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Transportation United States

Air Taxis and Other Electric-Powered Aircraft Cleared For Takeoff (theverge.com) 41

Posted by BeauHD from the air-travel-of-the-future dept.
The FAA has released final regulations for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, introducing a new category of aircraft for the first time in nearly 80 years. These rules provide a framework for pilot training and operational requirements, addressing industry concerns while aiming to support the future of advanced air mobility. The Verge reports: The FAA says these "powered-lift" vehicles will be the first completely new category of aircraft since helicopters were introduced in 1940. These aircraft will be used for a variety of services, including air taxis, cargo delivery, and rescue and retrieval operations. The final rules published today contain guidelines for pilot training as well as operational requirements regarding minimum safe altitudes and visibility. [...] Powered lift includes aircraft described by industry watchers as electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL. Using tilt rotors, eVTOL aircraft are designed to take off and land vertically like a helicopter and then transition into forward flight on fixed wings like a plane.

[...] A new pilot training and qualifications rule was needed because "existing regulations did not address this new category of aircraft, which can take off and land vertically like a helicopter and fly like an airplane during cruise flight," the FAA said. The rule also provides a "comprehensive framework" for certifying the initial group of powered-lift instructors and pilots. According to the agency, the rule would: "Makes changes to numerous existing regulations and establishes a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) with new requirements to facilitate instructor and pilot certification and training. Applies helicopter operating requirements to some phases of flight and adopts a performance-based approach to certain operating rules. Allows pilots to train in powered-lift with a single set of flight controls; legacy rules require two flight controls -- one for the student and one for the instructor." "The regulation published today will ensure the U.S. continues to play a global leadership role in the development and adoption of clean flight," said JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby, in a statement. "Delivering the rules ahead of schedule is testament to the dedication, coordination and hard work of the rulemaking team."
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Air Taxis and Other Electric-Powered Aircraft Cleared For Takeoff More

Air Taxis and Other Electric-Powered Aircraft Cleared For Takeoff

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  • Plus and minus (Score:3)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2024 @05:22PM (#64885705)
    Training shouldn't be too difficult. A dronish aircraft isn't anywhere near as complicated as a plane or copter.

    That said, if any of the prop motors has a problem, it's simple as well - you just fall like a rock, and probably die.

    My best guess is these will be really hot items until some prominent person gets turned into mush. Then the lawsuits and buh-bye.

    • A lot of standard pilot knowledge still applies: Flight planning / fuel. Airspace. Weight / balance. Weather planning - both for winds and icing conditions. Operating limitations - maximum speeds to prevent rotor stall, helicopter issues like getting trapped in its own vortex.

      Emergency conditions may be interesting as well. Are they flyable if the automation fails, or is that non-recoverable. What is the procedure in the event of a battery or electrical failure (minimum safe operating altitude), fi

    • Training shouldn't be too difficult. A dronish aircraft isn't anywhere near as complicated as a plane or copter.
      That said, if any of the prop motors has a problem, it's simple as well - you just fall like a rock, and probably die.

      My best guess is these will be really hot items until some prominent person gets turned into mush. Then the lawsuits and buh-bye.

      I believe the human rated ones have enough props and prop motors that they can at least make a controlled emergency landing after losing a few of them

      Les

      • Training shouldn't be too difficult. A dronish aircraft isn't anywhere near as complicated as a plane or copter. That said, if any of the prop motors has a problem, it's simple as well - you just fall like a rock, and probably die.

        My best guess is these will be really hot items until some prominent person gets turned into mush. Then the lawsuits and buh-bye.

        I believe the human rated ones have enough props and prop motors that they can at least make a controlled emergency landing after losing a few of them

        Less quadcopter and more duodecopter

        Do you have any demonstrations of landing a quadcopter (or one of these has 6 rotors) making an emergency landing with one or more props out? I am no expert, but my experience with drones is they require all of their rotors to be working and controllable in order to function. https://www.theverge.com/2024/... [theverge.com]

        • The pictured vehicle has six rotors. Others have eight. Even a quadcopter can make a controlled descent with one out, but that's cutting it awfully close. The reason it's difficult for a four-rotor vehicle is that usually the rotors work in pairs where two turn in opposite directions to cancel out the momentum. Same reason why most helicopter designs have a rear rotor. If you lose one of four rotors, you can't just keep using the remaining three like nothing happened, because that will put you into a spin.

        • Archer is going with 12 (https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/archers-electric-air-taxi-midnight-is-going-to-be-safe-billy-nolen/153725.article) and no single point failures. I think each motor has an independent power source. Of course it can still crash into something. Saw a recent story about a plane I think crashing into a radio tower that had most of its signal lights out. Could have been a helicopter don't remember.

    • you just fall like a rock, and probably die.

      So will the people you land on....and that's going to be a serious problem if there are a lot of these things.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They will probably be drones, following pre-assigned routes, fully automated. No pilot at all.

  • Bad news for all sorts of reasons (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2024 @05:22PM (#64885707)
    Ignoring the obvious problem with cheaper air travel over cities encouraging corner cutting (imagine one of these coming down on you while you're stuck in rush hour) this will discourage anyone that can afford them from allowing infrastructure spending to alleviate traffic (which their tax dollars pay for).

    It lets the rich fly over the mess they made leaving us down in the trenches with 90 minute one way commutes.

  • "The regulation published today will ensure the U.S. continues to play a global leadership role in the development and adoption of clean flight,"

    So far the FAA has completely (and willfully) failed at effectively regulating noise from traditional aircraft - wider use of eVTOL aircraft is just going to ratchet up the annoyance from loud whiny devices that will probably remain in earshot for longer than their faster flying brethren.

  • The flying car's been 10 years away [thehill.com] for the last 70 years or so [smithsonianmag.com]... Maybe, just maybe, if we haven't poured so much money into regular wheeled carriages — and the infrastructure they need — the flying vehicles would've been common by now...

    • The flying car's been 10 years away [thehill.com] for the last 70 years or so [smithsonianmag.com]... Maybe, just maybe, if we haven't poured so much money into regular wheeled carriages — and the infrastructure they need — the flying vehicles would've been common by now...

      What we were waiting for was a class of folks to have enough money to make it worthwhile. Now that we've poured 90+% of all wealth into the upper echelons of society, we're finally getting there. If they can sell a few dozen to the Bezos/Musk crowd as their clingers, it'll finally be worthwhile to develop in a commercial capacity. Congrats humanity. We finally did it! We created a class of folks so far above the rest of us that they can make all our sci-fi dreams come true, for themselves.

      • Next up will be a city in the clouds for them. What could it take, a few GW of power to keep a small enclave afloat high over the land of mere peons. It occurred to me after the pair of hurricanes, there are a couple people in this country (and a few more outside the US) who could have written a check for the entirety of the hurricane losses with money left over. That is mind boggling. A multi-state catastrophe that one person could pay for.

        • Next up will be a city in the clouds for them. What could it take, a few GW of power to keep a small enclave afloat high over the land of mere peons. It occurred to me after the pair of hurricanes, there are a couple people in this country (and a few more outside the US) who could have written a check for the entirety of the hurricane losses with money left over. That is mind boggling. A multi-state catastrophe that one person could pay for.

          I'd expect, at some point, these folks will band together and build a big tower, or perhaps a series of towers, and never have to touch the ground and interact with the peasants again, except when they pay us to kill each other for their amusement. Maybe I watch too much sci-fi. Altered Carbon plays with the concept in about the way I expect it to play out, if the uber rich get their way.

          Except for Musk. He just wants to leave the planet behind, forming a new class of indentured servants to cater to his eve

          • I don't think so. Musk just does not seem to be an adventurer. He has not even flown yet. Branson and Bezos both have dipped their feet out there along with a few others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Certainly Musk could easily be on the list if he was adventurous. Many on the list are not associated with space companies like Branson/Bezos/Musk. I also suspect Musk does not have the physical fitness requirements to travel to space on his vehicle unlike Branson's "spaceplane" which even old people like

            • I don't think so. Musk just does not seem to be an adventurer. He has not even flown yet. Branson and Bezos both have dipped their feet out there along with a few others https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Certainly Musk could easily be on the list if he was adventurous. Many on the list are not associated with space companies like Branson/Bezos/Musk. I also suspect Musk does not have the physical fitness requirements to travel to space on his vehicle unlike Branson's "spaceplane" which even old people like Shatner have been able to tolerate. And I don't see Musk traveling on a competitors vehicle.

              My understanding, for the limited amount I've checked into it, is that Musk wants the testing phase all wrapped up and just wants to jump on a ready to go flight once there's a supportable community out there. That could very well be hearsay. I've also heard from the same folks, folks supposedly close to him, that he wants humanity to be saved, but only if he's the one to save us.

              Granted, if I were the richest individual on a planet, I probably wouldn't want to do much to risk it until I was certain it was

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        If they can sell a few dozen to the Bezos/Musk crowd as their clingers, it'll finally be worthwhile to develop in a commercial capacity

        That's, how all innovations have spread throughout history, including flush toilet, telephone (wired and then cellular), refrigerators, personal transportation, and so on...

        We created a class of folks so far above the rest of us that they can make all our sci-fi dreams come true, for themselves.

        Yeah, much more useful was for a bunch of mediocrities in Congress to keep spendi

  • What do they do that helicopters can't? Quit calling them flying cars. If it can't be driven on a road and fit in a parking spot it's not a car. Nearly all the "eVTOLs" I've seen are not flying cars by any stretch of the imagination.

    • What do they do that helicopters can’t? Stay up when they lose a power to a rotor, that’s what. For example: https://acubed.airbus.com/blog... [airbus.com]

      • Helicopters rarely have fatal crashes when rotor power/engine fails .. because they can do autorotation which can enable a safe landing. Most of the fatal helicopter crashes you hear about are because of poor visibility .. running into hillsides, thing like that. eVTOLs can have the same issue.

        • I’m aware of that, but helicopter autorotation to emergency landing in dense urban environment or mountainous terrain is not very inviting Similarly, in single-engined fixed wing aircraft a forced landing in “Tiger Country” is fun to practise (I’ve done many) but probably not as fun for real. Whereas an eVTOL with 8 fans can likely continue to destination (or closer safe alternative) in the event of a single fan failure.

  • Powered lift includes aircraft described by industry watchers as electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL.

    It doesn't sound like the new regulations have anything directly to do with electric aircraft. It is the fact that they lift vertically like a helicopter and fly horizontally like a plane.

  • Why do you need pilot training and qualifications that are fundamentally different from existing tiltrotor planes like the Osprey [wikipedia.org]?
  • I can envision large fleets of these vehicles replacing commuter rail systems. No need for dedicated physical lines when you could hit different communities not currently served by mass transit. Combine ride sharing algorithms with this and you could have a less expensive and more flexible system than anything we currently have.

  • "...global leadership role in the development and adoption of clean flight..."

    Air taxis are not a replacement for any existing mode of travel. I suppose they're "clean" by some standard, but they will not contribute to reduction in emissions.

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