Airbus starts flight taxi tests

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Quote

 

Berlin (dpa) - European aerospace firm Airbus is gunning to revolutionize how city-dwellers get from A to B with small, four-person air taxis that can "simply fly over the traffic jams."

Airbus has chosen the German city of Ingolstadt as the trial ground, with feasibilty tests for the "CityAirbus" planned in the region for the coming months.

German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer presented the plans to the public in Ingolstadt on Monday.

The electric-powered model air taxi can carry four passengers through the skies using eight rotors. In Scheuer's words: The CityAirbus "looks pretty cool, now it just needs to fly."

The idea is that the flight taxis could transport people along set routes, such as between the airport and the city centre. The taxis could also be put to use in the health sector, for example to transport doctors and blood or organs donated for emergency operations.

Similar machines are under development worldwide.

The new model taxi was developed in Germany, at Airbus' helicopter plant in the town of Donauwoerth.

https://www.deutschland.de/en/news/airbus-starts-flight-taxi-tests

 

Here's the video with the concept presentation:

First model was presented yesterday in Ingolstadt.

Planned to be fully implemented in big cities worldwide within 6 years.

[Mel81x+]

I like it. Cluttered the roads now lets clutter the sky too yay.

[Rab]

Elon Musk has the right idea. With cars going electric we can now drive underground.

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22 minutes ago, Rab said:

Elon Musk has the right idea. With cars going electric we can now drive underground.

I'm not convinced about its large-scale feasibility though, mainly the costs of its implementation, logistics of it all, and maintenance. 

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34 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

I like it. Cluttered the roads now lets clutter the sky too yay.

To be fair those are expected to operate only on certain set routes; like city center to airport for example. But yeah, traffic congestion is only going to get worse, whether on the ground, above it or under it.

I'd rather see more effort put in developing better public transportation overall. 

[Mel81x+]

7 minutes ago, nudge said:

To be fair those are expected to operate only on certain set routes; like city center to airport for example. But yeah, traffic congestion is only going to get worse, whether on the ground, above it or under it.

I'd rather see more effort put in developing better public transportation overall. 

I was only really joking. We're never going to see aerial congestion in our lifetimes due to the way this will scale. I like the idea of having something that operates like a helicopter and reduces automotive car congestion but instead having something like the Hyperloop once demoed by Elon Musk would be a better options considering it doesn't have the X factor of speed variance and uses a fixed path form point A to point B. The real problems start to arrive from a logistics standpoint when you have stops along the way but with a fixed path those are easily solvable as you can't really get off the path and go places. That's where this all starts to get a bit weird for me when it comes to what Airbus are proposing because you know they aren't going to be the only operator and some company is going to work towards making this more accessible thereby allowing that X factor for path determination by the end-user thereby adding to the reason we really have congestion with automobiles anyways. 

Still, its a step in the right direction and if they can operate it successfully (even with limited scope) I think it adds to another mode of travel that is much faster. Out of curiosity, and I know this will never be mentioned anywhere, whats the safety when one of these things fail and falls out of the sky? 

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11 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

I was only really joking. We're never going to see aerial congestion in our lifetimes due to the way this will scale. I like the idea of having something that operates like a helicopter and reduces automotive car congestion but instead having something like the Hyperloop once demoed by Elon Musk would be a better options considering it doesn't have the X factor of speed variance and uses a fixed path form point A to point B. The real problems start to arrive from a logistics standpoint when you have stops along the way but with a fixed path those are easily solvable as you can't really get off the path and go places. That's where this all starts to get a bit weird for me when it comes to what Airbus are proposing because you know they aren't going to be the only operator and some company is going to work towards making this more accessible thereby allowing that X factor for path determination by the end-user thereby adding to the reason we really have congestion with automobiles anyways. 

Still, its a step in the right direction and if they can operate it successfully (even with limited scope) I think it adds to another mode of travel that is much faster. Out of curiosity, and I know this will never be mentioned anywhere, whats the safety when one of these things fail and falls out of the sky? 

It has 8 electric motors in total and can safely land even if 2-4 of them fail so that alone is quite an advantage when safety is concerned. Moreover, it uses ducted fans instead of open propellers so there's less chance of anything getting anywhere near the moving parts (both debris and people) and in addition it also makes it less noisy and much more efficient with a great torque to weight ratio. Not sure about this particular Airbus model (technical details are still very few), but most of the concepts I've seen and read about also feature a ballistic parachute integrated on the top of the vehicle if all else fails. Accidents do happen but I think this is pretty well thought out in terms of safety.

The congestion will depend on the city regulations anyway; i.e. Airbus or any other manufacturer will only provide and operate the vehicles but in the end the decision on the routes and the number of fleet belongs to the city governing bodies and transport and urban planners...