HELLO FUTURE: Look Up — Your Next Ride Might be Airborn

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I really want a flying car. I want to be
able to pull out of my driveway and zoom around
like I'm in an episode of the Jutsons, Up, down,
and everywhere. This is the future of flying cars. Hello Future,
it's me keV. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier.
The year is twenty twenty five. The planet desert. And
if you're like me, you sat in traffic this week,
or maybe you're sitting in traffic right now as you
traversed up and down the coast of America to have
turkey with your family. My guest today thrilled to welcome
him back to the program. He is one of the
best aviation voices in the country. His name is doctor
Kurt Barnhardt and he is a professor of all things
aviation at Kansas State University. All right, Doc, I love
going down these YouTube wormholes and I see pictures of
cars that are flying, taking off their taxis that are
flying Uber or Lyft or whatever ride share app you use.
One day, everyone's talking about autonomous cars. I want cars
that can fly. Am I going to see that in
my lifetime, not just on YouTube, but in these skies.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
You know? Yeah, I mean, so we already actually have
cars that can fly, and we have had actually goes
back to right after World War Two, there were lots
of different flying car concepts. So the challenge isn't so
much the technology, it's the complexity of the operating environment.
So what we do have emerging, I don't think they're
going to be cars so much as they are going
to be what we call ev TALL with stensor, the
electric vertical takeoff and landing platforms that are going to
do what's the same thing in more of a starting
in more of an urban environment.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
So what would the use case be of an ev
TALL how do I say it? EV tall?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Uh huh yeah, right, well, am, that's part of the
advanced air mobility industry that is emerging now.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
So what would a use case be in in you know,
suburban America for one of these flying cars?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Hmmm yeah, I mean it's similar to what you described.
It would be right now, fairly low density transport where
we're not talking about a lot of people that we're
moving them quickly to and from maybe pick up points,
and then the downtown area is really close to where
they want to be, and that's primarily where they're gonna
to make their money initially, and then as the vehicles
get larger and faster than the distances will get greater.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Wait a minute, So the metro could be a flying car.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, I mean it's it wouldn't necessarily be a car,
wouldn't be able to drive, at least most of them.
There is one. There are one or two concepts like
that out there, but it would be like a being
for the most part. Yeah, yes, that's exactly right. Yeah,
not all that different from a helicopter. But it's the
car part that really makes things complex because you know,
transitioning from flight to ground and that's an infrastructure challenge
that would be tough.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Okay, so I want to come back to that, but
let's let's stick with the flying taxis essentially the trolley
of the future, so from a regulatory standpoint and not
from a national level, from a local level, I mean
where I live, and I don't really want to I
mean politics, political journalism is my old industry, my friend.
But let's just say there's a lot of potholes on
the streets of Washington, DC, and I'll leave it there.
But how would a community, any community. Don't even use
DC as an example, but how would any community be
able to regulate flying taxis and what are the rules
and how are people even thinking through that? Because it's
not like they're going to go up twenty thousand feet,
but would the distances that they have to fly be
different based on the height of the skyscrapers or the
hotel buildings. I mean, how are people thinking about all
of this? And also obviously then there's safety.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Concerns, yeah, sure, And you know, the level we have
to address is the federal level because we're trying to
move forward as a country with this industry and these
these vehicles are operating in other countries, we have a
more i guess robust regulatory environment that's been around for
a while, so it's a little bit more of a
challenge to do that here. It will happen now, So
we need to regulate that federally because you know, the
FAA owns the airspace or they're in charge of the
airspace in the civil realm. Even military airspace is you know,
if the military is not using airspace, it goes back
to the FAA found that out not too long ago.
But localities, states, municipalities may have their own regulations, but
they won't be interfering with the larger federal regulations that
allow operations, and so they will be smaller in scope.
I guess.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
So will towns need to have their own faas.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
No, No, we definitely don't want to. You know, the
municipalities will be able to have some influence for sure
and set policies and procedures within the scope of complying
with the FAA regulations.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
For an air taxi or a ride share air taxi.
Are we going to be living in a world where
when you're in your downtown high rise, in your office building,
where you're just seeing drones and air taxis out the
window as if they're birds. Is that the future?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I think? I think that is at some point in
the future, once we get to a more automated air
traffic management system. Obviously, if we have everybody hand flying
drones and you know that, that's going to be probably
a disaster. But once we have a more automated structure, yes,
I think I think you could.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
See that in twenty five years.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
No, less, I think.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
In ten years.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, I mean, you know, some it's of course a
gradu process, you know, so there will be some cities
that will start that before others, and then it will
grow from there. And so I think in the ten
year fifteen year window.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
When I get in my air taxi, will there be
a pilot or no?

Speaker 2 (06:15):
A good question. So if you're an early adopter, yes,
they most likely will. But I think the goal would
be to transition away from that, and certainly that's being
designed into many of the platforms is to have that
fully automated. So yes, we will get there.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Why should the public feel safe? Why would I feel
safe fifteen years from now getting in an air taxi
with strangers and traveling? That's great? This is a shift.
This is where humanities comes in because these are questions
that are all popping into my head. But thinking out loud,
I feel safe getting in a ride share when I
don't know the driver. I'm slowly adopting to the notion
of getting in an autonomous vehicle where where there's someone
else driving it. I guess I totally feel comfortable getting
on a metro or a train or a subway system
shuttle at the airport that's autonomous or is computerized for
me personally, The thought of being in an air taxi
with strangers flying, that's I don't know if that's a
different jump for me. Am I alone in that or no?

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, no, you're definitely not alone. And that will be
again a gradual transition, but we're not going to do
those operations initially, but it will come a time when
I'll just say I talked to people about it, or
to people about this topic this way. I said, you
will want to have an automated platform because a safety
case will be beyond what a human can provide. And
so we're early in the automated vehicle history. You know,
we're still learning a lot, and there's still glitches and
there will be for some time, but at that point
we will have proven that these vehicles are safer than
that would be if they had somebody on board handplaying.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
So of course my mind went right to the selfish place.
But obviously there's military implications for this. There's also ambulance
implications of this. Why shouldn't a helicopter that hospitals use,
Why shouldn't that be really an ambulance that can get
different places. I mean, as these technologies evolve, I'm sure
that there are also ways that can also help humans
from a safety component of being able from a health
component to be able to make really a big impact.
And as you're talking, if more people are taking air
taxis and whatnot, I would imagine that that would help
reduce traffic in cities. I mean, the modernization efforts could
really be profound.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you hit on one key area as
a first responder market or the emergency response market. And
you know, sometimes emergency air evacuations are limited by environmental
conditions or other conditions that make the operation two hazardous
to put people on board in that situation, and so
the flight gets waved off. But in an automated situation,
that vehicle will be operating more precisely. But then you know,
you won't have the risk of other aircrew on board,
and so they could you know, land and the passenger
could be extricated and then transported quickly while there's still
a dangerous situation going on around the person who's injured.
So that's a really big that's a potential use case. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Well, the average American household ever have a flying car.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
The average American household, I you know, not so much
the flying car. Some will a vehicle that can take
off and land vertically and get somewhere pretty quickly. Yes,
but it's that ability to drive, you know, transition from
flight to ground and back and forth. Is it's a
little I will add a different dimension that I don't
think most people are gonna want. Some will, but I
think that's a smaller market than what we've been talking about.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you don't think we're going to have when a
sixteen year old goes to the DMV to get their license,
They're not going to be getting their flying car license
in my lifetime.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
No, they won't need a license, they'll just be a
passenger on that vehicle shuttle. It comes to that. Yeah,
that's right.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
So you're predicting one more shuttles. You're not predicting you know,
after I leave the studio today that I'll get in
a car that flies. Correct, This is fascinating, But I could.
I could go to the metro stop and get in
an air taxi that flies. But it's you're saying it's
more likely for that than it would be that I
personally get in an autonomous vehicle that flies me home.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think so, yeah, that George Jetson type picture. You know,
it might happen someplaces at a smaller scale, but yeah,
I think that what we talked about is going to
be more more likely.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Do you test any of this stuff at Kansas?

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, we'd have me down. I want to
get in a flying car.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
We've been working in the drone business with flying robots
basically for just about twenty years, and a lot of
that work translates directly into the advanced air mobility realm,
and so we've been laying the groundwork all along for
that kind of a system.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Really amazing. I had so much fun with this episode.
I learned so so much. I really can't thank you
enough for showing up to meet the future and saying
hello to the future. Doctor Kurt Barnhardt. He is the
go to aviation flying cars guy. He answers all my
questions that I have after I go down my YouTube wormholes.
So thank you so much. I really really appreciate your time, sir.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's been my pleasure.