Aircraft, Big and Small, Are Changing Our Relationship With Flight

Because most drones are battery operated, they will have a lower carbon footprint than other transportation modes, though the benefits will be weighed against the support required: conventionally powered warehouses, drone ports and charging stations.

As commercial drones get bigger, lift more, fly farther and become more abundant, they will lead the way in gauging public opinion about whether the sky should become a commercial highway.

“People do care, especially if it’s newfangled,” said Patrick Sherman, a drone pilot and consultant to the industry. “If we can take anything from the first years, it is that people are suspicious of these kinds of aircraft moving through the skies.”

Urban Air Mobility

Generally speaking, urban air mobility vehicles are grown-up drones that can carry people.

EHang, a Chinese company, is already testing a pilotless aircraft that can carry two passengers. It has an arrangement to begin flights in the city of Guangzhou. Uber Elevate wants to begin flights in 2023 in two cities in the United States as well as in Melbourne, Australia.

“Twenty years from now, there should be several hundred thousand” of these aircraft according to Fred Reid, global head of transportation for Airbnb, and the former president of a company developing urban air mobility vehicles. “This is very much a case of when and not if.”

Assuming he is right, aviation cannot help but become a more noticeable part of daily life. Sky ports will be needed to connect transportation hubs to one another in cities and to link them to outlying communities.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/technology/aviation-planes-drones.html