Both the helicopter and the first practical VTOL jet in the shape of the Harrier took to the skies in the form of an inexpensive space-frame, the 'flying bedstead' in the case of the latter. TCab's flying taxi will look very much like Vertical's once complete, which begs the question as to why complete it prior to flight-testing, as the latter effectively did (along with most others)?
The PR value of producing the finished article ~ at least from outward appearances ~ is inestimable in the race for funding. And although there is a negative effect in seeing it wrecked on the ground, that funding was already in the bag in Vertical's case. Call it wealth destruction if you like, but then it's other people's wealth after all.
Another aspect of TCab's recent test-flight of note is that the motors are undergoing certification, which means that they're rigorously tested for reliability prior to fitment. This has long been the norm in aviation (and the motor manufacturer Safran claim to have built the original aero-engines at turn of last century), but conspicuously absent until now in the production of the sort of motors designed to produce eVTOL aircraft.
There are two sides to certification. On the one hand it provides motors with reliability effectively guaranteed... except that it doesn't, or at least prior operational experience. The world's most reliable machine ever in the form of the CFM56 (which I've operated on both Boeing and Airbus types), was among the least reliable upon service entry. As well as this, it should be pointed out that invariably what fails in eVTOL testing is not generally the motors anyway.
What creeping certification does, at least as it will inevitably work its way down the scale, is to greatly increase the cost of development for no apparent gain in reliability. It has, however, inevitable if only because technological evolution in the modern world trends toward absurd levels of risk avoidance on the one hand, which plays itself on the other to the larger corporations that rule our world in cahoots with the finance houses.
Thus it is that Vertical Aerospace ~ love-child of someone who'd made his millions in the privatised UK energy market ~ is that much more likely to succeed than are we.
And that's just the way it is... some things will never change.
