NASA tests the ups and downs of air taxi comfort with VR NASA is testing what makes air taxi passengers comfortable – and uncomfortable – with a custom VR simulation rig. The space agency has explored air taxis for a few years now, and is no stranger to trialing flying vehicles. However, NASA is now ready to test passenger comfort in air taxis, rather than assess whether air taxis …
Presumably electric taxis that can switch between vertical takeoff and wing flight.
Helicopters consume unaffordable amounts of energy while ordinary aircraft need too much runway. That leaves VTOL planes. I'm betting that only eVTOL can vary thrust quickly enough to navigate through low altitude urban turbulence without every surface being covered with vomit.
I suppose NASA could alternately invent a means for air taxi insides to be washed quickly while docked.
These tests were done decades ago and the data models long since, and continually, updated with this cool modern thing we call computers and simulations.
A smart kid in high school can now model practical everyday machine mechanical physics. An FX artist does it everyday.
There is nothing new to be learned about vibration and jostling in rotor aircraft. It was solved decades ago. So was vertigo and motion perception.
Now if some private company wants to pay them to do this, that's fine. They need the money.
I'm concerned about hordes of them pulling over to the side of the sky while they wait for a repair truck; long queues, waiting for lights to change in the skyways; sky rage; and particularly, the energy required to lift a couple of tonnes of vehicle into the sky, only to throw it away on the downward trip.
I will never understand how anyone, ANYONE, thinks the average person is going to get a license to fly any kind of vehicle. Even the lowest class of license requires more rigueur than driving a car.
https://www.faa.gov/faq/what-are-differences-types-pilot-licenses-certificates
- A student pilot license (certificate) is designed for the initial training period of flying. The student pilot must have a flight instructor present. He or she can solo after appropriate instructor endorsements.
- A recreational pilot certificate limits the holder to: specific categories and classes of aircraft, the number of passengers which may be carried, the distance that may be flown from the departure point, flight into controlled airports, and other limitations.
- A private pilot certificate lets the pilot carry passengers and provides for limited business use of an airplane.
- A commercial pilot certificate lets the pilot conduct some operations for compensation and hire.
- An airline transport pilot certificate is required to fly as captain by some air transport operations.
I will never understand how anyone, ANYONE, thinks the average person is going to get a license to fly any kind of vehicle
I imagine fully self flying (FSF) is envisaged by the money.
More accurately For Sweet F§'s sake who thought a LLM that was trained with data that omitted the fact that a city's skyline does change over time, was a good idea?
Like having George of the Jungle as your pilot(driver)... worse in that a skyscraper is commonly larger than the average tree.
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