I'd love a link to that Uber cost number - I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around a car costing more than $100/hr to operate. Even a New York City cab, rented to a driver from a profit making cab company and including the cost of the medallion was $120 for twelve hours of driving.
A chunk of a GA aircraft's operational cost is annual maintenance. By flying more per year, the operational cost of an aircraft goes down. I think you can get the operational of a Cirrus down to $100/hr if you fly it 500 hours per year.
However, operating this aircraft at scale would seem to have some real maintenance advantages beyond what you would typically see for General Aviation:
- There's only one moving part in an electric motor, vs all the complexity of a [edit: 6 cylinder] piston aircraft engine.
- You can specialize your people, procedures, and facility around a single aircraft type.
- You can swap out engines and avionics and work on them while the aircraft returns to flying.
And yes, this won't be as aerodynamic as a Cirrus, but it should be similar to a GA single engine aircraft, rather than either a quadcopter or a helicopter.
GA aircraft engines are rarely V6 they are mostly flat 6 or flat 4 for smaller planes. If you go to the website for Lycoming as an example you see they are all flat except for one I4. https://www.lycoming.com/engines
- I was just looking at the cost for me to take Uber across town. My experience has a lot of 30 minute trips in different cities, which has equated to $50 rides on UberX, and that is always between urban centers and airports (i.e. ideal connecting points). My assumption would be that Uber gets as close to operating cost as feasible, if not cheating on the backs of the drivers, plus Uber hasn't actually made money (but thats a different discussion!). So thats my $100/hr for an Uber. Never mind the fact that personal car ownership is far cheaper.
- With very limited experience with general aviation, I have chartered a few private flights- for around $4000 for a day trip on a late model KingAir. Not worth much for this comparison. But thats why I looked to Uber as the absolute low end, because the best economics of air travel will probably only approach the best economics of surface travel.
- I just don't know why Cora's aerodynamics wouldn't look a heck of a lot like a quadcopter. My background is Civil engineering (im a static kind of guy!) so i dont know much here. All those extra surfaces add a lot of drag, no way around it. I wonder if they could turn the props and feather them up so they all align and provide lift with forward flight? I'm sure Eric Allison (engineering lead) is on top of it.
Dont get me wrong, I think its great stuff and I look forward to its development. However, there are a lot more problems to solve than just perfecting the actual aircraft. Its a whole ecosystem, not just an air shuttle. Recent history has given us a few great entrepreneurs who have overcome a multitude of problems in their space, but i definitely wouldn't bet too early on something like this without a little more to show for it. The New Zealand partnership will be a good prooving grounds.
A chunk of a GA aircraft's operational cost is annual maintenance. By flying more per year, the operational cost of an aircraft goes down. I think you can get the operational of a Cirrus down to $100/hr if you fly it 500 hours per year.
However, operating this aircraft at scale would seem to have some real maintenance advantages beyond what you would typically see for General Aviation:
- There's only one moving part in an electric motor, vs all the complexity of a [edit: 6 cylinder] piston aircraft engine.
- You can specialize your people, procedures, and facility around a single aircraft type.
- You can swap out engines and avionics and work on them while the aircraft returns to flying.
And yes, this won't be as aerodynamic as a Cirrus, but it should be similar to a GA single engine aircraft, rather than either a quadcopter or a helicopter.