Why don’t we all have our own airplanes yet? The lack of millions of extra dollars aside, the street in front of your house is probably not zoned as a runway. That’s why the coolest entries into the personal aircraft market these days are VTOL. Vertical takeoff and landing means you don’t have to head to the airstrip to fly. Small helipads (that helicopters use) and vertipads, just for VTOL aircraft, can be stitched into the existing fabric of a city.
In the case of the Archer Maker Aircraft, partnerships with the city of Miami and Los Angeles aim to place vertipads in strategic locations, allowing passengers to access them easily to fly where they need to go. Utilizing the sky as roadway, Archer hopes to combat traffic, while eliminating emissions (the Maker is fully electric) and cutting noise (the electric motor is virtually silent and the rotors spin slower than helicopter rotors, producing far less whump-whump-whump).
Should you need to travel from Ontario, just east of LA, to Santa Monica, a rush hour drive could take two hours. But in a Maker Aircraft, you could make the 55 mile trip in about 25 minutes. Not only does the aircraft jet through the air at 150 miles per hour, it’s got a 60 mile range and super deluxe interiors so you sit comfortably as you laugh at the suckers stuck on the 10 below you.
The maker is still in the early stages with a beautiful and fully operational aircraft produced. Consumer aircraft are scheduled to come off the line in 2023 and 2025 should see the launch of consumer flight operations in Los Angeles and Miami using a ridesharing model. After that, it might just be time for a Maker of your very own.
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