You’d have a very interesting perspective on these new eVTOLs.
What are your thoughts on them?
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Flying coffins, I have done probably 50 auto rotations in emergency practice and never had a problem with one in a Jetranger . There is zero chance I would ever get in an EVTOL as they look like flying coffins to me!
I have had issues when flying UAVs and when you get an engine failure it falls faster than a brick .
These EVTOLS will need computers to make them flyable and based on my experience with computers and phones and Boeing 737 max , there is no way I will ever rely on an automated flight system of any sort that can’t go to manual.
I fly an Airbus and rely on the computers daily. I’d fly an Airbus any day before a Boeing personally.
I can understand the ‘drone’ failure aspect - it will be interesting to see how they convince the regulators about a engine failure case - as you’ve pointed out: It cannot glide. It’s interesting to see how many motors a Volocopter can lose before it cannot maintain altitude though, but being electric they are also inherently much more reliable than a piston or even turbine. It’s the remaining components you require such as batteries, controllers, wiring etc that I’d be worried about.
The Thing looks like a wannabe helicopter with many little rotors.
Sure, it flies sort of… but it will never make it into the commercial market in the present form. Especially not the battery powered version.
Looking at it I envision them falling from the sky over all cities. Splash…splash and more Splashes. Should be equipped with a Parachute.
Apart from that… these Vehicles will eliminate the last real birds from the planet. Cruelty of cruelties… sigh…
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There have been a few computer controlled flight into terrain with Airbus in the past as well but there is still a level of redundancy in the jetliners from Boeing and Airbus and professional flight crews compared to Evtols. Like I said they will be 100% reliant on computers flown by amateurs and that makes them a flying coffin.
I fly the Bell 206 and would personally prefer helicopter flight over built up areas any day of GA bug smashers.
I’ve tried to fly this a couple times and I’m just not a fan of it. It’s like a DJI drone set to beginner/cinema mode - yet somehow feels even slower. Maybe someone can mod it to kick up the yaw rate and bank angle, and it would be more interesting to fly, but right now it’s just boring, even in VR.
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Only one, but the pilots on board did not understand the system for their task.
The others have been uncontrolled, due to technical issues (Air Asia Indonesia for example), or due to pilot training (AF447).
However that’s a completely different type of system compared to the Volocopter, and every eVTOL manufacturer will have it’s own idea of the best type of system, until some standards come out.
Hi, did you find out how to recharge that ****** thing ?!?
No not yet.
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It is fine for watching AI traffic on an airport however, AIG for example. Batteries (spare) not included alas 
Um no there was the airshow which I think you are referring to and also the Air France 447 and the empty A320 that stalled due to computers getting wrong info in 2008. All these aircraft have their teething problems when they go to computer aided flight and Boeing have just finished learning theirs!
I would never trust a velocopter as there is zero ability for any manual control and to me at least for the first 20 years they are flying coffins.
I noticed Volocity has become more unstable, lately… It wobbles like crazy, like it is unstable (resonance?)
I put the payload on 39% instead of 34.3%, takeoff will be easier… just increase the weight of the pilot… but in its current state it is difficult to proceed the flight in a controlled way, also at 39%
AF447 was primarily a pilot issue, not a systems issue - the cruise captain (a junior first officer) held the side stick fully aft throughout the manoeuvre, until the captain finally managed to return to the flight deck and after a while noticed what he was doing - but unfortunately far too late to recover.
The 2008 one was a test acceptance flight where incorrect washing procedures allowed water and therefore ice to freeze two AoA sensors, making the system regard those two as the correct ones. Disabling those allowed the aircraft to recover, but the trim was not reset as per the procedure at the time. The aircraft model had flown 20 years safely until that occurrence.
No they were both related to computerization and pilots not understanding the computer is sometimes wrong when it is fed garbage inputs, which was the same issue Boeing had with the Max , garbage inpiuts and pilots not trained to recognise that this was occurring .
In particular the crew flewin 447 into a line of thunderstorms in the intertropical convergence zone north of Brazil, making little effort to deviate around it. The aircraft’s three pitot tubes iced up in the thunderstorm, causing the loss of accurate airspeed indications. The atmospheric conditions exceeded the pitot tubes’ capacity to deal with the obstruction Pitot tubes, like other measurement equipment located outside the aircraft and the cockpit windows, are heated by an electrical resistance to avoid icing. On this aircraft, each probe heater is controlled by a Probe Heat Computer, which avoid overheating, switches off the heating when the aircraft is stopped. Failure of the heating system is indicated to pilots via a warning in the cockpit. In some rare atmospheric conditions with certain types of ice crystals, the heating is not sufficient to prevent temporary obstruction of the pitot probes, and to a temporary loss of the airspeed measurement for about 40 seconds and those seconds were sufficient to put the airplane in serious trouble.
The a320 was again garbage inputs and pilots not recognising the issue.
Airbus has had its fair share of problems initially as well as also more recent times where an incident occurred on board Airbus A330-303 VH-QPA operating QF72 that departed Singapore for Perth on October 7 2008. While cruising at 37,000ft, one of the aircraft’s three air data inertial reference units (ADIRUs) began outputting spikes of incorrect values including erroneous angle of attack data. Minutes later, primary flight computers initiated a pair of dramatic, uncommanded dives.
My point is that I simply will never trust flying coffins like the Velocopter as even these highly tested and well designed commercial aircraft has problems with these semi to fully autonomous flight control systems
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It will certainly be interesting to study the backups that become implemented into these new aircraft, and new regulations that come about from the inevitable incidents. Sadly aviation only learns when people get killed.
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This is one aircraft I just have absolutely ZERO desire to touch along with Cessna 172s.
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I totally agree with that!
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