Urban operations,
I recently had the opportunity to fly in a helicopter through London.
A colleague, who regularly flew his wife and a neighbor couple to France for golf expeditions, flew me across London for the experience. He had already described the high intensity conditions, communications, and flight, even for daylight VFR rules. This flight was to familiarize me with this as an experience.
We took off from his backyard in Henley on Thames, and followed the Thames all the way East to the sea. It was intense, even just being a passenger. Communication was fundamentally continuous, and coupled with the low altitude, and continuous maneuvering required by the Thames and the wandering route associated, was a high drain activity. I was aware that pilot sensory overload, etc, could have been close at any time.
It became obvious why my pilot chose to route around the north of the London areas on his usual trips to the continent.
Now this was a simple single trip of less than an hour, and the trip back (north of the M-25), was a relive breeze.
Now let’s talk about low time pilots (because they are cheap) doing this for 8 hours a day, all short trips, 5-10 minutes, at a time. This includes landing in potentially blustery conditions, on a helipad less in diameter than your rotors, every 10-15 minutes, as well. Takeoff is relatively easy, but still subject to gusts, and other traffic in the circuit.
Now tell me you think small passenger VTOL’s are viable.
Then you tell me you can automate this.
Not for me.
#aerospace #aerospaceengineering #aerospaceindustry #flying #pilots #pilot #pilotlife #vtol #evtol #helicopter #helicopters #helicopterpilot
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