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I'm not going to be satisfied until I get my flying car. I've given up on the personal jet pack, but I'm not backing down on the flying car.

Try a motorcycle ?
Or perhaps a Skycar

I'd say the number one reason is what you pass off as number two, but what I really wanted to address is the second sentence...

First, if you look at the web page for the M400, you'll see it seats four. I don't see how unless it's wider than looks in the photo, but still... seats four.

Second, if the vehicle gets 20MPG, and the Civic hybrid gets what? Around 48 (EPA estimate)?

So that's 48MPG, stuck in traffic, zig-zagging and turning in all different directions, while the M400 would, presumably, be able to fly straight to it's destination without any traffic. And the web page says 28MPG, not 20. But assuming it is 20, I'd say that the gas mileage is very close, if you measured miles "as the crow flys." For some trips this may not be true, but it certainly is almost always true of people's commutes.

What about 20MPG for a vehicle that can "drive" straight to it's destination and never gets stuck in traffic?

I'd say that's probably the equivilent of 35 to 40 MPG in a road bound car. Also, according to the web page for the M400, the vehicle gets 28MPG.

In the words of the SEC complaint filed with the U.S. District Court, "As of late 2002, MI's approximately 40 years of development has resulted in a prototype Skycar capable of hovering about fifteen feet above the ground."

Yup, I feel much safer about investing in Moller now.

Flown?

For a couple hundred G's, I could cobble together a few snowmobile rotary engines, a body, and some hovercraft style fans and 'fly' it on a tether.

"Presently all test flights of the M400 Skycar employ a safety tether from above to protect the vehicle from catastrophic failure."

Sure, it lifts off the ground. It even goes up about 20 feet or so.
Transition to forward flight? Nope.
Controlled, autonav flight from Point A to B? Nope.
Affordable? You tell me.

And this doesn't address the question of how this thing will be used. I can't see it (if it ever works) as being flown from anywhere other than an airport. For the depicted use (A Flying Car), it would need sub 1 meter control and nav.
Would you trust Bill from marketing, after a 3 martoonie lunch with a client, to land this thing in the parking lot next to your Boxster? With a 20mph crosswind? I wouldn't.
So, you are tied to an airport type facility. With a runway or large landing pad. Why not just use a Cessna?

As a car, it makes for crappy driving. Limited to 30-35mph. As a plane, well...it's a plane. The two realms are different enough as to make this concept a non-starter.

Flown?

For a couple hundred G's, I could cobble together a few snowmobile rotary engines, a body, and some hovercraft style fans and 'fly' it on a tether.

"Presently all test flights of the M400 Skycar employ a safety tether from above to protect the vehicle from catastrophic failure."

Sure, it lifts off the ground. It even goes up about 20 feet or so.
Transition to forward flight? Nope.
Controlled, autonav flight from Point A to B? Nope.
Affordable? You tell me.

And this doesn't address the question of how this thing will be used. I can't see it (if it ever works) as being flown from anywhere other than an airport. For the depicted use (A Flying Car), it would need sub 1 meter control and nav.
Would you trust Bill from marketing, after a 3 martoonie lunch with a client, to land this thing in the parking lot next to your Boxster? With a 20mph crosswind? I wouldn't.
So, you are tied to an airport type facility. With a runway or large landing pad. Why not just use a Cessna?

As a car, it makes for crappy driving. Limited to 30-35mph. As a plane, well...it's a plane. The two realms are different enough as to make this concept a non-starter.

Flown?

For a couple hundred G's, I could cobble together a few snowmobile rotary engines, a body, and some hovercraft style fans and 'fly' it on a tether.

"Presently all test flights of the M400 Skycar employ a safety tether from above to protect the vehicle from catastrophic failure."

Sure, it lifts off the ground. It even goes up about 20 feet or so.
Transition to forward flight? Nope.
Controlled, autonav flight from Point A to B? Nope.
Affordable? You tell me.

And this doesn't address the question of how this thing will be used. I can't see it (if it ever works) as being flown from anywhere other than an airport. For the depicted use (A Flying Car), it would need sub 1 meter control and nav.
Would you trust Bill from marketing, after a 3 martoonie lunch with a client, to land this thing in the parking lot next to your Boxster? With a 20mph crosswind? I wouldn't.
So, you are tied to an airport type facility. With a runway or large landing pad. Why not just use a Cessna?

As a car, it makes for crappy driving. Limited to 30-35mph. As a plane, well...it's a plane. The two realms are different enough as to make this concept a non-starter.

Flown?

For a couple hundred G's, I could cobble together a few snowmobile rotary engines, a body, and some hovercraft style fans and 'fly' it on a tether.

"Presently all test flights of the M400 Skycar employ a safety tether from above to protect the vehicle from catastrophic failure."

Sure, it lifts off the ground. It even goes up about 20 feet or so.
Transition to forward flight? Nope.
Controlled, autonav flight from Point A to B? Nope.
Affordable? You tell me.

And this doesn't address the question of how this thing will be used. I can't see it (if it ever works) as being flown from anywhere other than an airport. For the depicted use (A Flying Car), it would need sub 1 meter control and nav.
Would you trust Bill from marketing, after a 3 martoonie lunch with a client, to land this thing in the parking lot next to your Boxster? With a 20mph crosswind? I wouldn't.
So, you are tied to an airport type facility. With a runway or large landing pad. Why not just use a Cessna?

As a car, it makes for crappy driving. Limited to 30-35mph. As a plane, well...it's a plane. The two realms are different enough as to make this concept a non-starter.

Moderators this is *NOT* a +5 interesting since amost ALL of the points raised by this idiot are answered on the Moller international website

Now I'm not saying that they've got everything sorted, but at least read the proposals before spouting off!

For example, there are planned to be two paracutes on these things (so they won't "fall out of the sky when they run out of fuel"). Also you will not need a full pilots licence (so it should be cheaper), and frankly a well-trained "cletus type" is much less likely to crash than some arrogant who thinks that he's too smart to need teaching, and who probably doesn't read manuals (or websites ;-)

Anyone got a spare $100,000 for the deposit?

If you get tired of waiting for flying cars, try some "life extending" organic almond butter from the good Dr. Moller.

the site has video/media page as well, in which you can see noisy hover test.

I don't mean to be cynic, but I couldn't help wondering what practical use this vehicle may have. with two passengers maximum, this looks to me like fancy miata of aircraft. maybe this can become California governor's commuter vehicle, but I don't want to see dozens of these flying around above my neighborhood.

the site has video/media page as well, in which you can see noisy hover test.

I don't mean to be cynic, but I couldn't help wondering what practical use this vehicle may have. with two passengers maximum, this looks to me like fancy miata of aircraft. maybe this can become California governor's commuter vehicle, but I don't want to see dozens of these flying around above my neighborhood.

the site has video/media page as well, in which you can see noisy hover test.

I don't mean to be cynic, but I couldn't help wondering what practical use this vehicle may have. with two passengers maximum, this looks to me like fancy miata of aircraft. maybe this can become California governor's commuter vehicle, but I don't want to see dozens of these flying around above my neighborhood.

There are a couple of videos of them actually in action at http://www.moller.com/news/media/

Take a look here , it has a few videos (which do look quite real before somebody brings that up).

It's called a Wankel engine and is conventiently ignored by the majority of engineers because they remember the engine sealing problems with the early NSU Ro80 in the late 60's that almost bankrupted them.

Talk to most people about the Wankel engine and the chances are they've never heard of it. Many engineers laugh when you mention it, because they remember 1967 and haven't heard of all the developments since then. My old (1983) Mazda RX7 did 127000+ miles before the engine wore out.

The spiffy model on the showroom floor is nothing more than a stage prop. It doesn't fly, it never did, and it probably never will.

Unless the man is a bare-faced lier, you can find out all sorts of things about it at moller.com.

Need I remind you that VTOL aeroplanes have been built before (albeit with jet engines).

Moller's been been taking investors' money for decades, and has exactly squat to show for it.

It's true that he has been taking money from investors for decades, but he's been pouring his own money into it as well. He made about $20 million from real estate investment and millions more from his invention of the SuperTrapp muffler. He invested that in his company. So while it's true that he has been taking money from others, he hasn't been getting rich from it, as the word "scam" implies.

Credible aerospace engineers say that, unless Moller's invented a radically new, ultra-compact engine, there's no way you can move enough air mass to actually lift the thing.

Dr. Moller is a credible aerospace engineer. He is the started the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at UC Davis. And he has invented a new type of engine for the SkyCar.

The spiffy model on the showroom floor is nothing more than a stage prop. It doesn't fly, it never did, and it probably never will.

As someone else pointed out, there have been tethered tests that have shown that the thing can at least hover.

Don't get me wrong. I think that Moller's claims are continually over-optimistic, even to the point that he got in trouble with the SEC for misleading investors. He's been over-promising and under-delivering for decades. But he has made slow, painful progress, and I've seen every indication that he really does believe in what he's doing.

To call it a scam is completely unfair.

Moller's been been taking investors' money for decades, and has exactly squat to show for it. Credible aerospace engineers say that, unless Moller's invented a radically new, ultra-compact engine, there's no way you can move enough air mass to actually lift the thing.

The spiffy model on the showroom floor is nothing more than a stage prop. It doesn't fly, it never did, and it probably never will.

They've got some pictures of the thing supposedly doing tethered test flights. The first photo looks like it could have been faked, either by double photography or using the crane to actually lift the thing. I'm not sure about the second.

the implementation of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) AND an operational virtual highway system to automate piloting the devices, will I be able to play Duke Nukem Forever with my skycar-mates while we're on our way to work? The four of us can surely put together the $995,000 ($100,000 down now) necessary for one of the first positions once they're ready.

the implementation of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) AND an operational virtual highway system to automate piloting the devices, will I be able to play Duke Nukem Forever with my skycar-mates while we're on our way to work? The four of us can surely put together the $995,000 ($100,000 down now) necessary for one of the first positions once they're ready.

Moller website.

Links are good, people!

In one vision of the future, the world will have flying cars, coats that make people "transparent,'' digital cameras that translate foreign signs and robots that can attend classes for sick children.

The exhibits include the Moller Skycar, a four-passenger vehicle from Moller International of Davis. The Jetsons-style craft is small enough to drive on the ground, but can take off vertically and fly as fast as 380 mph

They're still promising me the flying car, spiffy.

This thing is actually pretty cool:

http://www.moller.com/
the M400 Skycar can cruise comfortably at 350+ MPH and achieve up to 28 miles per gallon. Awesome.
http://www.moller.com/skycar/

In one vision of the future, the world will have flying cars, coats that make people "transparent,'' digital cameras that translate foreign signs and robots that can attend classes for sick children.

The exhibits include the Moller Skycar, a four-passenger vehicle from Moller International of Davis. The Jetsons-style craft is small enough to drive on the ground, but can take off vertically and fly as fast as 380 mph

They're still promising me the flying car, spiffy.

This thing is actually pretty cool:

http://www.moller.com/
the M400 Skycar can cruise comfortably at 350+ MPH and achieve up to 28 miles per gallon. Awesome.
http://www.moller.com/skycar/

Dunno 'bout the AI, but the flying cars don't seem to be too far off.

Two, three years tops buddy. These guys have working on the cars for some time. Nanotech is going to come faster than we ever thought possible and nothing is going to stop it, its science. SOMEONE *WILL* do it. It is inevitable.

Then buy one!

SkyCar

It has 8 engines, that curently have a better power to weight ratio than a Rotax 2 stroke and a lower emission than a Honda four stroke. Burn some CWT TDP oil in it made from plants and we can use the large self regulating fusion generator that we orbit to power our computer controller no green house gas flying cars.

Flying cars being sold from reputable Web site for $20,000 RIGHT NOW

Holy shit: Man lands on Mars!

Fusion reactor perfected; lauded as "great success". Test reactor already tethered to power grid generating $BIGNUM megawatts; construction on fullscale reactor underway. AND...

Silent supersonic airliner makes first of new daily Transatlantic flights wearing $MAJOR_AIRLINE colours. Book tickets at $URL.
Stop wasting my fucking time until something is actually AVAILABLE NOW. God, I'm fucking sick of reading this kind of pie-in-the-sky bullshit! It's all over SlashDot and, to a lesser extent, all over the "mainstream" news media. Fuck this shit, I don't want to hear about how "at some point in the "near" future" we "may" have such-and-such. I want a fucking link to buy one on walmart.com.

Fucking Christ, are all research organisations just like us geeks-- starting projects but never finishing them?

Oh, and you over there at moller.com: STOP BABBLING ABOUT YOUR GOD-DAMNED FLYING CARS AND START SELLING THE FUCKING THINGS ALREADY!!! YOU'RE ALREADY 10 YEARS LATE, YOU FUCKWITS! And if the FAA won't let you sell them in the US, SELL THEM ELSEWHERE. RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

Flying cars being sold from reputable Web site for $20,000 RIGHT NOW

Holy shit: Man lands on Mars!

Fusion reactor perfected; lauded as "great success". Test reactor already tethered to power grid generating $BIGNUM megawatts; construction on fullscale reactor underway. AND...

Silent supersonic airliner makes first of new daily Transatlantic flights wearing $MAJOR_AIRLINE colours. Book tickets at $URL.
Stop wasting my fucking time until something is actually AVAILABLE NOW. God, I'm fucking sick of reading this kind of pie-in-the-sky bullshit! It's all over SlashDot and, to a lesser extent, all over the "mainstream" news media. Fuck this shit, I don't want to hear about how "at some point in the "near" future" we "may" have such-and-such. I want a fucking link to buy one on walmart.com.

Fucking Christ, are all research organisations just like us geeks-- starting projects but never finishing them?

Oh, and you over there at moller.com: STOP BABBLING ABOUT YOUR GOD-DAMNED FLYING CARS AND START SELLING THE FUCKING THINGS ALREADY!!! YOU'RE ALREADY 10 YEARS LATE, YOU FUCKWITS! And if the FAA won't let you sell them in the US, SELL THEM ELSEWHERE. RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

Right here.

Flying cars are no longer a myth!

Almost got it

While your there I want a microlight with a freedom motor instead of a fucking Rotax

This is the one that I keep waiting for. They have been doing short test flights for quite a while. But I have yet to see one in a showroom. I still need to save a bit more anyway.

http://www.moller.com/

C'mon, hasn't everyone here already Reserved a Skycar?

Getting closer.

Skycar

Obligatory Moller flying car link

Maybe you could use a low flying vehicle similar to projects like Skycar.

A big problem with flying/hovering vehicles would be sand and grit. Just look at the problems with helicopters in Iraq or Afghanistan.

December 31, 2006, but at $500,000 it is a little out of my price range (by about 271,326.24 GBP ;).

There is already an electric "race car" - The Tzero from AC Propulsion, does 0-60mph in 4.7 seconds. Go to www.acpropulsion.com and read up on it, it's really a great piece of work. 200hp electric motor.

The original version used Lead Acid batteries but they have one now using Lithium Ion. The car can cruise for 300 miles on a single charge. That, to me is a real winner.

Lengthy (overnight) charge times seem less of an issue now; I get about 300 miles on a tank of gas in my current car and have to gas up every week or so. With a Tzero I could recharge whenever convenient, and not really worry about it, because *somewhere* within the span of a week I'm sure to get 8-12 hours of charge time.

I think there's a lot to be said for centralized emission controls (in an electrical power plant) versus millions of questionably-maintained controls in IC engines. However, there are also plenty of interesting technologies for IC engines that are worth looking into, like the Coates Spherical Rotary Valve Engine or the Roton Rotary Valve Engine. These new technologies hold a lot of promise for improving the efficiency and cleanliness of IC engines.

And let's not forget the venerable Wankel Rotary Engine and all the potential it has to offer.

But personally, I'm getting on the waiting list for a Tzero. The fact that their *entire car's* power to weight ratio is greater than *just the battery system* in the Honda electric vehicle says plenty, to me. These guys have their technology in order, now all they need is some investors to dump enough cash on them to go mass production.

On /. some time ago: Skycar. Flys, but still in the testing phase.

Here you go.

They are awaiting FAA approval! Link
Link2 Thier site seems to be down right now but, they are making the "SKYCAR" with an included parachute.

Gamespot has some hi-res photos.

However, the number and types of ports on the back of this box ring alarm bells with me. How many PC-based consoles have:

Composite and S-Video and component video?

RCA and optical and "coax" audio?

Other little signs:

Power adapter plug has changed from previous regular PC style to circular multi-pin.

There is a coax connector for an optional internal cable modem (according to the proposed specs but an internal ADSL modem is also an option. How do you choose which?

This reminds me of the Moller SkyCar where they produce just enough prototypes to keep the investors happy but never actually produce anything.

If they didn't turn the thing on then this is probably just an empty box with some ports stuck on the back.

Moller International has been working on personal 'skycars' for a long time. Some of their earlier models resemble flying saucers, strangely enough.

I can't wait to own one of these, though.

Moller International has been working on personal 'skycars' for a long time. Some of their earlier models resemble flying saucers, strangely enough.

I can't wait to own one of these, though.

Moller International has been working on personal 'skycars' for a long time. Some of their earlier models resemble flying saucers, strangely enough.

I can't wait to own one of these, though.