Hacker News Reader

Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

I really like these. There is something to these kind of inventions that always puts them "just around the corner" category. This has been going on since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycar in the 90's.

There is probably a combination of a tendency of people to dream about flying, and how much fun it would be, combined with the ignorance of all possible hurdles, not just physical and engineering ones, but also legal and regulatory.

View on HN

There's a self-flying taxi drone supposed to start operating in Dubai this summer.

> The Ehang is electric-powered and can travel for about 31 miles with a person and bag that weigh up to 100kg. It can go at speeds of up to 63 miles an hour and takes two hours to charge fully.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/02/14/self-flying...

I'm a bit skeptical of the eHang 184, built by a Chinese company that's built toys and commercial 10-kg-drones - it has 8 props, namely 1 coaxial twin prop (presumably counter-rotating) at every corner. Does not look hugely redundant to me, plus they're conveniently located to break legs while on the ground (or heads during take-off/landing).

The Volocopter has had manned and unmanned test flights since last year, has 18 rotors in a rotor plane well above your head, can fly with 4 rotors inoperative, has a ballistic rescue chute, and apparently good initial feedback from the regulator.

(Disclaimer: I've invested 1000 EUR in the Volocopter via crowdfunding, so I might be hopelessly biased.)

Interesting video of Moller himself talking about it (while sitting in one of these cars):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOR_SzLW2Ns

There's some grainy test flight footage at the end, too.

With all that Moller has accomplished, he's the expert.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com