From the article:<p>> CityAirbus has an 80km range and can fly at 120kmh<p>That's a 40 minute flight compared to roughly a 1 hour drive and vastly more expensive. Is this really useful?
They could have pivoted to small military VTOLs, lots of MAV companies did, i.e.quantum-systems.<p>Rushing specialist and replacement parts to large scale equipment in use, would reduce the burden of relocating this equipment.<p>The fact that they did not try, might be a hint on how well it worked.
Sigh. I guess China will be able to finance, redesign and manufacture these. Won’t be Europe, at least. Maybe in the 2030s?<p>Now, if Europe could jump start its manufacturing by getting its defense contracting up to speed…
Private money doesn't want to finance this, and State money should NOT finance this, as it's an individual "luxury" solution to a societal issue. Hence, there's no money or interest and the companies fail. That's a very acceptable and normal cycle.
There are many dreams that are failing. Self driving is solved having private driver by upper class. The same is for flying taxi. Renting helicopter is no big deal. Few hundred euros per hour and you’re anywhere in no time. Maybe flying taxi is a solution to no problem.
The problem with "flying anything" plans is that ground vehicles are pretty inherently stable with regards to most types of failures. Cutting or losing power solves most problems.<p>Not so with aircraft: any failure leaves the vehicle in a notably unsafe state - hence the delta between maintenance standards for road vehicles ("have brakes which work" basically) and aircraft.
Judging by these comments we should all just go back to riding on the backs on donkeys, except even that was at one point only a privilege for the clergy.