Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/27/vtol.html
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What’s the catch?
“In today’s document, Uber is making the argument that on-demand personal aviation will be affordable and practical within the next decade, if regulators, communities and manufacturers can all agree on how to do it.”
Oh. Yeah, right.
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So let’s see. They’re not actually going to do anything, they’re going to enable others to do it. Betcha get a free ticket to Mars too.
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Uber Alles!
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Like Uber itself, I assume this will be most cost-effective in urban centers with high population densities and, oh yeah, tall buildings close to one another?
Somehow this reminds me of the riddle:
“What has big round shape, carries man and dog and flies?”
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Here’s the précis…
Uber to engineers, machinists and policy makers: “Build us an awesome flying car infrastructure so we can leech off that too.”
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Shorter Uber: “We will spend any amount of money to avoid having to sit next to brown people when we commute.”
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I hope they can make them electric. Because, for Uber’s information, in 15 years, sales of cars running with combustion engines will be prohibited in Europe.
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Every bad driver story you have ever seen or heard,
including all the dashboard cam, machine gun vs battle axe, Russian road rage incidents,
in three, instead of two dimensions.
Mic Drop
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Man, I can’t wait for the YouTube videos!
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And I will be in my underground house, watching every one of them…
because all those vids of people running through houses…
three dimensions… yep…
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Fifteen and a union, I’m sure.
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When I was a kid in the early 60s Seattle tried a helicopter shuttle service. One crashed, I guess, because I remember people talking about stringing that nets between buildings just in case. Don’t know if that ever happened. But as AlynHall suggests, all the worst impulses of human drivers will take to the air. The difference being that instead of killing yourself and a few others in a wreck you could kill a whole raft of people.
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Moller, Uber; Uber, Moller.
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I hear they’re planning to sell bridges, too.
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This just in: an Uber aircar has just crashed into an Amazon drone. Oh the humanities!
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They’re not promising flying cars. They’re suggesting flying machines to move people around. Flying cars, or driving airplanes, are stupid. It’s like boat motorcycles or fishing rifles. Combinations that just can’t be made complimentary. Beyond that, however, is Uber’s underestimation of the FAA, whose motto in the pilot world is, “We’re not happy until you’re not happy.” Something may come of it, but not anything like George Jetson would have enjoyed.
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… aka JetSkis?
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“Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently, urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground.”
Part of me would be unable to distinguish these from dragonflies the size of station wagons. How would we address the congestion in our minds?
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