to a pound here and there saved in other systems spread out over the millions of hours they spend in the air adds up.

[stealthn]

Meanwhile, up in Canada…

https://calgarysun.com/news/saskatchewan-man-charged-after-landing-helicopter-at-ice-cream-shop-in-small-town/wcm/8e699492-4655-42d7-bf33-8681b9a5d3f5

[GH85Carrera]

Like lots of other people we get a lot of packages from on-line purchases. Most delivery people put in up against the corner of the front porch. That way we just open the door and grab the package.

It will be interesting to see how delivery company using a UAV can put the package even close to my front porch. Are they just going to dump it in the yard? I guess they could indeed fly it over the house and put it on the larger back porch out of the weather. That will freak out the dogs big time.

I understand lots of really smart people are trying to make it happen. I just am skeptical it can ever be cost effective for a neighborhood. Maybe it will be better for the people living in remote areas or on farms.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

It will be interesting to see how delivery company using a UAV can put the package even close to my front porch. Are they just going to dump it in the yard? I guess they could indeed fly it over the house and put it on the larger back porch out of the weather. That will freak out the dogs big time.

I think they will require a special drop box to put deliveries in and it will have to be accessible from the air. You may be right about rural deliveries. It can't be very cost effective to send a truck out for an hour to make 2 deliveries. I suspect they will still be better off using trucks in more densely populated areas. If they have 200 deliveries in a square mile area I don't see it saving them any time or money to load up and send out 200 UAVs vs loading one truck and sending it out. I don't see a UAV with the capacity of a UPS truck maneuvering through a tree-lined neighborhood, but I may be wrong.

[GH85Carrera]

At the convenience store close by, they have a Amazon locker that we could use if we wanted to. I just have it dropped on the porch, and we have never had an issue. It likely helps that we are usually home, so thieves have a really short window.

[Tim Hancock]

I saw a few of the contraptions at Oshkosh.... No way in hell am I going to trust my life to an upscaled large RC drone on a daily commute. In my old school fixed wing airplanes, if the engine quits, I pick a field and do a "controlled" dead stick landing. In these multi motored or quad copter type contraptions, if a lipo battery pack or some circuit board fails, you are a brick falling to the ground. If it is a equipped with a ballistic chute, maybe you survive, but your $100k plus toy is still likely totaled.

OTOH, I think unmanned military vehicles and video taking rc drones are awesome and of great value, but no way do I see these becoming mainstream for public transportation uses.