I tried posting to the Minecraft subreddit, but the post would get deleted immediately. I just want to show someone!
It's mostly silent, minus the dispensers clicking and occasional water splash, but it's much smoother than a flying machine, and not to terribly slow, rising at a little over 2 blocks per second. It's a good way to transport things vertically
Those are dispensers; you put the item you want to dispense (water bucket) inside and when activated, they dispense. If activated again while containing a bucket, they will "grab" the water and store back in the bucket