First Manned Drone

[rcdancer]

Incredible manned drone can perform rolls and loops at 87MPH

The 'Big Drone' had its maiden outdoor flight in Croatia with CEO of the Drone Champions League, Herbert Weirather, in the hot seat while a remote pilot made the craft loop and roll.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[SanCap]

What is the purpose of having a man in a remote piloted drone? If the occupant has any amount of aircraft control is it still considered a drone ?

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

What is the purpose of having a man in a remote piloted drone? If the occupant has any amount of aircraft control is it still considered a drone ?

...Old pilots like me who are partially disabled and can't get in the cockpit ever again.


I'd pay a year's income for a flight in that puppy! I'll be 67 this week,not much to lose....

 

[R.Perry]

That looks like a heck a lot of fun to fly. Good question, not a drone because it has a pilot on board. I think at some point helicopter as we know it will be replaced with multi-electric motors and most likely be hybrids. Stop and think about it, manufacturing cost and maintenance would be a fraction of what a helicopter costs.

 

[ArrUnTuS]

If it makes autonomous flights without the intervention of anyone who flies as a passenger, it could be considered a drone ?

 

[clolsonus]

That looks like a heck a lot of fun to fly. Good question, not a drone because it has a pilot on board. I think at some point helicopter as we know it will be replaced with multi-electric motors and most likely be hybrids. Stop and think about it, manufacturing cost and maintenance would be a fraction of what a helicopter costs.

There are a couple things though ... a conventional helicopter is far more efficient than a multirotor (so longer range, higher carrying capacity, etc. for the same amount of fuel.) A conventional helicopter can be built and flown with all manual linkages and zero electronics. Multirotors require a flight computer between the pilot inputs and the motors ... including sensors like an IMU. Your best case failure scenario in a helicopter will likely come true if you have enough altitude, you just cruise in for a nice soft uneventful autorotation touch down whereever you want to put it. In a multirotor if something goes haywire (like a motor failure) you better hope your redundancy is working long enough to get you on the ground. More likely you will be tumbling if you lose a motor and the remaining one overheats trying to carry the extra load ... now you pop your safety chute and the lines get all balled up in the working props because you are tumbling.

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

There are a couple things though ... a conventional helicopter is far more efficient than a multirotor (so longer range, higher carrying capacity, etc. for the same amount of fuel.) A conventional helicopter can be built and flown with all manual linkages and zero electronics. Multirotors require a flight computer between the pilot inputs and the motors ... including sensors like an IMU. Your best case failure scenario in a helicopter will likely come true if you have enough altitude, you just cruise in for a nice soft uneventful autorotation touch down whereever you want to put it. In a multirotor if something goes haywire (like a motor failure) you better hope your redundancy is working long enough to get you on the ground. More likely you will be tumbling if you lose a motor and the remaining one overheats trying to carry the extra load ... now you pop your safety chute and the lines get all balled up in the working props because you are tumbling.

IF, if, if....And if cows flew we'd need to carry umbrellas...

 

[R.Perry]

There are a couple things though ... a conventional helicopter is far more efficient than a multirotor (so longer range, higher carrying capacity, etc. for the same amount of fuel.) A conventional helicopter can be built and flown with all manual linkages and zero electronics. Multirotors require a flight computer between the pilot inputs and the motors ... including sensors like an IMU. Your best case failure scenario in a helicopter will likely come true if you have enough altitude, you just cruise in for a nice soft uneventful autorotation touch down whereever you want to put it. In a multirotor if something goes haywire (like a motor failure) you better hope your redundancy is working long enough to get you on the ground. More likely you will be tumbling if you lose a motor and the remaining one overheats trying to carry the extra load ... now you pop your safety chute and the lines get all balled up in the working props because you are tumbling.

When you speak of efficiency, you also need to factor in maintenance and inspections, there is where the helicopter looses. As for computers, why do you think all the modern aircraft use them extensively and the airline pilots are now told to let the computer do most of the flying. Most likely any multi-rotor aircraft would have a minimum of eight electric motors, with a engine running a generator, and mathematically I believe I could prove where that would be much more efficient that a helicopter.
As for parachutes there are a variety of deployment options as well as prop guards that would prevent the motors eating the parachute.
As for auto rotation, I've seen videos of some, many of the pilots and passengers didn't survive. I have no experience with helicopters but just do a search on helicopter accidents and see what you come up with, and just focus on mechanical failures and not stupid pilots.

 

[clolsonus]

When you speak of efficiency, you also need to factor in maintenance and inspections, there is where the helicopter looses. As for computers, why do you think all the modern aircraft use them extensively and the airline pilots are now told to let the computer do most of the flying. Most likely any multi-rotor aircraft would have a minimum of eight electric motors, with a engine running a generator, and mathematically I believe I could prove where that would be much more efficient that a helicopter.
As for parachutes there are a variety of deployment options as well as prop guards that would prevent the motors eating the parachute.
As for auto rotation, I've seen videos of some, many of the pilots and passengers didn't survive. I have no experience with helicopters but just do a search on helicopter accidents and see what you come up with, and just focus on mechanical failures and not stupid pilots.

A lot of people think evtols are going to be the future, NASA even is funding projects in this area and starting to dabble themselves. Right now people are proving that it's possible, but I'm skeptical about how practical they will be. Also, I am going to let a lot of people go ahead of me in line to ride one of these things before I take my turn.

 

[ArrUnTuS]

How intense and interesting the conversation has become ?

I think all the manned "drones" are focused on either transporting small amounts of merchandise or as personal vehicles. It is unthinkable that in the future we will have a sky full of these devices if they do not fly autonomously, with artificial intelligence, etc. Otherwise, the umbrella that Luis says, we would have to use it to cover ourselves from the remains of all the accidents that would occur.

I don't know where I read, that there are already people thinking about this scenario. Unique air corridors where alternatively this type of vehicles would be incorporated or leaving forming a synchronized and totally automated dance without human intervention other than the general control of the air space. And in that scenario, I do see it as feasible. Thinking about a taxi, getting in, clicking on a screen the destination of the possible ones and automatically does everything.

Regardless of their greater or lesser efficiency, I see it as possible due to the fact that, just as with electric cars, the production of electric motors is much simpler and more efficient than that of combustion engines, and on top of that they pollute much less (something that we should always bear in mind, gentlemen, climate change is not a story, and it is becoming more and more evident despite the fact that some brainless people continue to deny it and refuse to take steps to try to stop it). More efficient, cheaper, easier to produce, will undoubtedly be the future.

The trend with electric cars, which has already taken many steps, is going exactly the same way. Maybe the sky full of drones as we have seen in the movies is not seen by us, but the same thing in electric cars, in 30 years? 40 years? I think most of us here are just about to see it come true ???????

 

[R.Perry]

There is no question that air traffic control could be a huge problem if they became affordable and available to many people. I see them in the same roll as helicopters today with about the same number flying.
As for flying one, I would be first in line to fly one.

 

[Earnest Ward]

I don't know where I read, that there are already people thinking about this scenario. Unique air corridors where alternatively this type of vehicles would be incorporated or leaving forming a synchronized and totally automated dance without human intervention other than the general control of the air space. And in that scenario, I do see it as feasible. Thinking about a taxi, getting in, clicking on a screen the destination of the possible ones and automatically does everything.

Hyundai and Uber unveiled an urban air mobility concept in Jan. at CES2020 (which included integrated hubs and autonomous ground vehicles.) Toyota announced their own program in Feb. And Uber and a DFW-based architectural firm have unveiled the design for the country's first vertiport, which is currently planned for Frisco, TX.

 

[R.Perry]

First thing you would need is an ATC system controlled by AI or you would have ATC personal committing suicide due to being over taxed mentally.
I have done plenty of flying into and out of the bay area, Los Angeles and right not ATC is about at it limits as to what it can handle, Add a few hundred more aircraft and they would be totally overwhelmed.
I think the next decade it going to see some major changes, hope they are all good.

 

[ArrUnTuS]

The corridors of the drones at maximum 400 feet and in principle not visible, only in case of anomaly, by the air traffic controllers. Helicopters at a minimum of 500 feet and the final descent to the heliports must be done vertically. The helicopters would also carry, even if they are controlled by humans, an automatic pilot that would take the controls in case something goes wrong.

I don't know, it's a quick example, I'm sure it has many drawbacks, but something could be done. But one important factor, the number of helicopters would drop very dramatically, even to extinction since the drones would be much cheaper in every way and could do the same functions easily.

We're imagining it, right?

P.S.: Anyway, I don't think we'll see it with our eyes. Although development is very fast, this kind of thing involving human personal security needs many years of development to be feasible.

 

[AH-1G]

This is why here in the US all planes are required to have Auto Detection, to help Approach, ATC and Tower.
Future autonomous vehicles will have specific waypoints and from there brake off to their final destination.

 

[R.Perry]

One of the problems is the older aircraft (general aviation) that don't have updated electronics but they are still flying, heck our Cessna 188 don't even have a working transponder.

 

[R.Perry]

The corridors of the drones at maximum 400 feet and in principle not visible, only in case of anomaly, by the air traffic controllers. Helicopters at a minimum of 500 feet and the final descent to the heliports must be done vertically. The helicopters would also carry, even if they are controlled by humans, an automatic pilot that would take the controls in case something goes wrong.

I don't know, it's a quick example, I'm sure it has many drawbacks, but something could be done. But one important factor, the number of helicopters would drop very dramatically, even to extinction since the drones would be much cheaper in every way and could do the same functions easily.

We're imagining it, right?

P.S.: Anyway, I don't think we'll see it with our eyes. Although development is very fast, this kind of thing involving human personal security needs many years of development to be feasible.

That sounds good in theory, but it won't work. First of all if you are hauling people you need to be flying higher than 400 feet, why, in the event something goes wrong. Besides that, ATC can't track you that low in most cases. Vertical flight aircraft will most likely need to fly under the same guidelines as helicopters. I can see a time coming when all flight into or out of TCA controlled area will be IFR only.

 

[ArrUnTuS]

Indeed, but this is a new scenario and almost certainly systems other than the current ones will be implemented to eliminate all those problems. For example, and I see it as feasible, that the aircraft will have direct two-way communication with a satellite network or anything similar. Right now it may be impossible for us, but as with everything, if something is needed, it will be invented.

Who would have thought that we would have only electric vehicles? Who would have thought that they could be powered directly from the road without wires? (there are already sections that allow this). Technology advances so fast that it's scary

 

[R.Perry]

We already have, and have had for some time stalactite links with our military aircraft, how do you think the military flies a predator from Las Vegas over Iraq or anywhere else they want. That is also the next bottleneck, how many satellite links can be handled at one time.

I'm of the baby boomer generation and what I have seen in technology just amazes me, what we have today was science fiction when I was a kid. Technology has increased exponentially and continues to do so. I was in high school before I ever seen my first color TV program, yes we have come a long ways in a very short time compared to advancements in previous centuries.

 

[PatR]

Just think, many of all watched this stuff a long time ago in the Jetson cartoons...