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The Coming Air Age

Posted by michael on from the RSN dept.

Lovejoy writes "Sixty years ago in The Atlantic Monthly, Igor Sikorsky wrote The Coming Air Age. "Any of us who are alive ten years after this Second World War is won will see and use hundreds of short-run helicopter bus services." He goes on to write about personal helicopters which fit in large garages and that helicopters that are easier to drive than cars, etc.. So, will personal flight ever be viable? Do wildly wrong predictions like this give futurists pause? I think they should."

5 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. 2 words: by MrEd · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Soccer moms.


    At least now a sturdy fence can keep them out...

    --

    Wah!

  2. Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen. by Tablizer · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Having an engine shut off at speed in a corner is vicious

    What about Pathfinder-style airbags?

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    Table-ized A.I.
  3. Re:seriously... by krenshala · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The only thing wrong with your argument is that you can stack people in the air. There already exist proximity avionics that will alert the pilots of two planes flying close or in an intercept course that they need to watch out for another aircraft.

    Of course the idiot drivers would become idiot pilots when we finally do get general use aircraft that replace cars ... at least on the road you don't have as far to fall when some moron runs into you. ;\

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    krenshala

  4. Ah, how quickly the young forget by dnight · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Personal flight has been around since the sixties, you just had to eat some sugar cubes and flap your arms.

    Ask Timothy Leary, he's still up there somewhere.

  5. It's like my mother sais. by guybarr · · Score: 1, Offtopic


    We're lucky cows can't fly.

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    Working for necessity's mother.