They want 20 of the aircraft in NZ by the end of 2019.
Which begs the obvious question - infrastructure. How do we handle flying taxis taking off and coming in to land. Where are the launchpads? Well the company claims it could be a parking lot or a basketball court, a rooftop, or just some grass. Cue the skepticism.
Most of us, those who are not aeronautical engineers or scientists or risk takers, will be slightly trepidatious about popping our loved ones into a flying taxi in a random carpark and waving them off.
In the US, Uber has hired a bunch of senior Nasa and aerospace employees to deliver plans for swarms of robot-driven airborne vehicles that transport passengers across cities. It claims the service will be cheaper and faster than existing taxi services, upending urban transport and addressing growing congestion fears.
Congestions fears? What about safety fears, regulation, cost - the list is endless. But then when radical change is on the agenda, lists of fears always are too.
I am intrigued as to how we can keep pace from a regulatory point if view with new technology, when often our approach is the ambulance at bottom of the cliff. Take drones for example. They were the all-time star-studded Christmas wish list gift just a few months back, nek minnit they're shutting down air travel by disrupting the airport and getting in the way of aircraft. If we can't even control drones in this country, how are we popping a bunch of auto-piloted flying taxis into the air?
Obviously much work is yet to be done, and like all progress, though scary to begin with, we should be grateful to these pioneers of change who pave the (airborne) highways to our future. As long as we can keep pace on the ground in terms of how we structure the future of air transport, maybe our aspirational childhood dreams of living like the Jetsons may just become a reality after all.
