I am absolutely convinced that driverless drones will be the future taxis—but it will take awhile. Many such flights will be to and from airports, so—as the old saying goes—better get ready.
Aviation Week & Space Technology (AW&ST) emailed a report on this subject. They call it Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and say it is on the way, big time.
Another aviation email offered to set up a telephone interview with Mr. Itai Shoshani of Zip Aviation, a helicopter charter service. I jumped at the chance.
To my surprise, Mr. Shoshani and AW&ST seem to agree on just about everything. UAM is coming, but not all at once. The technology is there, but as yet the infrastructure is not.
AW&ST opines that perhaps by the year 2050, many millions of such drones will be in use per year.
Chances are the first customers will be business types who want to save great amounts of time. As popularity grows, prices will drop and growth will accelerate. The lack of a human pilot on board will worry people at first, but trust will grow. After all, most of us have ridden and do ride driverless trains.
Mr. Shoshani believes that operators already offering helicopter charter service will have the edge on the expansion, being able to add drones as needed. That makes sense to me.
Another factor will be the improvement in batteries for drones, which is already taking place and expected to speed up.
This is an exciting time as aviation changes ever more rapidly each year. At my age I sincerely hope that life after death will enable me to watch as these changes take place.
