[HN Gopher] Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus
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Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus
Author : tsar_nikolai
Score : 62 points
Date : 2021-09-22 10:18 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.airbus.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.airbus.com)
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > Zero emission flights
|
| The same lies that are peddled to us about pretty much
| everything. The emissions are just moved downstream, and could
| even be worse in certain places, as compared to other
| transportation systems. I am curious to see how they fare in
| energy usage as compared to an electric car, electric bikes and
| electric trains.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Lie may be a bit strong. True zero emissions from resource
| extraction to delivery is nigh impossible, but there's still
| sizable benefit to be had from electrification.
|
| Most notably, even if the craft is charged with electricity
| generated by a coal-fired plant, overall efficiency is still
| improved simply because power plants are much more efficient
| than any kind of internal combustion engine. And of course, the
| vehicle will only become more clean as fossil fuel plants are
| phased out, where fossil fuel vehicles will only ever be fossil
| fueled, barring the unusual electric conversion.
|
| That said, the ideal solution is electric mass transit like the
| train systems seen frequently in east Asia. Unfortunately,
| those are unlikely to appear in North American cities any time
| soon due to the thick jungle created by corrupt local
| politicians, NIBMYs determined to freeze-frame their
| neighborhoods at any cost, and price gouging underperforming
| construction contractors.
| ojosilva wrote:
| In related news, Brazilian GOL Airlines just pre-ordered 250
| eVTOL from Vertical Aerospaces for a 2025 delivery. So I think
| the market is heated-up right now.
|
| https://worldairlinenews.com/2021/09/21/gol-to-launch-a-netw...
|
| Brazil, and specially Sao Paulo, is a huge market for helicopters
| and air-taxi services in general, not to speak of regional air
| services, for which the VA-X4 aircraft is somewhat constrained
| with a mere 160km range.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Ups is buying 10 evtol from a company in vermont
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/07/ups-to-buy-evtol-aircraft-to...
| liminal wrote:
| Surprised the rotors are exposed. Seems likely to chop heads off.
| adamqureshi wrote:
| There is a business use case here in NYC. NYC to the Hamptons or
| out east long Island. The locals in the Hamptons are complaining
| about noise pollution from helicopters making trips to the
| Hamptons from NYC. If this makes little or no noise the current
| helicopter service companies will use them and people will pay
| $800 ( off-peak) - $2,500 ( peak) one way trip from the west side
| of manhattan / Chelsea area to east Hampton / Montauk . If you
| got the money that is :-)
| [deleted]
| coldcode wrote:
| I can see it replacing helo service, presuming it can take off
| anywhere. As a general replacement for cars, no.
| neom wrote:
| Good short clip that discusses the history of helicopter
| transit in NYC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nbz5VFilxY
| me_me_me wrote:
| Can I have 30? I need to get to my hyperloop pod faster.
|
| Those modern transportation 'solutions' are a sign of local
| maxima of current city design. A bad design that cannot scale any
| further.
|
| So maybe instead we start on fixing cities?
| mdorazio wrote:
| I see comments like this quite often without any suggestions
| for how it would happen practically. Let's talk Los Angeles,
| for example - where would you put light rail lines to
| sufficiently cover the low-density 400+ square miles of city
| sufficiently well to be better than cars? How would you acquire
| the requisite property & rights of way to run the lines? How
| would you fight the guaranteed NIMBY protests from local
| voters? Where would you get the tens of billions of dollars it
| would take?
|
| "Fixing" a city is _hard_. And I haven 't seen too many
| examples of it actually done, in comparison to cities that were
| built with public transit in mind from the beginning.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > in comparison to cities that were built with public transit
| in mind from the beginning.
|
| Tokyo and Paris were built with electrified, public transport
| in mind _from the beginning_?
|
| Really?
| atoav wrote:
| > Those modern transportation 'solutions' are a sign of local
| maxima of current city design. A bad design that cannot scale
| any further.
|
| Exactly. And for some reason the "solutions" always have the
| nice feature that they get those using them out of the sight of
| the rest of the lowly peasants living in those cities.
|
| As if it hasn't been demonstrated how public transport can do
| wonders for highly populated if done right (e.g. look at
| japan).
| [deleted]
| icyfox wrote:
| As much as I want to live in a world with the Jetsons, what's the
| business case here? Presumably it's going to have to launch
| vertically from the top of buildings, which means that you can go
| from skyscraper landing pad to skyscraper landing pad. How many
| taxi users are trying to travel within a financial district? I
| imagine much more commonly they're trying to go from high-density
| to low-density (like FiDi to West Village) which this operating
| model could only support if you build a serious amount of
| elevated architecture.
|
| Not to mention having to pay for insurance premiums of a
| miniaturized airplane that is zipping around a heavily inhabited
| urban area.
| hedberg10 wrote:
| There was a regular helicopter service on top of skyscrapers,
| like a bus. There isn't anymore, because things that go up,
| must come down.
|
| "Urban" and "flying" will never happen.
|
| I'm regularly astonished that we trust people with shopping
| carts, given how well they use them. Nobody is going to trust
| any density flying over our heads. Not even with auto pilot.
| Sorry Fifth Element fans.
| awillen wrote:
| The best case I've heard is helping to reduce traffic to places
| that expect a large influx of folks at the same time.
|
| Concerts, for example - if you have a lot of these flying
| taxis, you can have people park in auxiliary lots that are 20
| minutes away by car, then get shuttled over via air taxi.
| Depending on how many taxis and how fast the turnaround is, you
| could eliminate a non-negligible amount of traffic into/out of
| parking lots. Same with sporting events, etc.
|
| And then on a similar note, airports - I believe something like
| this was proposed for LAX. In the same way that people park at
| off-site parking lots and take shuttle buses, they could park
| off-site and take air taxis.
|
| These scenarios work relatively well because they put the air
| taxis in nonstop use for some period of time, and they have the
| space/infrastructure to set up spaces for them to land and
| load/unload folks.
| shafyy wrote:
| Or - and hear me out here - the US could invest in their
| public transportation infrastructure. But sure, let's do
| flying taxis.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Flying taxis is public transportation
| fragmede wrote:
| Charging $3 for _bus_ riders is controversial within the
| public transportation sphere, nevermind the $20 a car
| taxi can cost. Unless there 's something about flying
| taxis that would make them price competitive with a $3
| bus trip, it's hardly _public_ transportation.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| If there were automated and electricity was cheap its
| easy to imagine them being _cost_ competitive vs a bus
| trip of the same distance just because they 're so much
| faster. Making them _price_ competitive is just a matter
| of how much the state is willing to subsidise them.
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| No they are not. Taxis aren't public transport either.
|
| This CityAirbus takes what, 4-6 people seated? A bus
| easily takes 40+, a tram 60+ and a metro 250+* - and
| that's just seats, they all fit hundreds of people if you
| include standing passengers.
|
| It would take ages and hundreds/thousands of flying taxis
| to clear a stadium, while it takes only tens of metro
| trains.
|
| * Numbers taken from public transport options in my home
| town, will of course differ around the world
| saddlerustle wrote:
| Taxis are not _mass transit_ , but they are public
| transport per the definition.
|
| Obviously this will not be comparable in capacity to a
| metro, but it can conceivably be comparable in capacity
| to bus lines which tend to operate at very low load
| factors in US cities, by virtue of being _much_ faster to
| complete the same journey.
| mannykannot wrote:
| At four people per vehicle, I doubt that you could achieve
| anything like a satisfactory throughput in this scenario,
| given reasonable traffic separation. Unloading will be one
| bottleneck, as each vehicle will need as much space as
| several buses, when you take into account sufficient
| separation to avoid unsafe aerodynamic interaction.
| azinman2 wrote:
| You've hit the nail on the head. You need a big clearance for
| landing and take off, with dedicated space and easy ways for
| people to get to it. This is crazy expensive real estate,
| doesn't scale usually beyond 1 target (unlike a parking
| structure), is scarce, and is ultimately the biggest constraint
| here that cannot be overcome by technology.
| rsynnott wrote:
| You can imagine them being used to get people from train
| stations or similar to tall buildings, I suppose.
| blunte wrote:
| There are probably enough people of financial means who are
| willing to pay for expensive and much faster taxi service,
| especially if they can go to the roof of the building they're
| currently in to depart.
|
| There are lots of reasons why this won't work, but it could
| work... and it could be quite useful in the right scenario.
|
| Lots of useful long distance flights leave early in the
| morning, meaning to get to the airport for those flights you
| have to leave VERY early. But with an air taxi like this, it
| might allow you to save a couple of hours and a lot of
| headache.
|
| It's not really mass-marketable though, and I doubt we could
| expect to see a constant stream of little air taxis buzzing
| around.
| nradov wrote:
| Chances are the roof of the building they're currently in
| will never have a heliport. Most buildings weren't designed
| to support the extra weight of a helipad (including
| equipment) plus aircraft, and the roofs are already covered
| with antennas and HVAC equipment.
|
| In the foreseeable future there will only be a handful of
| heliports per city center. Most passengers will have to take
| ground transport to reach one.
| blunte wrote:
| True most buildings aren't designed for it, and they are
| already covered with antennas and AC units and such.
|
| But weight is not an issue for light aircraft. For example,
| the Robinson R44 (4 place heli) is only 660kg empty. The
| Airbus taxi will be made as light as possible, so I
| wouldn't expect it to be much heavier.
|
| As long as the supports for the landing pad are placed
| appropriately with the building structure, it shouldn't be
| any problem. More likely there would be the concern of
| accidents and the significant collateral damage they could
| cause.
| namlem wrote:
| Could make sense in some major cities in China, and maybe a
| handful of other places.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| The VTOL concept for air taxis is silly; this is just a 3d
| rendering for a press release, and battery energy density just
| isn't there yet for them to be useful.
|
| But electric flight is without a doubt going to revolutionize
| commuter airlines. With an electric powertrain, you get rid of
| the vast majority of costs associated with flying which are the
| intensive maintenance and overhaul schedules required for
| turboprop/turbofan engines. You can then economically fly small
| traditional aircraft with electric powertrains carrying ~10
| passengers up to 250 miles at 200mph with current battery tech,
| and takeoff/land from tiny municipal airports with no need for
| TSA. At that point flying becomes like hopping on a bus, and just
| as cheap. Living within 250 miles of a metro area and commuting
| every day will be a nonissue. Something like the Eviation Alice
| [0] is far more likely to be the future than any of these VTOL
| concepts.
|
| [0] https://www.eviation.co/
| me_me_me wrote:
| electric flight might be an empty promise.
|
| The weight of the tanks never drops, so you are flying always
| full tank plane, the energy density of batteries is much lower
| -> heavier tanks
|
| And you'd better hope there is no battery fire. Those are
| vicious.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The predecessor had its First Flight in 2019:
|
| https://www.airbus.com/innovation/zero-emission/urban-air-mo...
| julbook wrote:
| Now this one looks like a giant drone. And to have its propeller
| exposed, it seems quite dangerous to travel in a public place.
| mzs wrote:
| "65 dB(A) during fly-over and below 70 dB(A) during landing."
|
| So like a vacuum cleaner, yikes!
| cyberge99 wrote:
| Yes, except it will be on top of a building (most likely) and
| fly hundreds of feet above.
|
| Lawnmowers are significantly louder.
| KuiN wrote:
| Significantly quieter than car traffic noise. Struggling to see
| the issue here.
| burkaman wrote:
| I think a helicopter is a better comparison here, and they seem
| to be 80-100 dBA.
| datameta wrote:
| I often see (without hearing) helicopters in the downtown
| brooklyn area. If this aircraft flies above ~600 feet, noise
| should be little to no concern.
| blunte wrote:
| If you live anywhere where people love Harleys and Dodge Ram
| trucks with aftermarket exhausts, then 65 is luxury levels of
| quietness.
|
| Also, whether in my small village or in a fancy suburb, there
| seems to always be someone with a 2 cycle, muffler-free piece
| of lawn equipment running. Leaf blowers are the worst, but weed
| trimmers and now even leaf vaccuums are common.
|
| Or, if you live in an urban area, especially in NYC, there's
| rarely a moment that you don't hear an emergency vehicle siren
| echoing throughout the neighborhood.
|
| Unfortunately, it's just a noisy world. At least this aircraft
| is electric and has some goal of keeping noise as low as
| possible.
| morsch wrote:
| They don't say how/where they measured, so the figures are
| basically worthless. 65-70 dB(A) seems on the low end of
| consumer unmanned quadcopters[1], e.g. "Maximum sound pressure
| level for fast flyover at 15 m height: 62 dB(A)" for a DJI
| Phantom 2 weighing less than 2kg.
|
| If they managed to get into that range for a vehicle that must
| weigh many hundreds of times more, I guess that'd be very
| impressive.
|
| [1] https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/11/5940
| pupdogg wrote:
| 50 miles on 1 charge seems fairly inefficient to me. Especially
| when compared to land based electric vehicles.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I assume that explains the "for metropolitan use" bit.
| newshorts wrote:
| Not really a fair comparison to make considering the energy
| required to constantly fight gravity is significantly higher
| with one than the other.
|
| Additionally, one has to consider the flight path would ideally
| be more straight, allowing for less overall mileage per trip
| than a land vehicle.
| ivanvanderbyl wrote:
| I wonder how much of this is in response to what Archer Aviation
| are doing with their Maker aircraft? It looks very similar in
| specs.
|
| https://www.archer.com/maker
| hef19898 wrote:
| If memory serves well, Airbus' programms, they have two
| competing ones, are quite old (around 2018 or so when it
| officially started, so the idea is most likely older).
| jjj123 wrote:
| I'm really surprised by the noise levels. They say 65db flyover
| and 70db landing which is quieter than just about every
| (personal) drone [1].
|
| I wonder how they're getting those numbers. Like at what distance
| are they measuring from?
|
| I find it hard to believe they're able to make a flying vehicle
| quieter than a drone 1/100th of its size.
|
| Edited for clarity
|
| [1]: https://www.airbornedrones.co/drone-noise-levels/
| hef19898 wrote:
| I would have to look up the details, but there are EASA
| certification standards covering noise level measurement.
| Looking at the pictures, I think they achieve low noise levels
| by having e-motors and mid sized props (multiple). That avoids
| engine noise, reduces individual prop noise and having
| something between rotors and turbines should be quieter than a
| conventional helicopter on the one side and something like jet
| on the other hand.
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