The grandiose plans for enormous multi story vertiports first illustrated in the stillborn Uber Elevate 'summits' shows the achilles heel of the whole evtol/ UAM scenario. Vertiports, like airports are the functional equivalent of the parking space for the automobile (or taxi) , basically somewhere to pull off the pathway/skyway and leave the vehicle to continue your trip to it's actual destination (and to return later and resume the trip back home) Vertical take off,with attendant huge power demand, IS the main logistic problem even if better than reliance on conventional airports ( not possible in already settled or densly populated places like cities,towns,suburbia. ) sounds like a no win situation then? It IS except if ATOL is considered which uses assisted take off and landing and elevated cable arrays over the unused above road space or existing building tops or interbuilding space. Some military drones use similar launch and land assist as do naval carrier operations but at vastly different scales, gliders winch launching or the humble kite are better analogies. In any case the infrastructure issue is a critical part of the diseconomy of evtol as now promoted. There is a need for an updated VTOL(e) "wheel of misfortune" as was created for the several hundred failed vtols of the past - with over 1200 registered evtol projects just on the VFS website directory each one can only occupy about a quarter of a degree on the new wheel...😅 This whole evtol craziness is a real time study of the madness of crowds and stock market manias fully equal to the Tulipmania or South SeaBubble fiascos. The right questions are not being asked in the blaze of greed.
The grandiose plans for enormous multi story vertiports first illustrated in the stillborn Uber Elevate 'summits' shows the achilles heel of the whole evtol/ UAM scenario. Vertiports, like airports are the functional equivalent of the parking space for the automobile (or taxi) , basically somewhere to pull off the pathway/skyway and leave the vehicle to continue your trip to it's actual destination (and to return later and resume the trip back home)
Vertical take off,with attendant huge power demand, IS the main logistic problem even if better than reliance on conventional airports ( not possible in already settled or densly populated places like cities,towns,suburbia. ) sounds like a no win situation then?
It IS except if ATOL is considered which uses assisted take off and landing and elevated cable arrays over the unused above road space or existing building tops or interbuilding space.
Some military drones use similar launch and land assist as do naval carrier operations but at vastly different scales, gliders winch launching or the humble kite are better analogies.
In any case the infrastructure issue is a critical part of the diseconomy of evtol as now promoted.
There is a need for an updated VTOL(e) "wheel of misfortune" as was created for the several hundred failed vtols of the past - with over 1200 registered evtol projects just on the VFS website directory each one can only occupy about a quarter of a degree on the new wheel...😅
This whole evtol craziness is a real time study of the madness of crowds and stock market manias fully equal to the Tulipmania or South SeaBubble fiascos.
The right questions are not being asked in the blaze of greed.