I am fascinated by the fact that while starting well behind the effort to create autonomous cars, the development of autonomous flying vehicles has been moving like lightning. The industry has been working on flying cars since the 1940s, with the result generally being vehicles that neither drive nor fly very well. One flying effort that cost something like US$250K back in the 1970s, which was a bad blend of Cessna Skymaster and Ford Pinto, literally killed all the executives in the company.
Today there are a lot of interesting ideas, though. Most of the good ones don't even try to be cars but instead focus on being great short-range fliers. (It is far easier to create autonomous planes than cars. Where the planes are hitting problems is electrical range and FAA regulations.)
One of the best examples is the Boeing flying taxi, which completed its first successful flight last week. This is a VTOL (vertical take off and landing) vehicle with an operational range of 50 miles. That is well within a taxi travel envelope, particularly when you consider that it can fly in a straight line and avoid traffic or turns. It is a brilliant piece of engineering.
While it isn't clear if this is the vehicle that Boeing is jointly developing with Uber, it is an amazing plane and, in this form, it is also electric.
Fully autonomous, this could become the way many of us get to where we are going, particularly if we are going to the airport or to a building that has one of those unused heliports on the top.
It is a working flying taxi, and I can't think of a better reason to make the Boing Flying Taxi my product of the week.
Stay With technologypark, Thank You for Reading...!
