That is mostly why I do not want to do it...
Second reason - California.
I’ll pass. What if somebody moves the fuel control switches to ‘off’ as the pilot did in that Air India crash? /sarc
It will never replace a turbine helicopter for long flights of say 200 nautical miles or more, as battery weight verses total energy stored is quite simple, Jet-A wins, battery loses. It is all about energy density per pound and Jet A always wins. It might have an application for short hops. British Airways years ago used Sikorsky-S61s to do the short hop from Heathrow to Gatwick for passengers at great cost to British Airways. It was all about keeping the customer on connecting flights from Gatwick and not losing them to another airline.
I would not ride in this machine until I saw data on engine out performance due to battery failure or more important can they keep the aircraft stable with one or two engines out on the same side.
Market symbol JOBY. Their stock jumped today.
“Aircraft fly no more than 10 miles during test flights.”
1000 lbs. of batteries in a Tesla gets you about the same distance as 60 lbs. of gasoline in a similar car.
So, yeah, 10 miles for a battery-powered airplane sounds about right.
It does have what appears to be an airfoil, or am I wrong? The airfoil would soften any auto-rotation, landing situation.
The former Ft Ord airfield.
The third safety feature is the parachute....