Re: Got lucky at the drive thru

On Sun, 13 Apr 2025 17:30:43 +0000, Dave Smith wrote:

On 2025-04-13 12:36 p.m., dsi1 wrote:

On Sun, 13 Apr 2025 15:04:07 +0000, Dave Smith wrote:

>

One of my childhood friends went to the US in the 60s to join the army
and became a helicopter pilot. Apparently he went to Vietnam. He may
have been inspired by another neighbour who started up a helicopter
business in the late 50s when helicopters were pretty much restricted to
the military. We lived in a small subdivison that was surrounded by
farmland. On weekends they guy would land in thee field closest to his
house and take people up for rides. IIRC it was $5 a head which was
about twice as much as I made in a week from my paper route. He went on
to open up the first helicopter tour company in Niagara Falls.

>
A helicopter is a vehicle with thousand of parts trying to rip itself
apart. I think a drone type of configuration would be much safer. I
guess we'll find out if this is true.

>
>
It doesn't take much to have something go terribly wrong in those
things. They require a lot of maintenance.  I just checked out the cost
per hour at a helicopter training school and it runs from $620- 950 per
hour, about 5-6 times the cost of flying a single engine plane.
>

>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUfxXZdWr3g

>
What do you suppose the chances are that if one of those many motors
craps out mid flight the others will automatically compensate?

I think the vehicle will remain stable if motors go out. The motors are
computer controlled. You can tell it's not human controlled, because its
too stable in flight. It's probably the most stable heavier than air
aircraft in aviation history. My guess is that all aircraft of this type
will have a safety parachute system installed.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_tnpuxrXb-4