Crazy Car-Sized Drone Flies a Person Autonomously

[madokie]

Crazy Car-Sized Drone Flies a Person Autonomously
Jan 7, 2016 05:00 PM ET // by Tracy Staedter

On the heals of the FAA’s requirement that US citizens register their drones comes a totally new kind of autonomous aircraft that will have regulatory heads spinning.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Chinese company EHang unveiled its 184, a crazy car-sized, autonomous aircraft that could throw a wrench into our definition of “drone.”

Future Airplanes To Be Faster And Eco-Friendlier

The 440-pound machine has four rotors and uses an app to take off, fly a route and land. There are no manual flight controls, so even if the passenger were a trained pilot, that training would be rendered useless.

How would one deal with the craft in an emergency situation? In a press release from the company, it says that “passengers can elect to halt flight and simply hover in the air with just one click.” Hmmm. Okay. But let’s say hovering doesn’t work.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/alternative-power-sources/crazy-car-sized-drone-flies-a-person-autonomously-160107.htm

I don't see why they can't make a drone sized to carry people to and from where ever. Sure there would be limits as things stand today on how far a person could go and all that but it would be a start to getting us off the ground for getting from here to there.
Just something to think about is all, maybe even discuss. Who knows where this could go

[Mbrow]

1. Very interesting,

I see a lot of "but what if this goes wrong" people coming, but if you consider how many people die in car wrecks every year.....

Thanks for the post

[DetlefK]

2. Flying in a plane you couldn't steer, even if it was an emergency and you tried to.

Nothing bad could possibly come out of this.

[madokie]

3. That part is neither here nor there to my thinking right now

I say forget the anonymous flying part and let the occupants do the controlling but use this type of vehicle to get us from here to there. for instance today I have to go pay our yearly insurance and if I had one of these I could zip up there the 8 miles pay my bill and be back home and have a pot of chilli on by the time I get there in my pick'mup truck. All the while not having to worry if one of the 18 wheeler drivers who, who knows how long they've been up, who nods off and runs over my old ass

Looks like it would be a lot easier to learn to fly than a conventional airplane or helicopter too. To me anyway

[DetlefK]

4. How good are you at piloting a helicopter-drone?

Have you ever flown it really fast without crashing somewhere?

Have you ever managed to land exactly where you wanted, down to an inch?

[madokie]

5. Being on the inside controlling it

compared to outside like you're saying would make all the difference in how hard it would be to pilot I would think

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Yikes ! Why the high center of gravity ?

Put the rotors up higher, the passenger lower.