The skyward solution

Congestion. It’s the number one issue in the Toronto municipal election, where the candidates—when not in drunken stupors—are beating one another’s brains out over whether the solution is more subways or rapid transit. A recent column (June 18) noted the advent of the driverless car as a potential solution.

But others are looking skyward for solutions. Drones are the most well-documented example. Amazon recently announced its intention to move to drone flights for almost all its stock, just as soon as it gets federal approval. In New Zealand, developers are close to finalizing the prototype of a (manned, or womanned) jetpack with range of about 40 kilometres. And in Europe, the European Union is financing research that it hopes will lead to the use of small commuter helicopters, also referred to as flying cars. I’m not kidding.

There seems to be all kinds of momentum in favour of drones. One source has estimated that by 2020, we’ll have 30,000 of them buzzing around, supported by a mutli-billion dollar industry. You can already buy your own drone system complete with vehicle, software and a control station for under $100,000, or a more basic drone system for as little as $15,000. Great, just what the world needs. Drone hobbyists.

My biggest worry is that if our friends at the CIA can use drones to bump off people from a distance out of the clear blue sky, what is to stop our not-so-close friends gaining access to the same technology and deciding to bump off a few Canadians from a distance out of the clear blue sky. Is the atmosphere now to be polluted by drone warfare?

Other worries are not far behind. The CBC recently ran a piece about a drone invading the air space near Vancouver International Airport, and the risks it posed to air traffic.

And what about privacy? If I sit in my backyard working on my tan, I’m not so sure I (or anyone else) would derive comfort knowing that my every pore could be photographed from the sky while I remained blissfully unaware.

Then there is the rather dubious onward march of civilization. Something tells me that energy and resources might better be put to use finding a cure for tooth decay than developing cheaper and more efficient drones to deliver my latest Amazon purchase even more promptly. But I suppose you can’t wish away the tides of change and all that.

The inventors of the New Zealand jetpack put their fingers on another problem, in typical, down-to-earth New Zealand fashion. “If you land in someone’s paddock, you will always land on their prime sheep,” said Rex Kenny, with the New Zealand Civil Aviation authority, by way of illustrating the liability risks. The jetpack is scheduled to head into the air this year, and is selling for over $150,000. “Think of it like a motorcycle in the sky,” says the CEO of the company developing the pack. Most purchasers have been overseas customers. No word yet on whether prime sheep will be trained in emergency procedures.

As for flying cars, one company in the Netherlands is said to be trying to bring a small helicopter-car onto the market in 2016, to be priced at around $300,000. Problem number one is, not surprisingly, dealing with the capacity for human error: how do you make them easy to fly for people who haven’t flown their own cars before? One company official scoffs at the concern, noting automatic piloting systems are commonplace. Yes, but it’s surely one thing to rely on a computer to drive me around at street level in a padded Googlemobile at 40 km/hour; and another to let it whisk me into the atmosphere (up where the air is clear) where the danger of an uncontrolled descent may prove somewhat fatal.

And if we do develop a flyable car, isn’t it only going to be successful so long as we produce only a few of them to let celebrities, key business executives and very important government officials use? What use is a flyable car to George Clooney if he has to navigate past me on my way to the County Farm Centre, causing him such delay that he misses the filming of his next box office smash? Are we going to have to develop an air traffic control system that can perform triage and identify a ‘flock of pigeons at 11 o’ clock’ and instruct Mr. Clooney to give way to them just as I will surely be instructed to give way to him?

Congestion. Something tells me that search for the skyward solution is going to elevate the level of debate only in the most literal sense.

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca