Electric air taxi, anyone?

This seems ambitious but awesome. I wonder if the range forecast will hold true. 

https://abcnews.go.com/US/hundreds-flying-taxis-built-ohio-governor-announces/story?id=103287998

An upscaled drone helicopter basically. 

It'sbeen all over local news here as well. I hope it succeeds, and its a cool concept, but lots of questions about implementation and how useful it would be in areas with real weather.  People are going to expect the same level of dispatch reliability as Uber.

My question would be: where are they going to land and take off from?  Certainly not the city streets.  Small airports are rather scarce in populated areas, and are being closed as fast as developers can get them closed.  Heliports are not very common either.

Even if you land at a local airport, you will still need a ride, so short flights are likely not practical and long flights may not be the strength of an electric aircraft.  

In reply to aircooled :

when in doubt, parachute

If there's not a real market for gas air taxis, why would there be one for electric?  Let alone, that kind of flight is not all that efficient, explaining why helicopter flight is so much more expensive than winged planes. 

4cylndrfury said:

In reply to aircooled :

when in doubt, parachute

That, too- if you are in a helicopter, the craft is capable of auto rotation to land if there is an engine problem.  Drone style can't do that. 

I'm a pilot. No berking way am I flying in the A model of one of those.

I imagine this will be for the well heeled to zip around big cities that have helipads on skyscrapers.

Also a pilot here. 200mph and 100 mile range? So these things are going to take off with 30 minutes of "fuel"? I don't leave the ground unless I calculate I have 30 minutes EXTRA fuel left over when I get to where I'm going.

Hard pass, and I've flown experimental/home built aircraft.