The end of flying as we know it??

X3 Skier said:
Been over 6 YEARS since the video was made.
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I just found out that I have no sense of time. If you had asked me I would have guessed maybe six months.
 
Old97 said:
I’m curious now. Boat or motorcycle or bicycle? You could walk a mile in 16 minutes, right?
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Well, I'm on Mercer Island, across Lake Washington from KRNT. They USED to allow people to jet ski up to the airport, but no beuno now with security in 2024. However, an aircraft could get clearance to land and taxi to parking.
 
I think itll be a long while before things like this are practical. They have no range and are nit very Practical.
 
patm95 said:
I think itll be a long while before things like this are practical. They have no range and are nit very Practical.
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Define "a long while".
In 5 years (This one was flying last year):
Range: 22 miles (no improvement)
Speed: 81 mph (4x improvement) The Jetson 1 has a speed of 63 mph with the same range.
# pax: 2 (2x improvement)
www.vox.com

Are flying cars finally here?

The world had “flying cars” in the 1930s. We could be getting them again.
www.vox.com www.vox.com
It doesn't beat a helicopter but it is an improvement over the device mentioned at the start of the thread.

It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Define "a long while".
In 5 years (This one was flying last year):
Range: 22 miles (no improvement)
Speed: 81 mph (4x improvement) The Jetson 1 has a speed of 63 mph with the same range.
# pax: 2 (2x improvement)
www.vox.com

Are flying cars finally here?

The world had “flying cars” in the 1930s. We could be getting them again.
www.vox.com www.vox.com
It doesn't beat a helicopter but it is an improvement over the device mentioned at the start of the thread.

It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
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Define Practical, too. Twenty-two miles isn't enough for a grocery trip for me, and that ignores the quite limited payload. As far as a taxi service, it seems only practical for single people or those on business trips (with no friends). And what if I want to go farther than 22 miles? At 23 or (heaven forbid) 24 miles, it'll need to recharge. And that is not a long distance. Additionally, how does payload affect that range? Is that range assuming zero payload? Maximum? Something in between? Neither the article you cite nor the article it cites provides that information.

Furthermore, there are logistical considerations. Let's say a passenger gets in and flies twenty miles. That leaves two miles of range for it to find a charging station. Also, that flight took roughly twenty minutes, but the time needed to recharge is well over an hour. That's not a good dispatch rate. And all of that assume that the device arrived at the customer's location without consuming any range at all. That could only work if there were designated depots (like for buses) from which customers could depart. But that raises the issue of getting the customer (known to us to need aid commuting) to the depot in the first place.

This seems like a devise whose testing will clog airspaces and provide no benefit for the congestion.
 
2-Bit Speed said:
Define Practical, too. Twenty-two miles isn't enough for a grocery trip for me, and that ignores the quite limited payload. As far as a taxi service, it seems only practical for single people or those on business trips (with no friends). And what if I want to go farther than 22 miles? At 23 or (heaven forbid) 24 miles, it'll need to recharge. And that is not a long distance. Additionally, how does payload affect that range? Is that range assuming zero payload? Maximum? Something in between? Neither the article you cite nor the article it cites provides that information.

Furthermore, there are logistical considerations. Let's say a passenger gets in and flies twenty miles. That leaves two miles of range for it to find a charging station. Also, that flight took roughly twenty minutes, but the time needed to recharge is well over an hour. That's not a good dispatch rate. And all of that assume that the device arrived at the customer's location without consuming any range at all. That could only work if there were designated depots (like for buses) from which customers could depart. But that raises the issue of getting the customer (known to us to need aid commuting) to the depot in the first place.

This seems like a devise whose testing will clog airspaces and provide no benefit for the congestion.
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This is as the device exists now (or rather, last year). You have to start somewhere. There are longer-range batteries being tested now for cars that provide 800 to 1000 mile range and 15 minute charge. Note that I'm curious about how much current is needed to meet that claim and what sort of wiring needed to carry that current. Also, there needs to be infrastructure to support that kind of charging rate, assuming it can happen.
 
2-Bit Speed said:
Define Practical, too. Twenty-two miles isn't enough for a grocery trip for me, and that ignores the quite limited payload. As far as a taxi service, it seems only practical for single people or those on business trips (with no friends). And what if I want to go farther than 22 miles? At 23 or (heaven forbid) 24 miles, it'll need to recharge. And that is not a long distance. Additionally, how does payload affect that range? Is that range assuming zero payload? Maximum? Something in between? Neither the article you cite nor the article it cites provides that information.

Furthermore, there are logistical considerations. Let's say a passenger gets in and flies twenty miles. That leaves two miles of range for it to find a charging station. Also, that flight took roughly twenty minutes, but the time needed to recharge is well over an hour. That's not a good dispatch rate. And all of that assume that the device arrived at the customer's location without consuming any range at all. That could only work if there were designated depots (like for buses) from which customers could depart. But that raises the issue of getting the customer (known to us to need aid commuting) to the depot in the first place.

This seems like a devise whose testing will clog airspaces and provide no benefit for the congestion.
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Yes. Good questions. I think it'll be decades. They need battery power to get them there to get any reasonable range at all. There will need to be a generational jump in battery life (and weight loss) to get a decent range. And a way to charge them when I get there, plus they need to be charged quickly. Practical is it should perform at least as well as current aircraft, fly for 4+ hours and refill in 20 minutes and take off again. Either way, it'll be decades before the technology is there.
 
22 miles but only with a tailwind!

Nautical or statute miles?

I heard a podcast saying xyz electric plane had a slide in/out battery (2 minute switch out,) so maybe that’s something these people could do. Anyone using it regularly could leave batteries in their most likely destinations
 
I no idea how practical future versions of this device will be.

I do know that we’ve made huge changes, in a short time, when we’ve wanted or needed to.

We sent men to the moon less than a decade after we couldn’t reliably launch a satellite into LEO. Built scads of b52s less than 20years after we were training pilots in biplanes. France went from under 10k MW of nuclear electrical generation, to over 50k, in a *decade*
 
SFDukie said:
I no idea how practical future versions of this device will be.

I do know that we’ve made huge changes, in a short time, when we’ve wanted or needed to.

We sent men to the moon less than a decade after we couldn’t reliably launch a satellite into LEO. Built scads of b52s less than 20years after we were training pilots in biplanes. France went from under 10k MW of nuclear electrical generation, to over 50k, in a *decade*
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All those things required a lot of effort. But none of them required improving the technologies by x1000 times to make it work.

The biggest problem with these things is that nobody really wants what they can do. They want what they will never be able to do.
 
Salty said:
All those things required a lot of effort. But none of them required improving the technologies by x1000 times to make it work.

The biggest problem with these things is that nobody really wants what they can do. They want what they will never be able to do.
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The early satellites were around 200 miles up. The moon averages around 238,800. That's about a 1000x improvement. B-52s are 1000x better than biplanes when you consider speed, altitude, payload, and range as a package.

You can't predict the future, and I sure can't. Just look at AI. When humanity thought about AI, one dream was that the machines would do the tedious and repetitive jobs and we could spend our time being creative and working on fun projects. Now, this vision has been turned upside down by the first widely-used AI algorithms like ChatGPT. Instead of helping us with the tasks that nobody wants to do, they are mostly used for creative applications. The only household task the robots have helped me with is vacuuming my house.

Maybe these things will eventually fly, or maybe something else will. As long as we don't destroy ourselves.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
The early satellites were around 200 miles up. The moon averages around 238,800. That's about a 1000x improvement. B-52s are 1000x better than biplanes when you consider speed, altitude, payload, and range as a package.

You can't predict the future, and I sure can't. Just look at AI. When humanity thought about AI, one dream was that the machines would do the tedious and repetitive jobs and we could spend our time being creative and working on fun projects. Now, this vision has been turned upside down by the first widely-used AI algorithms like ChatGPT. Instead of helping us with the tasks that nobody wants to do, they are mostly used for creative applications. The only household task the robots have helped me with is vacuuming my house.

Maybe these things will eventually fly, or maybe something else will. As long as we don't destroy ourselves.
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My predictions have been more accurate than yours for the last 5 or more years.
 
patm95 said:
Yes. Good questions. I think it'll be decades. They need battery power to get them there to get any reasonable range at all. There will need to be a generational jump in battery life (and weight loss) to get a decent range. And a way to charge them when I get there, plus they need to be charged quickly. Practical is it should perform at least as well as current aircraft, fly for 4+ hours and refill in 20 minutes and take off again. Either way, it'll be decades before the technology is there.
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Why does it need to fly for 4+ hours? A Robinson R22 flies at about 100 knots with a range of about 250 nautical miles. That's only 2 1/2 hours flight time. I understand that the intent of these things is to fly across town, not cross-country flights. Essentially a short-haul taxi. A reasonable question is whether there is a market for such a vehicle. It does what a car does, with the disadvantage of weather. Joby does interesting things with fuel cells.
 
All technology follows an S Curve. Very little improvement for a period, followed by rapid improvement, followed by another period of little improvement. TV's, airplanes, cell phones, vacuum cleaners, toilets, cars, you name it. As an example, is a TV of today basically that much different from one of five years ago compared to the rapid improvements from the early B&W 7" TV to first color to the first flat screen color units? p://www.rako.com/Other_Voices/Putt's_Law/Putts_Law_no_ads.pdf. (Page 10 The S-Curve Law)

These things seems to be in the very little improvement period final stage. First a few would fly some miniscule distance, then quickly additional capability and now they don't seem to be improving much at all. Until the power density and rapid charging vastly improves, what you see is what you get.
 
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X3 Skier said:
All technology follows an S Curve. Very little improvement for a period, followed by rapid improvement, followed by another period of little improvement. TV's, airplanes, cell phones, vacuum cleaners, toilets, cars, you name it. See http://www.rako.com/Other_Voices/Putt's_Law/Putts_Law_no_ads.pdf. (Page 10 The S-Curve Law)

These things seems to be in the very little improvement period final stage. First a few would fly some miniscule distance, then quickly additional capability and now they don't seem to be improving much at all. Until the power density and rapid charging vastly improves, what you see is what you get.
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This is one of the more reasoned responses. I'll note electric cars weren't very practical until better batteries became available. Edison built one around 1890. It took a long time for those batteries to be available. As you correctly state, there needs to be improved charging and power density before these powered-lift aircraft are something more than a toy.
I don't know if these will be stable enough to go beyond the lab, but Cornell University reported they can create a battery that charges in 5 minutes:
news.cornell.edu

Fast-charging lithium battery seeks to eliminate ‘range anxiety’ | Cornell Chronicle

A team in Cornell Engineering created a new lithium battery that can charge in under five minutes – faster than any such battery on the market – while maintaining stable performance over extended cycles of charging and discharging.
news.cornell.edu news.cornell.edu
Toyota was (is?) testing cars with 900 miles range that can charge in 15 minutes.
These need to be reliable enough to work at least as well as a Tesla. Something invented today can take 10 years to come to market (ask me how I know), even if it is just software!

The other part is infrastructure. Charging stations aren't as ubiquitous as gas stations, although they are appearing in places like my local shopping center. Charging stations that support a charge-time-from-empty of 15 or 5 minutes for a battery that can go 900 miles almost certainly don't exist yet. Part of Edison's success with the lightbulb was the recognition that it was useless without electricity- so he developed infrastructure so his light bulbs could be useful. Even if the 900 mile/charge-in-15-minutes battery becomes a consumer product next year, there's no guarantee it will get into an aircraft. Many companies won't sell a product if they think it will go into an airplane. Because liability. Kitplanes had an article about building an eXenos. A motor from an electric motorcycle was sued. The author couldn't buy the motor and associated electronics from the supplier for an airplane, so they had to buy the motorcycle to get the motor and supporting parts.
 
The current limiting (no pun intended) factor of electric aircraft is energy density. The laws of thermodynamics still apply. Present technology requires a certain amount of energy to move a sufficient amount of air as would levitate a given quantity of "stuff" (plane, passengers, cargo, etc.). In most cases, you have to carry that energy store with you. This is measure in energy per mass (specific energy, Mj/kg), and energy per volume (specific density, Mj/L). by either of these measures, hydrocarbons are the winner.

Compare gasoline to Li-ion batteries on this chart, energy density (vertical y-axis) vs. specific energy (horizontal s-axis). Neither Zinc-air nor Li-ion batteries are particularly energy rich nor energy-dense.
1722351625733.png
 
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DJTorrente said:
The current limiting (no pun intended) factor of electric aircraft in energy density. The laws of thermodynamics still apply. Present technology requires a certain amount of energy to move a sufficient amount of air as would levitate a given quantity of "stuff" (plane, passengers, cargo, etc.). In most cases, you have to carry that energy store with you. This is measure in energy per mass (specific energy, Mj/kg), and energy per volume (specific density, Mj/L). by either of these measures, hydrocarbons are the winner.

Compare gasoline to Li-ion batteries on this chart, energy density (vertical y-axis) vs. specific energy (horizontal s-axis). Neither Zinc-air nor Li-ion batteries are particularly energy rich nor energy-dense.
View attachment 131928
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Please cite where this came from since a lithium ion battery from 2024 is very different from one from 2015.

Who says we have to stay with lithium ion?
 
Randomskylane said:
I heard a podcast saying xyz electric plane had a slide in/out battery (2 minute switch out,) so maybe that’s something these people could do. Anyone using it regularly could leave batteries in their most likely destinations
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Surprised this didn't become a thing.. at all! for cars. It would take some legwork and standardization up front (which, I guess from a business sense no individual car maker has a $$ desire to take the charge (haha) on this) but this would solve much of the infrastructure and range anxiety issues, and for people who can't charge at home. Supply existing gas stations with standardized battery packs, pull up, swap it out, and off you go. Stations could still compete on fees, range, etc. Seems obvious.. in fact I think Tesla might has a patent (or something) similar for a device like this..
 
My crit
Tantalum said:
Surprised this didn't become a thing.. at all! for cars. It would take some legwork and standardization up front (which, I guess from a business sense no individual car maker has a $$ desire to take the charge (haha) on this) but this would solve much of the infrastructure and range anxiety issues, and for people who can't charge at home. Supply existing gas stations with standardized battery packs, pull up, swap it out, and off you go. Stations could still compete on fees, range, etc. Seems obvious.. in fact I think Tesla might has a patent (or something) similar for a device like this..
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a $10k+ battery swap would be hugely risky. Why not just swap the whole car out?

It’s not like a $50 propane tank.
 
Salty said:
My crit

a $10k+ battery swap would be hugely risky. Why not just swap the whole car out?

It’s not like a $50 propane tank.
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you're not buying the battery, renting it so to speak.. but yes - there are reasons why this didn't become a thing! The idea of car swap outs is some serious THX1138 horror though
 
DJTorrente said:
Wikipedia: Energy Density -- In energy storage and fuels
Have at it.

No one. What else you got?

If you get away from storing energy, there's solar -- VVFR (VERY VFR) only. Maybe you have a line on that Nicola Tesla/Randian John Galt static harvester engine?
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Thanks for the citation.
I don't have anything. Lab people are playing with silicon batteries. We haven't touched on organic molecules at all to the best of my knowledge for batteries. We can probably get up to another 5x improvement on lithium ion batteries. If I could predict the future that well.....I'd be doing something other than waiting for an instrument run to finish!
I'm impressed with Joby- 500 miles on hydrogen fuel cells.
www.jobyaviation.com

Joby completes landmark 523-mile hydrogen-electric flight | Joby

Joby announced it has successfully flown a first-of-its-kind hydrogen-electric air taxi demonstrator 523 miles, with water as the only by-product.
www.jobyaviation.com www.jobyaviation.com
I wouldn't call it practical. Liquid hydrogen and all that. I don't think people care what powers their vehicles so long as it is fast and easy.
 
DJTorrente said:
Wikipedia: Energy Density -- In energy storage and fuels
Have at it.

No one. What else you got?

If you get away from storing energy, there's solar -- VVFR (VERY VFR) only. Maybe you have a line on that Nicola Tesla/Randian John Galt static harvester engine?
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How long is the timeline?

I’m in post surgery lala land and see a future with airplanes powered by micro nuke reactors powered from chips off spent fuel rods lol. Apparently we have tons of old tech waste that new tech reactors can use. Now just make em micro sized. Easy.
 
Randomskylane said:
How long is the timeline?

I’m in post surgery lala land and see a future with airplanes powered by micro nuke reactors powered from chips off spent fuel rods lol. Apparently we have tons of old tech waste that new tech reactors can use. Now just make em micro sized. Easy.
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Not sure how viable that would be since the power is harnessed through steam turbines which require pressure vessels, heating chamber, cooling chambers, and more. Probably. Either way, I don't think it could be made light enough for aircraft.
 
Randomskylane said:
How long is the timeline?

I’m in post surgery lala land and see a future with airplanes powered by micro nuke reactors powered from chips off spent fuel rods lol. Apparently we have tons of old tech waste that new tech reactors can use. Now just make em micro sized. Easy.
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I hope you recover quickly.
 
I love the purity of physics, but the third law of thermodynamics is still as depressing to me now as it was when I first was introduced to the meaning. No matter what, eventually we're going to lose.

Anyway, one note about the concept of "magic" improvements in technology is that by my math, the turbojets in the B-52 were only about 10-30 times more efficient in terms of power/weight than the first Wright engine, and more amazing the HP/lb of fuel efficiency was only something like 2x better for the TF33's. Granted, those are old jet engines, but they did not become 1000x, 100x or even 20x more fuel efficient as a source of thrust. As others have mentioned, getting from say 20% efficient to 80% in anything is often pretty easy, the next 10% is tougher, and from there it's usually a slow process.

Batteries have their place, but anyone that thinks that it's still not a process of irreversibly digging up finite resources and using them up as part of a process of speeding up that 3rd law is just kidding themselves. Just swap out those old batteries, we'll keep digging up the stuff to make more. The moral high ground really isn't all that high, in my view. (And don't read this to mean I don't like electric. My only point here is that electric and batteries aren't magic. Just like every other single technology invented by people, they have limitations, and one way or another they become disposable.)
 
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