[HN Gopher] VoloDrone Heavy-Lift Cargo Drone Makes First Public ...
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VoloDrone Heavy-Lift Cargo Drone Makes First Public Flight
Author : infodocket
Score : 46 points
Date : 2021-10-14 04:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lloydsloadinglist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lloydsloadinglist.com)
| bserge wrote:
| Sooo, when will they realize a helicopter is more efficient?
| qayxc wrote:
| Never, because it isn't. The problems with helicopters are the
| need for a pilot (cost, risk) and the significantly higher cost
| (both purchase and upkeep).
| mkl wrote:
| I get that they're mechanically more complicated, but why is
| a pilot necessary?
| foota wrote:
| I believe helicopters are less stable than multirotor
| vehicles, so a pilot is more necessary.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Computers are better than humans at dynamic
| stabilization, so this would be an argument for _not_
| having a pilot.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Helicopters are much more stable. Multis has zero static
| stability. Just look at how they tumble out of sky when
| controls die.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Yes, helicopters _can_ be made statically stable through
| mechanical ways only.
| zokier wrote:
| Autonomous helicopters are a thing
|
| https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2019/3/5/18250996/s
| i...
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/17/21024988/skyryse-
| autonom...
| fuoqi wrote:
| Multicopters are mechanically simpler than helicopters and thus
| can be cheaper. Assuming that power system is electric, they
| are easier to control. Because of the rotor redundancy they can
| continue flight even after losing several engines/blades, while
| losing engine on helicopter requires to perform autorotation
| landing, which is far from trivial. Also smaller blade size
| results in lower noise levels, which is important in urban
| settings.
|
| If we are talking about efficiency at longer distances with
| VTOL capability, then convertiplanes are more efficient than
| helicopters.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It could be that there are other factors that are more
| important than energy efficiency. Maybe they are more stable or
| more precise, which could be a requirement for having
| autonomous cargo handling?
| zokier wrote:
| Ecomax helicopter is about the same size (10m rotor dia), is
| targeting similar flight time (40+20mins) and payload (600lbs).
| So not obvious how much the difference between single vs multi
| rotor is significant here.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2020/09/30/this-may-...
| baybal2 wrote:
| This one will not fall out of the sky like a brick if the
| electrical failure will occur
|
| I myself researched how to detect quadcopter failure, and
| land them in a less catastrophic way. The easiest way to
| survive a single motor failure, is to spiral your way down at
| full motor torque, but it will not save you from an
| electrical failure in the main DC-DC -- where they most often
| occur.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Pretty sure a total electrical failure will preclude a
| successful autorotation failure on a swashplate-based drone
| as well as you still need to power the actuators (and the
| avionics). So redundancy (including in the DC bus) is just
| as valid of an option as autorotation is... more so as you
| could continue powered flight and means you can survive
| blade failure, etc.
| baybal2 wrote:
| You will continue going forward on inertia
| heyflyguy wrote:
| I was about ot make this comment. Multirotors do not seem
| to auto-rotate.
| wongarsu wrote:
| I would assume you can make reasonable design changes to
| fix those cases though? To survive motor failures more
| gracefully add more props. With a hexacopter you should be
| able to switch to four props if one fails. Or use one of
| those designs with for pairs of counterrotating props.
| AHASIC wrote:
| Here is the video if you are interested:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvUz4LgAJWE
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Watching this, several observations:
|
| Why does it have to be in a cabin, even lifted up into it,
| while most pallets/boxes are shrink-wrapped already?
|
| If avoiding shrink wrapping because plastics, use standardized
| hoods with deposit, if you have to. Works for pallets/boxes
| already.
|
| They could do with the net, like shown there anyways.
|
| Also some lighter mechanism which goes into the pallet/box from
| below, since they are standardized. Or good old
| rope/chains/somesuch.
|
| Lastly, why the EFFING EFF is he wearing a helmet while riding
| a Cargo-TRI-Cycle, which won't go above 25kph ever?
|
| Also: Can I have one with joystick to sit in? *g*
| prova_modena wrote:
| I think the cabin is primarily for weatherproofing purposes.
| In my experience with shipping/receiving big boxes and
| pallets of stuff (in the US), shrink wrapping is not a given.
| Even most shrink wrapped shipments are not weatherproof to
| the degree where they would remain totally dry when flown
| under a drone during a rainstorm. Usually the shrink wrapping
| makes it more "drip proof," for brief periods of sitting
| outside while being transferred between warehouses/vehicles.
|
| IMO, holding customers to a higher standard of
| weatherproofing is a non-starter. Adoption of drone transport
| will be more popular if customers can basically assume the
| weather exposure is the same as with conventional transport.
| AHASIC wrote:
| I think the netting/chaining of cargo won't work as the winds
| here in Germany can get quite strong, making the cargo's
| weight less balanced and messing up the drone's stability.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Then use two L-shaped bars in between the landing skids,
| fixed to the top structure and/or landing skids. Have two
| other bars swing down from the top on the other side of the
| pallet/box, have them lock in. Should be still lighter.
|
| Also I know about the winds because I live in HH and
| bicycle there all the time ;)
|
| Shouldn't really matter when you think about what even
| things like _Ardupilot_ or similar firmware for drones can
| do to stabilize flight in all sorts of situations.
|
| It's just a matter of scale. And that thing has way more
| propellers to dynamically counteract any imbalances than
| the small hobbyist things.
|
| I don't know. It looks _overdesigned_ to me. Form should
| follow function. In vague comparison this looks like the
| first railroad wagons for passengers still somehow looking
| like horse-drawn chariots. Makes no sense to me.
| abakker wrote:
| alternatively, it is designed enough to ensure a margin
| of safety required in an experimental aircraft hauling
| cargo? The expectation should be to anticipate and
| minimize all failure modes, not to count on shrink-wrap.
|
| source: I have moved a lot of pallets of things, shrink
| wrap is not for safety it is for convenience. Getting off
| axis at all with shrink wrap results in failure. (this is
| why lifting pallets with a skidsteer is much riskier than
| with a forklift where the pallet is always horizontal.)
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| I didn't suggest to count on shrink-wrap, but on reusable
| hoods, and some sort of net over that. The net can be see
| in the video.
|
| I _also_ have moved countless pallets and boxes a _really
| loong_ time ago for about a year. In an eight (metric)
| ton forklift, going up to 12 meters high, and up to 35kph
| fast. Needing a change of batteries by another forklift
| every other half of the shift ; >
| p_l wrote:
| Cabin also reduces drag, even if it might seem low. Combined
| with weatherproofing and general enhancement to protection in
| case anything comes loose, it simply makes sense to me.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Could be. But I've been under the impression they don't
| move that fast. Cabin or not. Perceived benefit seems to be
| more direct line of flight, if allowed at all.
| jcims wrote:
| I wonder what it would sound like if they went to a higher
| blood count on the props. For some reason they don't seem to
| have garnered much attention yet, but eight blade props are
| extremely quiet relative to the smaller prop counts.
|
| Here's example comparing a typical 2 (or 3) blade 5" prop to an
| 8 blade on a drone. The 8 blade is smaller, 3" i believe, with
| similar performance but a major difference in sound.
|
| https://youtu.be/1nk74KEIc2c?t=136
|
| Here's another one with two 8's stacked on each motor.
|
| https://youtu.be/i58cC2hntqQ
|
| Also for all the time spent developing the aircraft and the
| importance that perception plays in selling it you would think
| they might have put a little more effort in figuring out how to
| efficiently load it. That was torture watching haha.
|
| (wtf Apple, the 'haha' in my last sentence autocorrected to
| 'gays'?!? I wonder what i haven't caught)
| NickNameNick wrote:
| A lot of the drag on a prop comes from the tip of the blade.
|
| More blades means more drag.
| all2 wrote:
| > higher blood count
|
| Made me chuckle :)
| jcims wrote:
| lol I'm leaving it
| kburman wrote:
| Now I wonder what the line that differentiate between a
| helicopter and a drone?
| zokier wrote:
| Multicopters are subclass of helicopters. Drones are unmanned
| (air)craft, which can rotor or fixed-wing based.
| rmah wrote:
| Not sure how to say this without sounding snarky, but how is
| 200kg cargo capacity over 40km "heavy lift"? That barely
| qualifies as ultralight for helicopters. Cargo capacities of
| 4,000 kg over 400km, is considered "medium" for helicopters.
| [deleted]
| post_break wrote:
| Maybe because it doesn't require a helicopter pilot? You could
| run it 24x7 possibly autonomous to deliver specified goods.
| Heavy lift is also relative. 20mph on a bicycle is fast, 20mph
| in a car is slow.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| It definitely is heavy lift as far as drones are concerned. But
| I am disappointed that there has been so few drones trying to
| go in this direction that 200kg is considered "heavy."
|
| (You can make arguments that the multi rotor approach has lower
| maintenance needs than swashplate-based conventional
| helicopters, besides the use of electricity instead of
| hydrocarbons... these all potentially allow lower operating
| costs. And the higher pitch sound of multi rotors travels less
| far than low frequency of helicopter blades.)
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It's not just maintenance issues - it's fundamental
| aerodynamics. Efficiency scales with the diameter of the
| rotor in rotary wing aircraft. Larger rotors are more
| efficient. In a helicopter you lose a bit of that efficiency
| from the tail rotor, but past a certain size helicopters are
| always going to be more efficient, until you get the size
| regime that materials drive all designs to become multi-
| rotor.
|
| It seems like maybe there is a niche for very large fixed-
| pitch propeller vehicles like quadrotors but at that scale
| why stick with fixed pitch at all? You could still have
| variable pitch rotors with variable speed drivers and get the
| best of both worlds, like a Kaplan turbine in hydraulics, but
| in reverse.
| nradov wrote:
| Single rotor designs remain efficient to a rather large
| size regime. The largest helicopter in operational use
| today is the Mil Mi-26 which has only a single rotor. The
| prototype Mil V-12 was a little larger and had two rotors
| but was not successful.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| In part that's because combustion engines scale down
| extremely poorly (they lose efficiency like mad... a
| micro turbine gets like 5% efficiency whereas a full
| sized turbine gets upward of 30%) and have high
| complexity. They're also difficult to throttle on command
| with high responsiveness (hence the swashplate). Electric
| motors are far better suited to distributed lift
| concepts.
|
| That's a huge reason why existing vertical lift doesn't
| use multiple rotors. Electric motors using high energy
| magnets, modern solid state power controllers, and modern
| batteries are only just now becoming available & only now
| are they starting to impact the aviation trade space.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| That is indeed a very big main rotor. I wonder what the
| material limitations are on rotor length?
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Not an aerospace engineer, but my instinct is that
| spinning larger and larger rotors at the speeds needed to
| provide lift would likely become an issue before material
| strength, though obviously it's a consideration also.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| That's kind of a misconception. You can use a whole bunch
| of smaller rotors to have nearly the same efficiency as a
| single rotor of the same diameter (okay fine there are also
| Reynolds Number effects from going smaller, but not as
| important in this context). The difference is roughly the
| packing ratio of circles, about 90%. VoloDrone takes this
| approach.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| For a real-word cargo flight there are climb conditions
| and cruise conditions and a fixed-pitch rotor can't
| possibly be efficient at both - it will be tuned for a
| given rotation speed and a given airspeed across the
| disk. At any ambient conditions outside those regions
| efficiency will suffer. variable-pitch rotors can adjust
| to high efficiency in cruise and good climbing
| performance, depending on requirements.
|
| Electric cargo vehicles are neat, and maybe the loss in
| efficiency is acceptable, but you undeniably lose
| efficiency with a fixed rotor design.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| But all of that has maintenance overhead, and whether
| hover or translational flight dominate the energy
| consumption determines which to optimize... there's no
| great efficiency loss to going fixed pitch unless these
| two flight regimes have near equal average energy usage
| per flight. Additionally: Variable pitch is one thing,
| but swashplate flight is another. There's no significant
| efficiency reason to change blade pitch multiple times
| per second. Much slower variable pitch propellers, aka on
| horizontal flight aircraft, is _much_ lower maintenance
| and overall complexity than a swashplate based
| helicopter.
| sockpuppet_12 wrote:
| Cool.
| konschubert wrote:
| Not clear to me what kind of goods would be transported this way?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Anything? I mean, use your imagination.
| ovi256 wrote:
| Amazon could deliver a wide range of goods using this. Pallets
| of groceries, furniture, household appliances. 200kg is a good
| payload.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And then they land in your garden? Warehouse to warehouse
| transfersaybe, but for that proper planning can make that
| work with trucks over night.
| post_break wrote:
| How about an amazon locker location that has a landing
| zone. I'd love that.
| fuoqi wrote:
| I wonder how much they pay for insurance and what are regulations
| around it, i.e. what will happen if it crashes and kills someone
| in result?
| hef19898 wrote:
| First flights have to be approved by authorities, in order to
| get that approval safety if flight has to optained through
| testing. Obviously, you gonna have insurance. Also, flight
| scenarios and flight paths are pretty limited. E.g. flying of
| inhabited regions is a non starter. One of the reasons in
| Europe more ambitious flight tests are done in Spain where you
| have a lot of space. And one of the reasons Jobi for example is
| testing at military airports and airspace.
| nradov wrote:
| Congratulations to them, but 200 kg isn't heavy lift. Real
| vertical heavy lift capacity is in the 10 tonnes range.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Compared to the 10kg that current drones can do it is.
| nradov wrote:
| MQ-8 drones have been in service for years and can lift way
| more than 10kg.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| 1) Non-electric. Means higher emissions, operating costs,
| more complicated.
|
| 2) swashplate-based means more maintenance, low frequency
| sound that travels further.
|
| 3) Not commercially available. It's for military use
| primarily.
|
| When people (EDIT: i.e. normies) use drone in this context,
| they're talking about multi rotor electric vehicles that
| have less maintenance (in principle) than conventional
| helicopters.
| nradov wrote:
| "Drone" has been an established term for decades. It is
| absolutely not limited to multi-rotor electric vehicles.
|
| The Yamaha Fazer gasoline powered helicopter is
| commercially available. They specifically label it as a
| "drone".
|
| https://global.yamaha-
| motor.com/news/2016/1011/fazer_r_g2.ht...
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I mean, obviously you are _technically_ correct (and, in
| fact, there are horizontal flight drones that are a
| century old... also technically "drones" and were called
| that a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanne
| d_aerial_vehicle#Early_... ), but I really don't think
| the claim is misleading for most people, whose concept of
| "drone" is uncrewed electric multirotor.
| 0xfaded wrote:
| I got to see this in Hamburg.
|
| It was quieter than I expected, even from a couple hundred meters
| away. Once it was further away it probably dropped to around
| 60dB, but the frequency (pitch) of the sound was still distinct
| and therefore remained noticeable above the background noise of
| the port.
|
| My preconceived expectations of a drone flight also left me
| caught off guard by the larger moment of inertia. The cargo bay
| "swayed" during the flight instead of making instantaneous and
| zippy corrections that I've become accustomed to seeing small
| drones perform. Looked super alien.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I don't understand the advantage of this drone configuration over
| a heavy lift helicopter, or something like the V-22. Hard to
| believe so many smaller rotors are more efficient than 1 or 2
| large ones.
| kleiba wrote:
| Very interesting. I wonder though what is the exact use case for
| this kind of transportation, i.e., in which way it is superior to
| the current way of transporting goods.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Right now: buy a stack of sheet rock (50+ pounds each) to
| finish a room, wait while it moves by truck through traffic.
|
| Future: order on your phone, get it flown out to the work site.
| kleiba wrote:
| Who does the unloading of the sheet rock from the device in
| the future?
| [deleted]
| nradov wrote:
| It's pretty rare for construction crews to be sitting around
| waiting for delivery trucks stuck in traffic. I mean it
| happens occasionally, but the traffic in most places isn't
| that bad. And contractors usually schedule deliveries in
| advance, or shift their crews to other job sites if they know
| a delivery will be delayed. Any contractors who couldn't
| manage such basic logistics have already gone out of
| business.
|
| I predict that drone delivery will never be used for heavy,
| low value items like sheet rock. The costs of flight will
| remain too high even with better batteries. If delivery
| drones are used at all it will be for small, high value items
| like medical supplies, electronics, cooked food, and
| toiletries.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| I will admit I was extrapolating from a single experience
| of helping finish a room. It sounds like that experience
| might not stretch as far as I thought.
| gremloni wrote:
| Scary that anyone with a gun can bring down 200kgs on people
| or buildings. But people probably said the same thing about
| cars and planes.
| [deleted]
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Diz iz in Hamborg, Gormannie! Vee haff no facking GUNNZ
| because VARRBOTAHN!
|
| (mostly, anyways)
| nharada wrote:
| Could this be MORE resilient to firearms than a helicopter?
| Multiple redundancy to rotor failure and no pilot who could
| accidentally get hit
| holoduke wrote:
| I don't call this heavy weight. For now I only see potential
| market in more efficient sea container carriers. Even within a
| large sea harbour it could be very useful. Cost wise I don't
| know.
| martin_a wrote:
| Volocopter is the perfect example of what's wrong with "the
| german way" of thinking about transportation.
|
| Instead of improving public transportation, goods on the rails,
| improving bicycle infrastructure, lots of effort is put into
| crowding the skys, too.
|
| All pushed by a blatantly incompetent minister who was
| fantasizing about "air taxis" and how they will improve our life,
| while rural Germany is still stuck on < 16 MBit internet
| connections.
|
| It's all just a giant clusterfuck with setting the wrong
| priorities.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Your comment is a perfect example of what's wrong with "The
| German Way" of thinking about innovation.
|
| Instead of inventing the future, we want to maintain the past.
|
| That's why Tesla was invented in the States and China has
| brought our Transrapid to the market.
|
| We used to be a people of inventors who embraced the
| possibilities that technology provides to shape the future.
| That's why the automobile was invented here. The bicycle. And
| so much more.
|
| Today we just want to faster Internet to consume American
| Services even faster.
| nuerow wrote:
| > _Your comment is a perfect example of what's wrong with
| "The German Way" of thinking about innovation._
|
| I feel your comment is misguided and frankly clueless.
|
| Research into point-to-point logistics has been a thing for
| the past decade thanks to developments in drones. One of
| their main markets is actually under-developed regions where
| investing in infrastructure is outright impossible. Another
| important market is actually automating parts of the
| logistics chain and removing people from the process.
|
| What this newspiece shows is the last decade or so of
| research coming to fruition. It's incomprehensible how you're
| criticizing autonomous drones as being "maintaining the past"
| but presenting tech from the 1960s that has virtually no
| commercial viability or practical use as being "the future".
| shoto_io wrote:
| I'm not sure if we have a misunderstanding here. I am not
| at all criticizing autonomous drones. I'm all for them.
|
| I was criticizing OPs lack of enthusiasm for them. He/She
| is comparing faster Internet and better bicycle roads to a
| highly innovative idea of drone logistics.
| martin_a wrote:
| It's not about maintaining the past, but we are _so bad_ in
| utilizing the existing infrastructure efficiently, that we
| are now trying to build a completly new one in the airspace
| above us.
|
| Why not push what we have to the limits, gladly in innovative
| ways, instead of adding just another half-baked layer?
|
| > Today we just want to faster Internet to consume American
| Services even faster.
|
| Nah... I want faster internet so I can work from home in a
| rural area and don't have to spend a third of my income on
| rent, because I need to live close to my work because we
| don't have cheap and fast public transportation.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Infrastructure is completely overrated for innovation. We
| have global leaders in tiny villages on the Schwabische
| Alb, who deliver parts to anywhere in the World without
| having an Autobahn anywhere near them. If you have ever
| been to the Silicon Valley you might have noticed that
| internet and wireless is a mess. At least when I lived
| there it was really bad. Same with any cab service by the
| way, which are way more efficient in Germany.
|
| Improving infrastructure might increase your personal
| efficiency. It won't help innovation in any way.
|
| PS: A great example how infrastructure is irrelevant can be
| seen in this Ted Talk. It compares India and China after
| WWII.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR-uWwvpn5c
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| TED talks are overrated for information/education. I
| wasted 18 minutes, and it has given me nothing. One could
| maybe discusss differences in protocol implementations,
| regarding error correction, latency, overhead on networks
| of a given topology. This was nothing like that.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| What market? That one demo piece in Shanghai from the airport
| to the not so central border of town?
|
| Making no revenue? Not really suitable because it has almost
| no space for luggage,
|
| which passengers from the airport tend to carry with them?
|
| Also I am still unaware of any larger testtrack for the
| 'updated' thing the media is so extatic about.
|
| That is just one private company trying to get investments.
|
| Which they probably won't get, except if the
| _Zentralkommitee_ would maybe pushing it.
|
| Which seems unlikely, because why they didn't extend the
| Shanghai line as planned, then?
|
| I mean, I don't really care because it won't happen here
| anyways.
|
| But don't say _brought to market_ until they have at least an
| Emsland equivalent test track,
|
| and _actually shown_ the 600kph they say 'Yes! Yes! We can
| do!' and rave about all the times.
|
| _None of this_ has happened so far.
|
| Correct me if I'm wrong.
| jallasprit wrote:
| It is much harder to productify infrastructure improvements
| across the nation, meanwhile this drone can be sold in the
| thousands to retail operators and the likes (so the makers can
| get rich).
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| In Germany? These will hit the same problems as improving
| existing infrastructure.
|
| Want to pull fibre under the road? 18 months planning
| permissions. Dig ditches in rural areas? Well, some of the
| locals don't like the noise or mud on the road, tough luck.
| They object and the whole process extends by months. Want to
| replace the roof? Better make sure you don't make it higher
| than what local code allows! And use the same colour for the
| tiles... New road? 2 years. Improving drainage? 2 years.
| Everyone has something to say, everyone can object and block
| the nice things for everybody else.
|
| These will hit the same issues. People will complain about
| noise or just simply drones flying above. Soon it will turn
| out they can't fly here, or there, or from there, or to
| there.
| nuerow wrote:
| > In Germany? These will hit the same problems as improving
| existing infrastructure.*
|
| Germany already has outstanding roadway and railway
| infrastructure. DB, the parent company of DB Schenker,
| operates their ICEs in Germany and across Europe as well,
| and the only reason they can go at speeds up to 300km/h is
| the fact that they did all the right things putting
| together their highspeed rail network.
|
| I suggest you take a look to the amount of work, both
| technical and political, that is required to get a single
| railway line out of the paper and into the real world. This
| is something that in some cases requires even diplomatic
| work.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Germany has Autobahn, plenty of good roads and yes, some
| railway lines are fairly decent. Stuttgart to Munich or
| Dusseldorf north comes to mind. But outside of main
| corridors, it ain't that nice everywhere. An example is
| the A1 Autobahn through Eifel which would help offloading
| A61 (which is a mess already as it is).
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| But we have the best Gartenzwergs!
|
| https://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/281462627714-0-1/s-l1000.jpg
| Aeolun wrote:
| Is the US alternative, where people simply have no voice at
| all, better?
| jcims wrote:
| If the folks in the US had no voice, 'NIMBY' wouldn't be
| a term we're all familiar with.
| phreeza wrote:
| Do they not? I thought California high speed rail was
| impeded by NIMBYs for example?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Giggle. Have you heard about the idea of using Hovercrafts in
| the harbour, to ferry containers from one place to another?
| Because the road and rail-traffic is often maxed out already?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| It's not just Scheuer. The guy is only the public clown face /
| scapegoat.
|
| Blame the entire politics of the last 40 years, beginning with
| Kohl who tore down the fiber projects in favor of cable TV to
| counter "left-wing", government critical public TV, over
| Schroder who auctioned off the UMTS licenses for nearly 50
| billion EUR in 2000 to achieve the infamous "schwarze Null"
| budget, to Merkel who broke one promise after another to bring
| Germany up to speed.
| scanny wrote:
| They have come a long way from their flying Zumba-ball days [0,1]
|
| [0]
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/E-volo_e...
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volocopter
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