Basketball loses one of its stars. Kobe Bryant, NBA legend, died in a helicopter crash over the weekend. With him was his daughter and 7 others. No one survived. It is a tragedy.
Kobe was in a Sikorsky S-76B, known as a “workhorse” and a “flying the Lincoln Town Car.” It is repudiated to have an excellent safety record. An investigation is underway but preliminary reports say it was foggy, the visibility so bad the pilot had to get special clearance to fly in conditions worse than allowed for VFR, or visual flight rules. The helicopter crashed into the side of a hill.
Air Taxi’s Anyone?
Air taxi promises a 5 minute hop from Los Angeles' LAX to downtown.
The tragedy comes amid hype surrounding an upcoming air mobility, which involves small aircraft, that take you from big aircraft, to your destination, usually a downtown. It is a favorite subject for engineering software vendors because the aviation industry will use engineering software to design and analyze the small aircraft. It can make lighter parts, more powerful batteries (the flying taxis are usually electric powered), even new materials. The aircraft will open up a new chapter in aviation, making it more personal, more convenient. Wouldn’t everyone love to get from the airport to downtown in minutes rather than hours?
One company with a strange looking small plane shows how the wings fold up to become a stranger looking car. You can go from the Los Angeles airport to downtown in 5 minutes, point to point, flying over the dreaded US 110 Interstate. Your time is too important to waste on a clogged highway.
Flying taxi scheduled to land in Singapore in 2020.
Uber is so interested in air taxis that it has hundreds of companies bidding on designs of air taxis for its Air Elevate program. According to Uber, the FAA, the agency in charge of air safety, has been “amazing” in its “progressive stance to support the development of dedicated sky plane,” according to Aviation Week and Space Technology article.
Missing in the go, go attitude is any consideration of safety. Let’s face it, putting heavier than air objects above the ground is inherently risky. Credit engineers for making as safe as it is today but don’t forget, what goes up must come down. Here’s praying it all comes down as expected.
If any good at all come from this tragedy, can it be more attention paid to public safety?