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Personal Helicopter
So the BBC says:
"Personal helicopter set for lift-off."
The next best thing to telecommuting. I can hear you cynics scoff, since it hasn't actually been demoed flying yet, but you know you still want to look at the
photos.
Try not to look. I dare ya.
P.S. We have to post one of these stories every five months. It's in our contract. (CT:Plus we're jealous that Popular Mechanics always gets to have hovercrafts and personal planes on their covers)
Imagine going down to DMV and getting a licencing test. Wadda they do - spool up 2 of these suckers and fly next to you while you:
start
go up
go back
go right
go left
turn left
turn right
rotate 360
pitch forward
pitch back
travel forward while gaining altitude
demonstrate that you can pull the ripcord and bail
land
stop, spool down.
Honestly - who is qualfied to do this and who is going to let you lift off from your driveway, buzz the interstate on your way to work, land, all with no apparent navigation, alert or warning equipment. Will they let you fly it at night or in bad weather? I drive past an airport on my way to work. Can you imagine getting into a pissing contest with an MD-80?
I believe a personal jetpack was built in the 1950's. If anybody admits to remembering the excreable Jive Bunny, there was footage of it in the videoclip. It worked, the problem was simply the fuel capacity was only sufficient for a few minutes of flight. IIRC one was also used in the LA Olympic closing ceremony.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
How many people could afford to purchase and maintain a helicopter? I took a few flying lessons in a Cessna 150. I asked the instructor about flying a helicopter. He said that it cost $200 an hour to rent their helicopter, about 10 times the cost of renting a Cessna 150 at that time. Signing up for the Army seemed to be the only affordable way to learn how to fly a helicopter.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Okay, my heart went into fibrillation when I read this...
It's hard enough to drive a modern car, let alone a light aircraft. Trust me - I'm a student pilot.
Secondly - what kind of driving test are yuo going to have: the JAA (Europaean FAA) have a 45-hour syllabus for their PPL (H)[0]. Are all these wannabee pilots going to take this kind of syllabus? Or are we going to let hoards of "Wannabees" lose on our airspace?
Thirdly - what about emergencies? Imagine this - you're an amateur private pilot, spluttering along at 300ft above your office above London. Your engine quits. You have three seconds to recover, if you do nothing.
Crash. Your life, plus tens or hundreds on the ground.
Fourthly - Airspace. Most of the airspace over the City of London and other major metropolitan areas is Class "A" or "B" - and rightly so. the numer of heavy jet movements over this small an area is high enough as it is - without the menace of thousands of little "flies" buzzing around his engines. Can ATC Cope? I think not.
Classes "A" and "B" are only open to IFR Traffic - Instrument Flight Rules. This is a VERY demanding skill - 50 hour course, and constant refresher tests. It's okay for Capain Speaking in his Scruggs Wonderplane with dual autopilot, radar altimeter, etc. J. Random PPL holder wouldn't hack it.
Fifthly (and last), where are all these choppers going to be parked during the day? Realistically, you would be looking at a LARGE area for these things to land (Dispel all those images of flying betwixt the skyscrapers, I'm not scraping you off the walls.
How would you feel about converting Central (or Hyde in London) Park into a large Helipad?
I don't want to turn this into a boringrant - so here are my Ideas:
1. Issue a sub-ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) licence, say 20 hours, with self-certification to HGV medical standards, similar to the (hopefully) forthcoming CAA NPPL.
2. Create special Entry/Exit lanes to aa specially developed airfield for these kinds of aircraft. Devoted Public Transport liks go no end to helping place this away from the built up areas.
3. Have specialised ATC to cover this - and to make it easy, keep inbound traffic at 500ft and outbound traffic at 1000ft (say). This keeps it pretty much 2D.
4. Identifying - most aircraft are fitted with a Transponder - a device which shows a specific code on the Controllers radar screen (selectable on a device in the cockpit). How about making these devices compulsory, and individual - akin to a licence plate.
[0]Private Pilots Licence.
Just my 1.6p.
~Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question.
The truth is, 3 dimensions is alot safer when you are flying nimble devices like this. It would be hard for two people to collide if they tried to.
Plus, there is vastly more volume of space, so "jams" would only occur close to the ground where speed limits could be enforced (by darwin if not the cops).
Safety: this looks to me like the reason they're taking as long as they have been -- they seem very concerned about it, and have significantly over-engineered the system to make sure that operating conditions will be well below tolerances. It looks like it would be far more likely for your car to "break" catastrophicly than for this thing (e.g., four turbines and apparently the ability for [limited] powerless flight). They also plan to have an HUD, not sure what it will entail, but it should hopefully prevent airborne collisions.
Training: users will be required to be trained (I couldn't find any specifics on what that will ential), and a retinal scan will be used to enable the device for flight, to ensure only authorized users can fly the thing.
Landing footprint: any flat surface larger than a kitchen table.
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I saw some links to this waaaaay back on Ars Technica last year...
Pssh! I saw this in a May 1960 Mechanics Illustrated. (MIMI wore a two-piece swim suit.) Old stuff! Beware the codgers in your midst!
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
What with this rash of 'flying idiot' posts? We have those already they're called pilots. I'm sure lots of people had the same paranoid complaints when flight became affordable. I'm sure the FAA won't let you waltz up to one of these things and go to the mall, you'll have to go get a pilot's license. Nor do I think the FAA will let you land in your backyard or fly through metropolitan areas at low altitude just because you can. Expect to drive to the local airport to fire it up and land in another airport when you're in civilization.
The only thing revolutionary I see about these things is for military applications and sport flying, not your work commute.
If you folks like the solotrek, check out
http://www.cartercopters.com
Also very interesting. Someone WILL conquer personal VTOL!!!!
-Sleen
and then there would be me, watering my lawn from 50 feet in the air!
...or some neighborhood kid could be doing a different type of watering on your lawn...
You say you want a revolution?
Like packets zipping through routers, personalized air travel will need to be efficient, safe, autonomous and affordable to deploy on a large scale. Nobody wants to be the first "dropped packet" in such an air traffic control system. I think that the first step to deploying such a system is to do it first in 2D (on the road with roads and bridges) and then in 3D in the air. As it exists right now, the existing commercial air traffic control is out of date and they should practice there first to work out the kinks.
There's enough (in the words of George Carlin) 'assholes and idiots' on the road and I, for one, would not be happy facing a rush hour of newbie pilots playing Q3 Arena on their HUD as I try to fly into work.
I'm working on teleportation but barring quantum games you need to create a black hole for the initial wormhole and people get testy when you do that on the planet.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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Portman, grits, and ass pictures
Having no life sucks
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
Here. http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/ skycar990907.html
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. Alan Saporta
Once I vest, I'm gonna buy me some acreage out in the middle of nowhere, telecommute to $location, and use my personal copter to survey my domain.
It looks like an excellent walkabout device for people who live in remote locations and don't have to worry about commuters.
It'd never "fly" downtown, though.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
They wanted you to work there for free, and then you might get a chance to see one. I have not seen a word of it since.
Fight Spammers!
So personal flying is going to be the next big thing? I don't think so...
But to those people who worry that it will take off in a big way, rest assured; it's not going to become the preferred method of transport for the masses in the next twenty years.
You have to bear in mind that this is going to be very very expensive, if it ever gets off the ground. So that reduces the risk of having the air as crowded as the LA freeways. Next, the national aviation authorities are going to be as strict as possible with giving out licences to fly these things. Just think about compulsory genetic testing to check for a "possible tendency to [alcoholism,drug abuse,short attention spans,*] resulting in refusal of licence, and random drug and alcohol tests upon landing, with instant revocation of your licence if positive...
Then if telecommuting picks up even more, there'll be fewer and fewer people needing individual transport like that just to get to and from the office... Trnasport will tend to be more and more family oriented (I believe), especially for holidays.
So if it ever catches on, it's going to stay a professional tool (like police, but also maybe farmers and photographers) and a rich playboy's plaything.
But if you want to play at James Bond right now, you can!
Check out the AutoGyro.
Here are a couple of things to get you started
"And here we have the prototype X-G3... *crash* Oh shit. Well, we had the X-G3."
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
What? What crack you smoking when you watch the Discovery channel?
Like, what 'remote regions of Europe?' You mean northern Finland? Commuters? Who the fuck would want to commute to Lapland? and, like, in one of these they'd likely freeze anyway...
Catch on? They're doing wind-tunnel tests, you fool... there are some jet-pack rescue systems out there, but nothing like this was being used by commuters in Europe for trips in '95. Well, unless you mean an acid trip...
(Excuse me, but no mod points at the moment, so I'm trying to be funny)
But what could be better is a small little electricmotor scooter. It may not be as cool, but just a tad safer and you can get one today!
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
There's a comprehensive list of strange flying machines (including the SoloTrek XVF) at...
http://aviation.about.com/hob bies/aviation/msub20.htm
If you're looking for your flying cars, check out the first couple of links.
--
Jonathan Hunt
Not to mention just how noisy the gadget would be . . .
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Remember, folks, the FAA has a long way to go before you can lift off in your own personal chopper.
Besides, hell will freeze over before I'd feel safe flying around my city in one of those things. I'd have to fly past a somewhat seedy neighborhood on the way to work, and I can just see guys "busting a cap in my ass", as they say. "Hey, look, there goes a guy in one of them homemade cheap choppers! See if you can get him with your nine."
What's your damage, Heather?
In a few scenes in the STAR WARS® movies, traffic can be seen overhead moving in straight lines. Anyone care to comment on a system like this?
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
For those of us who are a mite bit impatient, check out This link ( http://members.tripod.com/~the_indian/helicopter.h tm ) for instructions on how to make your own "ULTRALIGHT" FAA-License free chopper. Nifty.
"Geese migrating." *spits out a feather*.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Can you imagine what it will be like if these things take off? Er, I mean, can you imagine what it will be like if these things get off the ground? Wait! Try again - can you imagine what it will be like if these personal helicopters become popular, and tens of thousands of them are whizzing about overhead?
I'm flying to work, and I'm stuck in traffic three rows thick, which I have to navigate horizontally _and_ vertically? And how horrific would a three 'copter collision be, when, not only would the "flyers" be killed, but the innocents below, crushed and sliced by falling debris?
Of course, there would now be the loser who would hop in his 'copter to fly across the street for a loaf of bread - the coolness factor might make the temptation too great - and then there would be me, watering my lawn from 50 feet in the air!
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
Its the year 2000! I was promised flying cars! Where are my flying cars!
They also promised us worldwide nuclear destruction. Sometimes life is unfair.
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Its the year 2000! I was promised flying cars! Where are my flying cars!
If you thought that moron driving down the highway in his SUV doing 90mph while talking on his cellphone was bad, you just wait! That'll be just what I need. Idiots in personal helicopters distracted by cellphones, crashing into my house.
I hope the glass is half full on this one, but it will probably be empty instead. It's a great theory, one that's been tried time and time again. The Hiller flying platform being one of the first and most recognizable: http://www.shreve.net/~jnuts/fly/hiller.htm Lots of other folks have built upon a similar theme, most with multiple engines, some with ducts, some without, but ALL of them have a larger duct area or rotor span. I just don't think they'll get the thrust, much less handle the control problems. for some more examples (that are flying): http://www.flying-platform.com/ http://www.vtol.co.il/page1.html http://www.shreve.net/~jnuts/fly/old/helivector.ht ml