Autonomous vehicles are already doing so well with two dimensions, why not add a z-axis?
The skies over parts of the US could soon get busier, as the Federal Aviation Administration launches pilot projects spanning 26 states to test electric air taxis and other next-gen aircraft, with operations expected to begin by summer 2026.
Selections for the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) were announced by the FAA on Monday, with eight projects chosen to participate in the initiative. The program will run for three years after the first project begins operations, and the selected efforts span 26 states.
According to the FAA, the projects will explore operational concepts including urban air taxi services, regional passenger transportation, cargo and logistics networks, emergency medical response operations, autonomous flight technologies, and offshore or energy-sector transportation.
“These partnerships will help us better understand how to safely and efficiently integrate these aircraft into the National Airspace System,” said FAA Deputy Administrator Chris Rocheleau. “The program will provide valuable operational experience that will inform the standards needed to enable safe Advanced Air Mobility operations.”
Anything to avoid building reliable clean and functional public transit.
Seriously we already have a futuristic form of transportation that can move you from one end of the city to the other in a reliable way, that does not involve traffic or anything on the surface. It’s called the Subway. You build it once and it’s pretty much good forever.
I have seen so many techbros try to “solve transportation”, and every idea always fails in comparison to building a train line.
Go ahead, you can go use the “futuristic” hyperloop in Vegas right now. You wait 20 minutes to get into a car which takes 20 minutes to get about 6 blocks ahead.
When I was a student in Germany, I lived in a Dorf of some 700 people, 10km from the school in the “big” city – Hameln. If the weather was good, I’d bike to school through wheat fields. If it was bad, the Stadtkreis (regional government, but not state level; roughly akin to a county) had regular bus service to get into town.
Once in Hameln, wheels were rare. All of downtown was a pedestrian zone, and where that ended was about a five-minute walk from the train station. At which point I could take a regional train to Hannover, and from there, an ICE (not the bad one, the Intercity Express) that could get me to France or Switzerland in only a few hours, without any customs or airport bullshit. And the trains were, of course, all electric, and ran on time (leave it to the Germans!).
This was 30 years ago, and we’re still trying to figure out basic transport here that has been in use for decades.
Having traveled there myself, I’m so freaking jealous. It’s absolute insanity that us American’s have the gall to say we’re the “best country on earth” but can’t even move our citizens around efficiently. I’ve heard all of the excuses. It’s too expensive, we’re not close together, we’re too big, americans don’t like taking the train. All horseshit. Other larger countries have done it, others have changed their culture, it’s absolutely stupid that we haven’t done it.
It all boils down to one singular fact in my years of advocacy. Car/oil companies do not want Americans discovering that they are wasting their lives and money behind the wheel of cars, because they have never been as profitable as they are now.
Car culture has somehow been subsumed into the “rugged individualism” umbrella. I recall one instance where I had to call my host family for a ride, but otherwise, we were all able to get around on transit.
You get to a bigger city, and now you have trams. This is my favourite way to travel in town. They’re quiet, reliable, and don’t hinder vehicle traffic. Even better is they get priority lights so that they aren’t dealing with turning vehicles at each signaled intersection.
What’s funny is, we literally already have helicopters that rich people seem to use to get places.
These flying taxis are the exact same thing.
It’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, which is why it pretty much never takes off (no pun intended).
This the same FAA that doesn’t have enough air traffic controllers to properly manage current aircraft for all airports and keep them from crashing? Or enough inspectors or whatever to ensure large planes used by hundreds of thousands of people per year are properly maintained and safe?
Spectacular idea to add another several thousand little high-tech high-fail flight pods to the mix!
The same FAA whose air traffic controllers Republicans have been shafting since Reagan, yep.
How and why is it not mostly automated at this point, anyway?
Probably for a similar reason the IRS runs off COBOL.
Allergic to improvements if they require significant overhaul.
Technically ground vehicles travel across X and Z. Y being the vertical axis
But that’s just a matter of perspective.
Civil engineering and aerospace engineering almost always use Z axis to represent the vertical.
Ah well I’m less stupid thanks you your comment! Thank you!
Is there a point to this? Back to the Future isn’t 2001: A Space Odyssey. It doesn’t have to predict everything.
Cars crash enough already for reasons spanning from shit driving to shit manufacturing. I don’t see the value in making them even more guaranteed to be lethal on failure, especially when innocent pedestrians and people’s roofs are downrange from these things.
Oops, the battery ran out. Hope we’re not over somewhere populated! The tech just isn’t ready until we have Mr. Fusion.
if one of these falls, and causes injury to someone I personally know, myself or my property… someone will be held personally accountable through traditional means…
Adding a z axis means that they can move in a much straighter and less rigid path, though. A car can only turn left or right or change its velocity to avoid things, whereas a flying vehicle can also go up or down, with the added benefit that there’s a lot less to run into up in the sky.
The Z axis adds more than just a direction. Thrust, Lift, Stalls, Icing, Wind, Clouds, Precipitation, Temperature, Humidity, Radios, Communication, Flight Planning…
Car manufacturers got really good at adding crumple zones to cars to avoid injury to their occupants. Car design knows to avoid putting the fuel tank in places that could cause it to combust. What crumple zone can a flying taxi have that protects you from hitting the Earth during a stall? Where can they put the fuel such that it doesn’t explode on impact with just about anything?
Depends how many other vehicles are “up in the sky.”
Multipass!
