12 Technology Quarterly |Aviation The EconomistJune 1st 2019
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canbefoundat:Economist.com/technology-quarterlyAs to technology, Blackfly has a carbon-fibre airframe, electric
motors for propulsion, lithium-ion batteries to provide the power,
and smart software to stop the pilot accidentally killing himself or
anyone else. Moreover, Blackfly has been designed so that it qual-
ifies, in America, as an ultralight. That means the person flying it is
required to have neither licence nor training (though the firm will,
in practice, insist on customers undertaking an induction course
before they take delivery).
Urban air mobility is the buzz phrase behind Blackfly. And the
firm is not alone. A bunch of companies, many of them, like Open-
er, founded specifically for the purpose, have come up recently
with a plethora of designs for single or two-seat personal air tran-
sport. That is catnip to technophiles like Mr Page.
Like Blackfly, most of the new designs derive their motive pow-
er from arrays of electrically driven propellers, an arrangement
pioneered by the small, “multicopter” drones that took to the air a
decade or so ago. Some firms have simply scaled drones up. One
such is eHang, a Chinese outfit that was already in the drone-
manufacturing business before the idea of urban air mobility took
off. eHang’s two-seater, the 216, was unveiled on April 4th at a show
in Vienna. It has a cabin that sprouts eight struts, each fitted with
two propellers. Unlike Blackfly, which is piloted by its occupant,
the 216 will be, at least to start with, a robot, for eHang’s initial plan
is to run the craft as taxis rather than private vehicles.
Another firm building a scaled-up drone is Volocopter, a Ger-
man startup. The two-seat cabin of its eponymous vehicle is at-
tached below an 18-propeller structure that resembles a spider’s
web built of curved strands of silk. This, like eHang’s craft, will of-
fer a preprogrammed point-to-point service for avoiding traffic
jams. A second German company, Lilium, has another approach.
Its prototype, which has rear-mounted wings, a pair of canards
and is propelled by electrically powered ducted fans rather than
propellers, made its maiden flight in May.
Back in Silicon Valley Kitty Hawk, yet another firm part-owned
by Mr Page, has also added wings to provide extra lift. Its two-seat-
er, Cora, has 12 small lifting propellers and a single, large, rear-
mounted one to drive the thing forward when in flight. And Air-
bus’s special-projects unit, a^3 , also based in Silicon Valley, has
come up with Vahana, a craft that has four rotatable propeller-lad-
en wings. These point upwards for take-off and landing, and for-
wards for level flight. Even Boeing has belatedly joined the party,having unveiled its own, so far nameless,
offering in January.
Unlike everything else discussed in this
report—even the return of supersonic pas-
senger aircraft—urban air mobility has the
potential to change the way society works.
It is not exactly a disruptive technology, at
least not yet. Planes, trains and automo-
biles will continue to run more or less as
now. But if flying cars really take off, as it
were, it would be a transformative technol-
ogy, for local transport networks would
surely change quite a lot.
As with supersonic passenger planes,
the private firms involved in this field have
a tendency to make optimistic claims. But
some really are getting close to commercial
operation. In April eHang received permis-
sion from the Chinese government to be-
gin test flights, such as island-hopping,
with passengers. Volocopter will be con-
ducting trials of its craft in Singapore later
this year, also with a view to starting an air-
taxi service. And Opener plans to start mak-
ing Blackfly commercially by the end of the
year. One city to keep a particular eye on is
São Paulo, in Brazil, where the authorities already permit taxi jour-
neys by helicopter to avoid the crowded streets below. Success
there would be a model for other large cities, particularly ones in
middle-income countries that also have inadequate roads.Coming, ready or not
Integrating such taxis into air-traffic-control systems should not
be too hard. One model of the future is that, as has been suggested
for ground cars, increased automation will mean people just call
for a flying car when they need one, and it will fly in to pick them
up, flight plan filed and ready. Moreover, there are fewer obstacles
and surprises in the sky than on the ground, so pilotless flying cars
may be easier to build than driverless road cars. If firms like Open-
er have their way, though, private pilots will buy them for the sheer
joy of being in control. That will require new air-traffic-control
systems, perhaps ones in which craft talk directly to one another,
rather than being centrally managed.
Back in the more mainstream part of aviation, too, the future
looks bright. Fleets are growing as more people in more parts of the
world can afford to travel. To pluck another analogy from the unifi-
cation of Italy, it was said then that “railways will serve to sew up
the Italian boot.” The growth of air transport is doing something
similar to the planet. Despite recent tragedies, flying is getting saf-
er. It is also getting cheaper and, at least on a per passenger-kilo-
metre basis, greener. The Hegelian synthesis of technological con-
servatism and innovation that governs the field is, both literally
and metaphorically, delivering. 72