It's here at last, I knew it was coming!

[Duchunter]

I know most quads won't autorotate but I have seen a couple of my toy quads loose power and gently autorotate to the ground. With 8 rotors I imagine the Ephang could or at least be designed to. Might require a pilot shoot to keep it upright but if these things will autorotate then no main shoot would be needed.

 

[N017RW]

Can't autorotate without collective pitch. Not sure what you observed but it wasn't autorotation.

 

[RammerJammer]

It's not a quad. The drawing I saw posted had either 6 or 8 motors.

Fox Business News had a short piece on the Kitty Hawk. It looked to me that it had 8 props/motors. The frame was like a # sign (no tilt!) with a prop/motor on each of the eight ends of the frame members.

Lord help me if they are ever reasonably priced and unencumbered by onerous regulations. I might even stop shopping online and go back to brick and mortar stores! I mean, can you see one landing in one of the sky-blue, DESIGNATED spots at Walmart? Or, the locals referring to a Sonic as a fly-in? No road use tax, no license plates but, oh, the insurance . . . But, hey, a significantly reduced carbon footprint. Can't you just see Al Gore arriving in Hollywood with bugs on his teeth after a transcontinental flight? Me neither.

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Fox Business News had a short piece on the Kitty Hawk. It looked to me that it had 8 props/motors. The frame was like a # sign (no tilt!) with a prop/motor on each of the eight ends of the frame members.

Lord help me if they are ever reasonably priced and unencumbered by onerous regulations. I might even stop shopping online and go back to brick and mortar stores! I mean, can you see one landing in one of the sky-blue, DESIGNATED spots at Walmart? Or, the locals referring to a Sonic as a fly-in? No road use tax, no license plates but, oh, the insurance . . . But, hey, a significantly reduced carbon footprint. Can't you just see Al Gore arriving in Hollywood with bugs on his teeth after a transcontinental flight? Me neither.

Wow Yeh I saw the other new one name starts with e can't remember but looked big going through the air,,,I can see a lot of accidents coming,,

 

[Duchunter]

Can't autorotate without collective pitch. Not sure what you observed but it wasn't autorotation.

May not have been auto rotation but just a couple of weeks ago I had my sky viper toy quad way up high, about 200 feet (that's high for one of these) and I got a battery warning on the way up. Before I could get it down it completely died. Usually it would just crash to the ground but this time it came straight down unpowered, props were still spinning all the way to the ground and it landed somewhat softly. It didn't auto land, it floated to the ground. It tried to auto land but didn't have enough battery to make it. At about 150 ft it took over and tried to auto land but it took to long. I could tell exactly when it shut off cause the decent speed tripled. It auto lands very slow. It fell way faster than auto land brings it down.

 

[Duchunter]

I stand corrected, it is 8 rotors. I saw it on the news early one morning. I guess I just missed the other 4 rotors. It was a very short clip.

 

[robca]

I grew up thinking that jetpacs would be reality in the near future... All of these "vehicles" are just the 2010s version of the 1960s era jetpacs: super-cool and great TV fodder, and completely impractical

Physics dictate that a multirotor design will never be as efficient as a variable pitch propeller, and electric power is simply not enough to provide practical flight at a low-enough cost. Battery tech is improving, but way too slowly for these designs to be practical over the next 10-20 years. Unlike cars (where weight is a relatively manageable problem), flying machines can't afford weight. And if you believe in any of the claims for new battery tech, the devil is in the details (one thing is to have a battery in a lab, another to mass produce it). Elon Musk is pretty smart, and knows battery tech better than anyone: he's betting on the gigafactory, and the usual small incremental improvements we have seen for the last few decades. He would not spend that money if he knew of something better coming soon. Same applies to fuel cells and many other alternatives (and, unlike a helicopter, a multirotor needs electric motors, nothing else can respond as quickly with as much torque)

There's already a vehicle as small as a eHang MR that can take off and land in the same space: the Robinson R22 helicopter. It works well, flies for a long time, can carry enough weight to be practical. Can be bought used for ~$100k. How many R22 do you see flying every day as a commuter vehicle? There is no reason why a R22 can't be made to fly with an iPad (Arducopter can control a traditional heli like a multirotor). The problem is that certifying a fly-by-wire system for human flight takes a lot, and in many cases it's not worth it. Same would be for a multirotor. R22 are workhorses, used daily for cattle ranching in Australia, for example

Kudos to the people experimenting with those, but those will be as widespread in 20 years as the flying cars of 1960 are today. Flying is not energy efficient, and it's not a good option for short haul commute. Multirotors are great for hobby use and niche applications, not for full size vehicles. Aerodynamics is well understood, so there isn't much that can be done about the inherent efficiency problem of multirotors

 

[John Locke]

Someday it will be reality. It's just a matter of time to solve the power issue, either generating enough in small enough package, or storing enough in a new kind of cell. At some point when thousands of people are flying, and skies get crowded in urban area, regulations for personal quadcopters may need to be reorganized to minimize collisions. More sectional chart changes, Hah! Maybe they will set certain directional altitudes such at 500' AGL for East-bound, 600' for North, 700' for West and 800' for South. All other private gas powered fix wing craft may get bumped up to minimum 1000' AGL to fly their normal routes, other than takeoff and landing. It will be interesting to see how this evolves, but it will someday.

 

[pomonabill220]

Only flies a few feet off the ground which means no "straight line" flights except in some desolate areas.

Well at least they can TRY and fly straight line... wouldn't want to see the outcome though!

 

[Fester]

The way I like to push my battery's I ain't got no Business
in none of em.

Ya' know now that if you lose your bird due to this proclivity, you won't get any flowers or sympathy messages now

 

[dirkclod]

Ya' know now that if you lose your bird due to this proclivity, you won't get any flowers or sympathy messages now

Yup

 

[gwilson001]

The was looking at the Ephang 184 the other day. I haven't seen the 2 seater until now. I guess it's the 284. Honestly I think that flying won't be to bad as long as a human isn't doing it. If you link every car up together and let software route, plan, and fly the car then I think it will be extremely safe. You won't see traffic like you do on the road because your commute time will be decreased dramatically and there will be no traffic jam to back cars up prolonging their time in route. If you fly from point a to point b you won't be in the air nearly as long as you would a car. The Ephang is completely autonomous. No human flys it. It basically does a way point mission. I don't know how it lands but I imagine it will use a "tap to fly" like system where it hovers over the landing area and you just tap which spot to land in. As long as some jack leg can't take control of it and drive it like a sport bike then I think it will work. To be a viable means of transport a very strict set of protocols will have to be in place that insures safety for everyone which starts by taking the human out of the equation.

Of course the Porsche variant will have a manual fly mode for those times you want to take it "to the track" and drop all of the "traction controls".