Many companies have outlined plans for flying taxis, but Boeing just took a significant step toward making them a practical reality for flying taxis. The aircraft maker has successfully completed the very first test flight of its autonomous electric VTOL aircraft.
They verify that the machine can take off itself, hover and land. It’s an intelligent start, to put the comfort step to a new future. The taxi has yet to fly just forward, let alone transition from vertical to forward different flight modes.
That still puts flying taxi ahead of competitors, though, and it’s no mean feat when the aircraft actually existed as little more efforts than a concept roughly one year ago.
When completed, the vehicle will serve as “urban air mobility” which has a solution that shuttles passengers across different town in situations where ground transportation would be slower or impractical, with a peak range of probably 50 miles per hour.
The electric powerplant isn’t present here just for the sake of environmental responsibility it passes as a bird without disturbing the environment. It would ensure the aircraft is quiet enough to operate easily and flyover without worrying or irritating the other people below.
There are also further plans for a cargo-oriented counterpart that could haul nearly or up to 500lbs of goods, and it is made to move from indoor to outdoor testing in 2019.
The greater challenge might be to find more customers for these vehicles. Local governments have been receptive for more tests, but they still have regulatory and practical hurdles which have to clear.
Where do you place their landing aircrafts pads? Where and when would these aircraft be allowed to fly? Companies have to develop more efficient flying taxis to answer at least some of these questions, though, and Boeing is at least inching forward on that front for answering.
Boeing is the largest aerospace company in the United States, it is putting a lot of investment behind the development of these air flying taxi vehicles, which the company view as the future of urban mobility.
According to a new report last year in Bloomberg, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Muilenburg, wisely said that air taxis are going to become a reality very soon in the future. Real prototype vehicles are being built right now. So, the technology is very doable to use.”
Bloomberg further expounds on Muilenburg’s vision as an opportunity to shape the direction of new future and urban infrastructure. It “Fleets of self-piloted aircraft flying taxi.
It could be hovering above city streets and dodging as skyscrapers within a decade, Muilenburg said. Propelling these advances are a flood of investments, rapid gains in autonomy and growing consumer frustration with bumper-to-bumper traffic” make it very hard.
Source: Boeing