[HN Gopher] Boeing-owned Wisk expects to begin carrying passenge...
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Boeing-owned Wisk expects to begin carrying passengers 'later in
the decade'
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 24 points
Date : 2024-07-22 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| JanSolo wrote:
| This smells of vaporware to me.
|
| Certifying a new electric aircraft is hard. There are several
| other startups who are trying to do this and they're all
| struggling.
|
| Certifying a pilotless aircraft is really hard. There are no
| pilotless commercial aircraft because nobody has created one that
| can be trusted to never crash. I'm not sure that the FAA even
| knows HOW to certify such an aircraft.
|
| So logically, certifying a new, pilotless, commercial electric
| aircraft is likely next to impossible. At least to a cynical bum
| like me. Good luck Wisk; I hope you prove me wrong!
| wildzzz wrote:
| The first gen model came out in 2011 and that's probably where
| the FAA authorization process development started. I doubt they
| are just starting it now.
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| "Certifying a new electric aircraft is hard."
|
| Boeing seems to have enough regulatory capture to do this with
| easily, kill people with impunity, and get the CEO raises and
| bonuses along the way. If Wisk has their lobbyists and FAA
| insiders as well it would certainly ease the path.
| carabiner wrote:
| FAA doesn't know how, just as they didn't know how to certify
| the first jetliner or the first light sport aircraft. This is
| how new regulations are made. In my experience, the FAA is
| pretty open minded and sometimes excited by novel concepts and
| will work with planemakers to figure out a certification plan.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I am sure the FAA at this moment is just super excited about
| working with Boeing to safety certify completely novel
| concepts.
|
| Boeing totally has the required safety culture to partner on
| this.
| pylua wrote:
| Did anyone ask the engineers, or just the ceo?
| wildzzz wrote:
| Probably more of a question of when the FAA will approve such
| aircraft. It looks like they've been building prototypes since
| 2011 so I'm sure the tech is pretty solid at this point. Boeing
| does have experience building UAVs and I'm sure this isn't that
| technically different. They likely wouldn't be doing any
| advanced flying like going between buildings or landing
| anywhere but an airport.
| pylua wrote:
| Building prototypes since 2011? That is a long time. I
| wouldn't hold my breath. I would read through some of the
| Glassdoor reviews.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Igor Sikorsky, early aviation pioneer and inventor in the
| helicopter once said:
|
| "In those early days, the Chief Engineer was almost always the
| Chief Pilot as well. This had the automatic result of eliminating
| poor engineering very early in aviation."
|
| Maybe time for a return to that standard for Boeing?
|
| What ever happened to the Boeing/Aerion joint venture for a
| supersonic bizjet? The Boeing/Embraer JV for a 737 replacement?
| The Boeing/Safran JV to produce their own APU engines in-house?
| Will this JV also die on the vine?
| renewiltord wrote:
| People don't really like that kind of world that much. See
| Oceangate as an example.
| tardy_one wrote:
| It was really a bit fortunate that the employee pilot quit..
| As much of a mess as it was, it was a fair trolley problem
| trade, and if the owner/engineer who ignored expert opinion
| was not among the victims there would have been a lot more
| social friction over the matter of manslaughter, surviving to
| reframe a misfortune, etc.
| mchusma wrote:
| Kudos for going for electric and automated approach. This is high
| risk but exactly the kind of thing that can open up cheaper,
| easier flights. Both technologies (Electric and pilot-less) are
| pretty clearly going to be capable enough for something in 10-20
| years, so given the length of time for aircraft development it
| makes sense that things in development now should be trying to
| make this happen.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| If you think this is going to enable anything that resembles
| "cheap", think again. IF it works, this is going to be
| exclusively for rich people to avoid traffic jams.
|
| Electric is plain and simple a no-go for aircraft, the specific
| energy is nowhere near sufficient to actually make an impact.
| See e.g. the Airbus E-Fan X cancellation, and their subsequent
| switch to hydrogen research.
|
| And it makes sense if you take a closer look at the development
| in battery technology, you will see that although $/kWh has
| gone down fast, kg/kWh has been essentially unchanged for over
| a decade. That is if you ignore numbers in university press
| releases but look at what is available commercially on the pack
| level for a safety critical application.
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(page generated 2024-07-22 23:12 UTC)