Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

Every time I see a multirotor carrying people, I think of the many times while building them at the beginning of the drone renaissance that I saw 4/6/8 bladed multirotors have an AP failure, a blade break, a speed controller overheat, etc etc and it fell out of the sky, literally.

These do not have a glideslope!

Sure, a ballistic chute might prevent an onboard tragedy but I continue to wonder about what the flying car gets parachuted onto. What fires get started? Who gets crushed?

Super cool tech. Huge accomplishment for the engineers involved.

I want to know how this makes a safe unpowered descent.

Statistically speaking, powerplant failure is not a leading cause of accidents for general aviation aircraft. A small popup thunderstorm will rip this thing to shreds like confetti. A moderately gusting 30-40kt crosswind will result in this thing landing upside down in a ditch. A lightning strike from 10-20 miles away will result in an entire wing shearing off. Hit some precip on a cold day and structural icing will take this thing down in minutes.

Speaking as a pilot, if I were flying (or being flown) by this thing, the electric powerplant would be the least of my worries.

This is why they'll never work in areas with weather as such. Certainly limits the geographical areas where they would be practical.

In rain, people would have to resort to ground based transport, so it doesn't really solve the problem. Transportation has to deal with weather. In the future, when batteries are light and powerful enough to run heavy aircraft (ie. Less vulnerable to light winds) vstol craft will be more practical. So much is waiting on Kw per AA sized battery.