Delta Air Lines throws $60m at flying taxi startup Joby Aviation The fledgling flying taxi industry has been given another vote of confidence with a $60 million investment from US airline Delta in Joby Aviation. The sum will give Delta a 2 percent stake in Joby, which counts Uber Technologies among its investors, with the potential to grow to $200 million if the service reaches certain …
I'm guessing the increasing Americanisation and humour reduction in El Reg these days meant there was no wordplay jokes in the article for those familiar with jobby (especially anyone Scottish or who has had minimal experience of Scotland or Scots - back when Billy Connoly was frequently on UK TV I doubt he rarely spoke for longer than a minute before jobby was uttered)
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"A nice idea - until one falls on your head"
Isn't that the same issue with combustion engine powered flying taxis, aka helicopters? Which got me thinking, is anyone developing electric helicopters? Granted, a hex or quad copter is easier for a human to control, maybe that's the reason.
Yes, more or less - no irony this time. However VTOL embraces far more than helicopters; gyroplanes, fan lift and tiltwings (e.g. Osprey) for starters. Electric propulsion makes multi-engine solutions viable, so throw those into the mix too. The challenge no dot-com ubergeek can resist is to make something that is actually more practical and economic than the classic and hence so bo-oring whirly thing with a tail rotor. It is easy to make wacky toys, less easy to make them viable at full scale. I personally am not waiting up.
Small correction: gyroplanes are not VTOL aircraft in that they typically use 100m or so in ground effect to build up sufficient rotor speed to assume safe flight. True, they can (and often do) land with almost zero ground-roll but VTOL it 'aint.
*If the pre-rotate is sufficient AND there's the right speed of headwind then vertical take offs would be possible, just as they would in any winged aircraft if the wind was blowing hard enough to generate sufficient lift - but wind speeds that high are beyond the safe operating envelope of the craft for that very reason.
$60 million investment [...] The sum will give Delta a 2 percent stake in Joby ...
Holy cow ! That would make Joby's valuation at 3 billion !!! For a firm not having ANY product or service, only pipe dreams.
... which counts Uber Technologies among its investors
Well, that explains a lot. How do these crooks raise so much money on so evidently unworkable projects ? Where does all this money come from, and where does it go ?
Of course there are already plenty of flying taxis for the super-rich using helicopters.
And this gadget can do everything that a helicopter can. Except for range. And speed. And payload. When they talk about four passengers, they are probably thinking four times 100lb with no luggage.
Well, helicopters are difficult to fly, and expensive to run and maintain, so maybe electric quadcopters or similar designs will offer an advantage there, opening up the flying taxi market to the slightly less affluent. I.e., not just multi-millionaires but also TikTok influencers and the like.
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