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Will eVTOL take over the commercial small-helicopter market?


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That's quite a tough question to answer but seeing the advances and innovation that this eVTOL manufacturer has been making, I don't see any reason for to be impossible. I read that they're the only public pureplay company that has a fully-functioning prototype which I think really puts them ahead of the competition. I'm actually quite excited for this development and I kind of see them as the next Tesla but for eVTOL and they may not necessarily take over the commercial small-helicopter market but might very well find a niche/market of their own that could be a combination of more services that small-helicopters couldn't do.

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Have answered your first question, I guess. Means that the FPPs rotate at a (reasonably constant) speed which is energy-efficient. One can imagine that the push prop will have variable blade settings.

No, they operate at constant pitch, so as the weight goes up, the RRPM must also rise. Heavy weight, loud screams. Not more efficient. A real helicopter is able to run at constant RRPM by increasing the pitch with increasing weight.

 

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might very well find a niche/market of their own that could be a combination of more services that small-helicopters couldn't do.

What can these do that a small helicopter could not? The dream of pilotless is only a dream. The regulations have not changed to allow door-to-door passenger ops. despite the posts from 2017 saying "in 3-5 years it will happen." The range is still too small to have any passenger purpose. There appears to be no space for pax to put suitcases to get to the airport.

Keep dreaming.

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While a slightly different track, I think much of the helicopter industry's utility work (to include LE) will go UAV in the very near future. The same can be said for light, short lift, work like moving paperwork from bank to bank. With reference to eVTOL I feel we are confusing two tracks. First, most people seem to be thinking in terms of several passengers while the eVTOL idea is to move two to four over a short distance - think city center to major airport. This, I think, is not too far off (ten to twenty years).

The big questions is manning. I doubt they will ever be entirely unmanned, but there is room for human “monitoring.” Think of it this way, a pilot of a major long haul jet doesn’t actually fly the thing, they monitor the systems and standby to solve problems in the event of a failure. I can see something similar in the eVTOL world. 

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