A flying machine in your two-car garage was the promise heralded by Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines during the 1950s and 1960. It was the era of Bob Cummings piloting his Aerocar on his popular TV show, and KISN radio watching over traffic with one in Portland, Oregon. Expectations were high and often disappointed. High costs of establishing a network of two-ton, four-passenger eVTOL (electric Vertical Take Off and Landing) machines dissuaded even Uber from pursuing that goal. Consider that skyports, vertiports, or whatever they ended up as are enormously expensive, and a network with charging stations and passenger accommodations would be a large investment. Beyond that, each sky taxi would cost well into the high six figures, something that would require corporate ownership rather than the owner/driver model on which Uber’s land-based operations depend. At least four eVTOLs are now on the market or headed there. None cost more than a claimed $150,000 base price, a plausible outlay …
