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The Coming Air Age
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."
... when we can have rocket belts?
Jouster
Personal flight won't be a reality until we figure out how to put skip-lines and double-yellows in mid-air to keep people in line :-)
--NBVB
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
When a man who makes helicopters tells you everyone needs a helicopter, doesn't it sound a lot like a man who makes computers telling you that everyone needs a computer?
Or an Internet connection for that matter...
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
The problem is that ground is better. Cars go quite fast enough, and while traffic is really bad the fact remains that after a small collision nobody falls to their deaths. And can you imagine the noise pollution from the rotors? Think of one of those things taking off from your neighbor's driveway! Cars are fine for me, where I don't have to worry about watching for other vehicles in 3D, hey it's hard enough when you don't have cars coming up from underneath you cutting you off! We're still on the ground all the time because it's just a better place to be.
//TODO: signature
I'll admit i'm not expert on this. But i do believe the faster you push something through the air the less fuel efficient it becomes. Also, keeping something In the air requires a lot of fuel. You'd think that cramming a lot of poeple into a fast flying machine would eventually become fuel efficient the more you put in, but its a fact that traveling by train is much more fuel efficient than a 767.
My car goes about 300-400 miles on a 15 gallon tank of gas. Imagine how much gas a any kind of helicopter burns in 300 miles keeping itself up and pushing itself through the air, especially with all the crazy turbulence the roters makes.
I have no doubt that fuel will get cheaper in the future and global warming is bunk, but i dont want a bunch of hippies bugging me.
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
I think it's a good thing that futurists predictions are further ahead than reality. We might be more inclined to push ourselves if we think we are behind schedule...
Welcome to the land of the free...pay toll ahead...no photography...please open your bag...
1. Cost (capital and operating)
2. Pilot skill (individuals flying their own?)
3. Navigation
4. Parking (surely not in a multi-level garage!)
5. Air traffic control
6. Bad weather
7. Night
Aside from navigation and air traffic control, most of these problems are as serious today as when the helicopter was invented.
Sikorsky was too smart not to realize that it was never going to be a mass-market item. He was either fooling investors or fooling the government into subsidizing a project.
If we were so motivated, we could automate enough of helicopter operation to solve problems 2/3/5, but 1/4/6/7 will not go away.
from your driveway and blowing the neighbors garbage cans over, creating huge dustclouds and taking out a few powerlines on the way to work. that will make you popular with the neighbors!!!!
... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
I see many posts here about things like "2001" and other futuristic stories that now seem quaint, laughable, etc.
There's an important distinction between predicting the future and telling a story in the future. Movies such as 2001 just randomly pick a date that's "in the future" -- a time far enough away (from when it was made) that the viewer/reader can adequately suspend disbelief for the purposes of the story. Any date, really, will suffice.
You can laugh at people who make bona fide predictions that "X will happen by year Y". Those are people who actually believe such things.
But when taking in entertainment, always remember that Star Wars actually has the best blanket statement to suspend disbelief: that whole "In a galaxy far, far away" bit is nondescript but serves all purposes.
- Matt
There is a very group at work to fix some of the most serious problems with helicopters. Very promising stuff. See http://www.cartercopters.com/
Well, a limited number of places have something like that. For example, where I live (Victoria, BC) theres a helicopter service between here, Vancouver and Seattle, runs every hour. The use little, 12 person choppers.
This is however a very special case because it takes 3 hours to get from Victoria to Vancouver by land/water even though they're only 35 kilometres apart.
Most cities that are faily close together such as say Washington and Baltimore it just makes more sense to take a bus or a train, since it's far cheeper and there is no significant time advantage. (30 min by train as opposed to 10 min by helicopter). It just isn't worth it. Until the price of gas goes down (which it probably won't) or we find alternative fuel sources, there will never by any significant helicopter commuter services. Sig? Quel est sig?
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
Flight (still) has too much takeoff and landing overhead. Even if it was faster, people would go with the more convenient transport anyway.
Btw,futurists often seem to forget about people. Even if there were machines that would cook for me, why would I want it? After a stressful day of looking at source code and trying to fix bugs I like to go to the kitchen, grab a beer and start cooking. I'm not going to pay to let some machine take away my hobby!
One reason aircraft will never be as common as cars, is the maintainance involved. Aircraft must be constantly maintained, whereas cars can be ignored. The other is ease, a bad driver will cause accidents or close calls, a bad pilot can kill many people.
The truth about modern flight is, it's so safe that the only thing that will bring any plane down unsafely is a bad pilot or a catastrophic failure. This is why people don't survive airline crashes. An airliner doesn't crash unless it explodes, or has a major structural failure.
The hardware isnt much of an issue, but cost and training required is.
I am reminded of one of David Brin's essays in which he bashes George Lucas and Star Wars. (Let it be said that I've bashed Lucas and Star Wars myself a few times.) At one point Brin delivers himself of the self-serving observation that while Lucas and others like him are obsessed with the past, Brin himself looks to the future.
Yes, indeedy, where would we be if it weren't for forward-thinkers like Dave Brin? Just about the same place, I guess. Science fiction writers' track record for predicting the future isn't really any better than that of your average "Weekly World News" fortune-teller, except that the fortune-tellers tend to risk their predictive powers on such quotidian affairs as whether Brad Pitt will stay married to whoever that ditz is from "Friends", while SF writers confine themselves to lofty predictions about the fate of human society and technology. Now and again, one of the sci-fi boys will accidentally get something right, or sort of close (thus has Asimov been credited with "predicting" pocket calculators), as opposed to all those other writers who "predicted" that we'd still be using slide rules),.
As I see science fiction writers and futurists, we could have done without the whole clan of them and it wouldn't have made a scrap of difference. But one can say the same thing about any entertainment--I don't propose that entertainment _per se_ is useless, only that SF is just that, entertainment.
hyacinthus.
The FAA requires all of the following:
The end result is that the FAA has made it almost impossible for manufacturers and aircraft owners to improve their products. That means that aircraft safety can't improve, nor can the cost. So the only way to significantly improve an airplane's safety or cost is for the manufacturer to come out with a completely new design go through the entire certification process outlined above.
People believe these things about aviation because the mass media (movies, news reports, etc.) has portrayed aviation in this light in order to make the news more spectacular and to make movies more exciting. But of course, that kind of excitement isn't what you're after when you're flying for real.
The bottom line is that I don't think affordable personal aviation is ever going to happen because I don't believe the FAA will ever let it happen. The trend for the past 30 years has been for airplane prices to increase while at the same time production volume has decreased. These are the symptoms of a dying market.
To resurrect affordable personal aviation, a large manufacturer (like Toyota) will have to get into the game. It will require an investment of billions (most of that will go into the mass production machinery required) and at least a couple of decades. The manufacturer will have to sell moderately capable (150 knots, 1000 mile range, 18,000 foot service ceiling, 4 seats), simple to fly airplanes for between $50,000 and $100,000. They will have to manufacture their own engines because the current manufacturers are still building engines that were designed back in the 1940's, using 1940s production techniques, for a minimum of $20,000 apiece. This will kill just about any other airplane manufacturer, who won't be able to adapt themselves to that kind of competition because the FAA won't let them. It will seriously depress the used airplane market, because nobody in their right mind would pay $70,000 for a 30-year-old 120-knot 4-seater when they can get a 150-knot brand new 4-seater for the same price.
It'll be opposed by everyone: the FAA because they're 0wn3d by the airlines, the airlines because they'll lose a lot of short to medium range business, and many current aircraft owners, who view their aircraft as investments (used aircraft currently appreciate, not depreciate).
But that's what it'll take to make affordable personal aviation a reality.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
1. Take the idiot who cut you off this morning with no turn signal and no glance in the mirror while pulling curlers out of her hair and talking on her cell phone.
2. Drag her from her car like you wanted to anyway.
3. Put her in a helicopter with a failed engine and see how well she does autorotating.
As I pilot, I think that personal flight will occur someday, but only after these two prerequisites are achieved:
1. Antigravity, or some propulsion system that is so simple and efficient that falling out of the sky is not going to happen no matter how inattentive the pilot, and
2. An automatic navigation system that will keep all the vehicles in well-defined "lanes" just as they are now.
Needless to say, I think we have a ways to go yet.
Evil is the money of root.
I for one would be petrified to live in a city if everyone was flying. The average driver has enough trouble paying attention on the ground. And we may also assume that many of them barely squeaked by in their driver's exam. I shudder to think of personal flight units sailing all over the place, just waiting for the day I wake up to some asshole talking on his cellphone, crashing through my window. I don't believe that it is possible for this to be made properly safe. I will never trust computer navigation systems either, they're idiots too.
Ginger scares the shit out of me as well. I'd love to pilot one, sure, but I don't need idiots whipping all over the place on these things. In all the various vehicles I've driven, I've never had an accident, for I always drive with the assumption that everyone else on the road is a complete idiot. Ie: Don't trust turn signals, speed changes, etc, without other cues to determine what the hell is really going on in that tiny brain behind the wheel. It seems to have worked so far.
air traffic control is probably the biggest problem.
the ATC system is already overtaxed in busy areas and part of how they cope is by discouraging general aviation. it's certainly technically feasible for personal aircraft to be reliable, affordable, and about as easy to fly as it is to drive a car IF you can get enough people to use them. but if you get enough people to use them you have a traffic management problem far worse than anything we've ever seen on the ground.
face it, one reason we want to travel by air is to avoid traffic jams - but as soon as we put everyone in the air we need to find ways to keep everyone from hitting each other, and to do that we end up imposing the same kinds of constraints we have on the ground. at least on the ground we can often survive collisions between vehicles.
Keith
One problem with choppers is that they are hard to fly. They are harder than planes, and planes are harder to fly than cars are to drive. This used to be a big problem, but I think we are fast approching a time when any idiot could fly a chopper using a force-ball (you know, some 6-axis controller) and having a PC do all the work of controlling individual axis. On a side note, I think that it's much more likey that gyrocopters will ever be common than 'standard' helecopters.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Well of course it assumes a few things...like the rotors are intact...but let's deal with only one emergency at a time. The truth is that it's extremely rare to loose a rotor. Much more likely is the loss of engine power, or hydraulics, or maybe a dynamic component malfunction. I've practiced 100's of autorotations without incident and suffered one intermediate gearbox malfunction. The gearbox malfunction resulted in a crash.
As far as a place to land is concerned, any parking lot, large backyard, baseball diamond or other area large enough to accommodate the length of the bird is sufficient...something you can't say about any airplane. Also, helos glide pretty well. So finding a spot to set down isn't that hard unless you're in some really rugged terrain. If you're in flight flying low (nap of the earth) in anything and loose power you're toast (unless you have an ejection seat...not available on most civilian aircraft), but a good pilot doesn't need much altitude to successfully auotrotate and walk away from the landing.
And there's no way you can compare loosing power in a car with loosing power in an aircraft...unless it's comparison out of ignorance.
One thing that most people don't understand is how hard it is to fly a helicopter. It is not as simple as driving a car where you go and take a test to prove you understand the traffic laws and then go out on a road course with a DMV person for 15 to 20 minutes.
It takes years of schooling in order to be granted a helicopter pilots liscense. This is very costly, and requires a lot of time.
It is not uncommon for people to go to college for flight (airplanes), and once successfully passing their flight exams to go on and study helicopter operation.
My little sister is currently studying to be a commerical airline pilot and it will take her 4 years at the number flight school in the USA. Then if she wants to persue helicopters she has to take more classes and spent a lot more time gaining the airtime in a helicopter with an instructor, only then will she receive her helicoptiers liscense from the FAA. The FAA is strick and sometimes tough, and this is for good reason, would you trust any idiot with a piece of machinery like this? If they crash the thing into a crowded area they kill a whole lot people.
Helicopters are not like cars, when you wreck a car, most of the time you can survive, or if you die, you don't kill anyone else. When you crash a helicopiter you are probably automatically dead.
Sikorsky wasn't really the inventor of the helicopter; the idea had been around for a long time before he got his hands on it, and some workable helicopter prototypes had even been built. But he is widely regarded as being the one who really got helicopters "off the ground" so to speak.
:)
It's not like the guy was totally detached from profit or fame attached to the technology. He would have greatly benefited from what he "predicted." Therefore, this prediction is not much more than an ad for his life work.
It's kind of like if Linus said that in 80 years everyone would be running Linux. Nice wish for him, nice wish for us, ain't gonna happen.
165 grand wouldn't get you a decent Porsche. It'd get you about 4 decent Porsches. Or one hella Porsche.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
...never piloted an aircraft. The glide characteristics of most airplanes do not allow for "miles" of unpowered flight. A Cessna has a glide ratio of about 9:1 @ 90 KIAS. That means you can go forward 9 feet for every foot you drop. 1,000 feet up equals 9,000 feet forward. Hardly miles! Also, without power your control surfaces do not work as well and a stall is a fairly typical result...unless you've spent a lot of time training for engine failure.
As someone pointed out below, in a helo you have a lot of energy stored in your wings (the rotors) when you loose engine power and helos don't stall in flight. As you "drop like a rock" you can increase the "power" in your wings and use that power as you approach the ground you can trade that power for lift and reduce your rate of descent...landing at a very survivable rate. I've practiced 100's of these and experienced one real one. We landed hard but the bird and the crew were unhurt.
True enough. A helicopter mechanic (who may have been pulling my chain) once told me about a critical connector that he called a "Jesus bolt". Why? Because if that bolt lets loose, you're going to see Jesus.
Playing devil's advocate, though... if you're going to talk about gross structural failures, you have to admit that there will be similar problems with other aircraft. If a wing falls off of your Cessna, you're going to be just as pissed, aren't you? What's the likelihood of a rotor going away compared to a wing going kaput?
With that said, I think I'd prefer to be in a dead-stick Cessna, just as you would... but that's with today's helicopters. A liberal application of technology could go a long way toward fixing those shortcomings.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
If you think about it, air travel is only good for long distances or where speed is vital.
I think (and hope) that we will see more innovation around different land transportation, such as Segway-like devices for personal transport,
monorail for intracity, and maglev for high capacity intercity/interstate transport. The last two are ideal because you don't the waste of having to carry the fuel they use or going fast enough to maintain lift.
Air will still be more cost/time effective for transcontinential and transoceanic travel.
A speech...
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, there are somewhere around 300 private helicopters that those who can afford them use to avoid traffic and crime. They use them just like the plebes use cars. The best article I found on the topic is at aviation today (here).
Of course, having 300 'copters in a city of unpteen million isn't exactly what the man predicted, but the patter of use is consistent.
You are absolutely correct but left out a few items.
1. The FAA also mandates inspections by FAA certified aircraft mechanics each year at the maximum or after so many hours of flight. If you miss an inspection the aircraft is forbidden to fly as it is not airworthy. The inspections can take some time and any defects found must be corrected before the craft can fly. A Piper Navajo inspection costs upwards of $2,500 and the aircraft may be out of service for some time. A side effect of this requirement, if there is to be a people's aircraft is that LOTS of certified aircraft mechanics would be required.
2. Detailed logs must be kept of each flight, each repair, and each add-on. If the logs are not correct, spanning the whole life of the aircraft, it is not airworthy.
3. The manufacturer and FAA provide notices of problems that sometimes require inspections, repairs, and replacement. The repairs must be complied with. You are not allowed to fly around with defects.
4. Avionics are expensive to purchase, install, and maintain. The last time I checked three or four years ago a collision avoidance system cost $25,000. This would tend to put the price of the aircraft out of reach of most folks.
5. It's hard to imagine a failsafe aircraft so I suppose some training including simulator training and certification will be required - probably with some sort of yearly medical inspection. If there is a problem and the aircraft needs to be auto-rotated it still has to be guided to a safe landing.
All in all, I think that the typical person is not well suited to this degree of complexity, care, and expense and it won't happen any time soon.
Nate
The coming Air Rage
Seriously, it's not so hard to make automated systems for collision avoidance. Much harder is to create pollution-free and cheap fuel engines (fuel cells? cold fusion?).
Much much harder to resolve all the landscape and noise issues. Near Washington DC even small helicopter pad to which 6 or 7 helicopters expected to be landed created a lot of rage and crying from residents. Result is that that pad has never been built. And I think it's good.
Personal aircraft will never be mainstream until they can reliably fly themselves from point 'a' to point 'b' without direct control from the passengers. If you give people control, it would be a horrible problem.
Think of all the times people break out of the confines of traffic when the opportunity presents itself. How many times have you seen people drive up an embankment to get from a slow freeway to the feeder road? How could you possibly police all of the guaranteed violations of this type? This assumes that there is some form of infrastructure to create 'sky lanes' for people to stay in. What kind of mess would there be without some form of organized lanes?
What about parking lots? How would you like to navigate the chaos of a parking lot in 3D? Would you find people in some sort of holding pattern over Woolworths so that they could make a mad dash for the "good spot" when someone takes off? Imagine an early morning commute where people do not trickle into a parking area because traffic lights limit their access, and lanes do not keep them in single file. If everyone decides to leave home at 'the perfect time' because they know exactly how long it takes them to fly to the office, then everyone who needs to be at work at 8:am will get to the parking lot at essentially the same time.
What about the noise? When was the last time you heard a quiet aircraft? I can hear a single traffic helicopter approaching from a mile away when I am in my car. Think of the decibels generated by a freeway of such noisemakers.
What about the fuel efficiency? these things have to maintain flight even at standstill. Ground vehicles do not have to expend energy to counteract gravity unless they are moving uphill. By the time automated personal flying vehicles become practical (by not allowing the occupants to break traffic laws), how efficient will ground vehicles be?
I am rarely a naysayer of future ideas, but this idea has so many impracticalities that I find it to be a no-brainer. It will be nothing more then the folley of idiots for a very long time to come.
The general public is too stupid to manuver safely in 3D.
I've read a bunch of threads from people who talk about how dangerous it will be to have so many people flying around, and I am reminded of how when cars first appeared, they would be escorted in town by sentries waving red flags because it was thought that the cars would be so inherently dangerous.
The currently designed helicopter will not be the flying car of the future. As master Yoda would say "No, there is another". Meet the cyclogiro, our Navy's latest secret weapon, and one of Russia's finest inventions. ;) They operate on the concept of cycloidal propulsion (see Google), which is mechanically complicated but more efficient and quiter than conventional designs.
A number of people think personal helicopters and air cars would be easier for humans to fly if they had autopilots to take care of pitch, yaw, etc., and a sort of collision avoidance system, therefore giving the aircraft some sort of "horse sense".
But the horse sense would have to be good enough to avoid ground objects too, such as trees, buildings, power lines, radio towers and the ubiquitous cell phone network antennas. But more importantly, they would need a law abiding horse sense that would automatically avoid no-fly zones such as over nuke plants, refineries, prisons (imagine a sky car aided prison break), or anywhere else you have to stop at a guard shack before going inside.
But I want my back yard to be a no-fly zone, too. I don't want someone to land in my back yard and steal my gas grill. And I'm sure businesses with fenced in outdoor storage wouldn't want to be descended upon by flying thieves, either. This would require designated landing lots and air car guidance systems that will only land at other designated landing lots. They needn't be all that big, in fact existing parking lots would do nicely. My street has maybe 30 houses, and maybe about 60 cars. They could land a flying car in the parking lot of the local gas station, gas up, then drive it the rest of the way home on the street. That way cities will not have to be planned around them. Until these requirements are met, I don't think there will ever be sky cars.
But there really is no negative heat. You can have less heat or less gravity, but once you are at zero thats about it as far as anybody knows.
Mass, at least is equivalent to inductance, so gravity can cause an object to oscillate. Heat doesn't even have that. Heat will flow from warmer to cooler places, but thats about it.
Clickety Click
As a pilot I can tell you, affordable flight already exists. Expensive, yes, but no more expensive than a nice car. IF, of course, you are willing to shop, buy used, and don't require 'sexiness' in your aircraft.
... whose mechanic has had his car for over a month. I've never been without my airplane for a month.
A two seater Cessna 150 or 152 in good condition goes for about $20k, and will generally do 95-100 knots TAS and burns about 7 gallons per hour.
A Beech Sundowner (my personal choice) will hold 3 adults plus fuel, has a range of six hours (more than most people's bladders), does about 105-110 knots, goes for around $40,000 and burns 8-9 gallons / hour.
Annuals typically run $1,000-$2,000, fuel typically costs $2.50/gallon. Insurance is typically $800/year or so (post 9/11), less if you get your instrument rating.
1. The FAA also mandates inspections by FAA certified aircraft mechanics each year at the maximum or after so many hours of flight.
Part 91 (personal aircraft) only requires an annual. Commercial air carriers must submit to more rigorous inspections, such as 100 hour inspections, etc.
If you miss an inspection the aircraft is forbidden to fly as it is not airworthy.
In Germany, if your car misses its biannual inspection, it is illegal to drive.
The inspections can take some time and any defects found must be corrected before the craft can fly.
Some defects which affect air worthiness must be fixed. Others, which may be a good idea for safety but are not required to insure air worthiness you can either fix or put off. A wise pilot chooses to fix such things, but there are those who do not. Part of getting an annual done is discussing and working out with your mechanic what should be fixed now, and what makes more sense to put off.
A Piper Navajo inspection costs upwards of $2,500 and the aircraft may be out of service for some time.
As for time, annuals typically don't last more than a week or two, unless something is seriously wrong or a part is backordered.
Which is what happened to a colleague of mine
2. Detailed logs must be kept of each flight, each repair, and each add-on. If the logs are not correct, spanning the whole life of the aircraft, it is not airworthy.
Not true. First, you are confusing pilot logs (logs of each flight, kept by and for the pilot in their own log book) with aircraft logs, of which there are two: airframe logs and engine logs.
Second, the only thing that has to be certified is that the aircraft is currently airworthy, i.e. a certified aircraft mechanic has performed an annual within the last twelve months and signed off that the aircraft is airworthy. If logs are missing that is irrelevant, so long as the log showing the most recent annual is intact. Missing logs will decrease the value of the plane, they will not affect its air worthiness unless you've had the bad luck to lose the log book containing the most recent annual.
3. The manufacturer and FAA provide notices of problems that sometimes require inspections, repairs, and replacement. The repairs must be complied with. You are not allowed to fly around with defects.
If you are part 91, most ADs are to be complied with at the next annual. Commercial aircraft have more stringent requirements, of course. If an AD does require immediate inspection and repair (it happens, but is rare), that is akin to an automobile recall.
4. Avionics are expensive to purchase, install, and maintain. The last time I checked three or four years ago a collision avoidance system cost $25,000. This would tend to put the price of the aircraft out of reach of most folks.
Avionics are vastly overpriced. But most private planes do not have collision avoidance systems, moving map GPSes (Garmin 540 goes for about $14k installed). Most have the basic radio stack and navigational instruments, which are included in the prices I mentioned before. But yes, if you are feeling greedy for the latest fancy equipment it will cost you dearly, as will the latest, faster aircraft. So don't be greedy, fly an older, reliable, less sexy aircraft instead.
All in all, I think that the typical person is not well suited to this degree of complexity, care, and expense and it won't happen any time soon.
Agreed. However, the Germans don't just let anyone drive. A drivers license typically requires about $2,000 for the training and a fairly rigorous exam. Not as rigorous as a pilot exam and checkride by any stretch, but far more rigorous than the silly tests we in America take.
However, if everyone were given rigorous flying lessons in high school (as we are drivers ed) and the prerequisites to becoming a private or instrument rated pilot remained as they are (fairly rigorous), I think the majority of people could become very competent pilots. Not every idiot, as we have with cars, but perhaps as many as 70-80%.
Of course, the skies would be vastly more crowded, and that would present its own set of problems. Those issues are being addressed (smart autopilots, vastly better navigation and guidance equipment, etc.), but alas, that will be expensive.
However, if someone wishes to become a competent pilot and fly today, in America at least it can be done on a budget, if you are careful and willing to forego the latest, sexiest toys in favor of used hand-me-downs.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Why didn't this happen?
1. No matter how much automation is used to reduce manufacturing costs, air transport would use far more real resources than cars currently do. I mean more fuel, more materials, higher grade parts....everything would have been more expensive.
2. Lets face the truth here. As a whole, the human race isn't really that smart. The average individual makes countless poor and irresponsible decisions, gets stuck in stupid patterns and addictions, stops learning most new things past a certain age...(the list continues) I'd also say that most slashdotters (myself included) fall into part of this category. I know I've made plenty of dumb mistakes, even when I was aware that I was doing so.
There are simply not enough individuals in society capable of safely piloting these vehicles to put them into common use. There are not enough responsible mechanics who could keep fleets of these things running safely. Its not a lack of education : I'm saying we couldn't really find enough people to run this system who would be responsible enough.
3. The current system of cars for (relatively) short distances and planes for long distance does work. While many complain of long commutes, citizens do make it to work...the system functions. It would take considerable investment to build a short distance air transport system that was really significantly better than the compromise in use today.
How can this be built in the future?
By removing the human from much of it. At some point (it may require computers "Turing capable") it should be practical to build computer controlled flying vehicles where the human may lack even manual overrides.
To ease the maintainence problem, the flying machines moving parts would all be embedded with arrays of diagonostic sensors and the vehicle would refuse to start if a fault were detected. Any monkey of a mechanic could hopefully then swap out the faulty component, safely repairing the vehicle.
A Futurist's job, in almost all cases is to take a look at what is going on today, compare it to what has gone on before, and suggest trends that are likely to continue into the future. They are fully ready to recognize that what they suggest may not come to pass.
As an example, a Futurist would look at sales in computers of various types, and observe that desktop sales are flat or decreasing, laptop sales are increasing slowly, and servers are relatively flat, with perhaps a slight increase in a few areas. Said Futurist would then look at why those figures are happening, and perhaps note that laptops today are far more powerful than the best desktops of five years ago, businesses are buying servers because they need to increase capacity. Desktop (tower/mini-tower) systems draw too much power, have more power than most are ever used for, and still cost more than they are worth to most people. Based upon those observations, a Futurist might suggest that "desktops" are going to be religated to two people, those who stress their machines, (gamers and hobbiests) Laptop sales will increase, and get less expensive. And Servers are going to become more flexible, with dynamic increases in capacity and power becoming selling points.
As most will probably point out, none of the above seems to be particularly rocket science. Any good economics student could probably make the same analysis, and provide the same report. It is not Prophecy and so on.
Do Futurists get things wrong? Are we wearing paper clothing as Alvin Tofler predicted in Future Shock? Yes, Futurists get things wrong. Though the paper clothing statement is probably a lot closer to reality than most people think. It is not unususal to find clothing made out of recycled materials. I have seen shoes and jackets that have been made out of recycled softdrink bottles. While I do not know where to get them myself, there are booties worn over shoes in some environments (hospitals for the most part) that are made of paper. Specifically because they are created and destroyed, and when destroyed take any biological hazards with them rather than putting them in the ocean and on our beaches.
So while I am not aware of any high fashion shows presenting paper clothing, I do think that the Toflers got it at least partially right.
At the other end of the "prediction" group are the people who make their predictions about your life based upon how you are reacting to them. I understand the money can be good, though there are occasional hazzards to be navigated.
Futurists are neither soothsayers, nor doom sayers. They are researchers and analysts. Generally they are not afraid of making some bold statements about the future. They will coach those statements with "I could be wrong" or other qualifiers. And when they are wrong, if asked they should generally be ready to point out that they considered it to be a reasonable probability.
Any business that hires a futurist probably is looking for the trends they should try to move into, rather than a specific product to start promoting. Once they have reason to believe a trend is likely, they can start making strategic and subsequently tactical decisions on how to participate, or avoid that trend.
With the earlier analysis, Zookd Computers, Inc. _may_ decide that making inexpensive (to produce) laptops will be likely to return a much larger profit over the long term than trying to sell top of the line traditional workstations. And while they will continue to make some of the traditional workstations, providing some very good platforms will tend to promote their hLnb laptop line as a reasonable replacement for standard desktops. Not to mention they work really well with their extreamly popular hOnc Mp3 player.
Fencehole Computers will look at what Zookd Computers is doing, and pick one product and make a similar computer with a significantly poorer feature set, and try to sell them for just about the same price that Zookd is selling their hLzb desktop units for.
Lled will look at Fencehole and just shake their head as they come out with more powerful servers, and reasonable laptops, and find some anoying kid to hawk them on every channel they can buy ad space from.
Then again maybe I am just reading too much into the earlier analysis.
-Rusty
You never know...
I don't know about the stability control, but I know the lengthened the 911 wheelbase by moving the rear wheels back a little at some point (in the '80s, I think). It's really an amazing design considering the longevity.
To point this out more clearly than the previous post, you had a fatal miscalculation that totally blew an otherwise intelligent piece of work - if you simply divide 65 by 12 (worst case gas milage for the Yukon) you find that in fact the Yukon consumed only around 5 1/2 gallons of fuel, not 15!!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Carter Copters has been working feverishly for several years now on a vertitcal take off and landing aircraft. That combines the traits of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft with GryoCopters.
The specs are pretty impressive. Coast to Coast on 1 tank of gas. 450mph cruise speed at over 35,000 feet, Zero Roll take off and short field landing. 5 Passengers. Plus luggage.
Here are some pics and vids. They had a good demo at the OSHKOSH Air Show
Two Towers-Two Worlds.One seeks triumphs and freedom for man.The other deems man unworthy and wrecks them.
Of all the "personal flight" ideas out there, the Moller skycar seems to have the most potential. I heard the designer, Paul Moller, being interviewed on Coast to Coast AM recently, and was captivated. Looking at the design, it seems very "car-like," with no exposed rotor edges or wings; it basically looks like a car with small jet engines instead of wheels. During the interview, the designer made a big point of explaining the integral safety systems: each turbojet is actually two turbojets, so if one fails the other takes over; there are three separate computers on board (one primary, two backups), etc. It runs on regular gasoline, gets mileage comparable to a car (over 25mpg), is quiet (85dB @ 50 feet, and they're working to reduce it further), and most importantly, is a VTOL (vertical take off and landing) craft. They've been developing this for the last few decades (check their design history on the site) and are working with the FAA to obtain "powered lift" certification for the Skycar- on the interview I remember one of his points was that getting a license for the Skycar should be easier than getting a driver's license.
Wrists killing you? Not in 2 weeks. Learn Dvorak.
"see and use hundreds of short-run helicopter bus services."
There have been short run helicopter services in US cities which used heli pads on top of city buildings.
He goes on to write about personal helicopters which fit in large garages and that helicopters that are easier to drive than cars, etc..
There are cheap helicopters that are built with small budget in mind which are marketed towards individuals and give good milage.
Lamborghini made a VERY small heli which only holds one man (very snuggly). Robinson R22's are really cheap too.
I've flown an R22. Starting it up sounds like starting up a lawnmower.
Helicopters as easy to pilot as cars? OK, now that is wildly wrong. : )
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
So if we ever see widspread personal flying, I wouldn't be surprised if it was using some form of ultra-light, with speeds in the 50-100 mph range.
As for personal helicopters - the things are hell to maintain. I know people who think getting a tune-up at 100,000 miles is a pain. Imagine trying to fly a chopper for ten years with no maintenance...
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
How the hell am I going to fit a helicopter through a Taco Bell drive up window at 2am?! I have enough trouble getting my CAR through one sometimes. :P
When a car breaks, you coast to a stop.
When an aircaft breaks, you drop to one.
But internal combustion engines are much more efficient at trapping the expanding combustion gases and converting them to work. Turbines lose a lot of efficiency in the conversion of energy to mechanical work.
The difference isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, but turbines still aren't as efficient. They are much more reliable, however, so their overall cost of operation is less when scaled to suit airliner size aircraft.
Here's proof. One airframe design that has two variants, a piston-powered variant and a turbine-powered variant, is the Piper Malibu. The Mirage is piston powered and the Malibu is turbine powered. Here are the relevant specs:
Piper Malibu Mirage:
Piper Meridian:
Now, the power requirements due to air resistance vary by the cube of the speed, and the fuel burn varies directly with the amount of power used. So at 25,000 feet, the Meridian is using 1.44 times the amount of power that the Mirage is using. But if the specific fuel consumptions were the same, then the turbine would burn 1.44 times the amount of fuel, or 26 gal/hr. But it burns 37. And even if the fuel burn were the same, kerosene has a higher energy content than gasoline. So the turbine is less efficient.
Another way to prove it is through the specific fuel consumption values. A piston engine uses about 0.45 lb/hp per hour. The PT6 uses 0.53 lb/hp per hour. So the PT6 burns more fuel, from a source that has more energy.
Oh, yeah: and the turbine is a lot more expensive. But that probably has more to do with General Electric's monopoly (or so I've heard) on the processes used to produce the fan blades than anything else.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Mass-produced avionics would lead to further price reductions. Avionics pricing should certainly not be an issue. Incidetally, the reliability issue could be solved Airbus style with functionally identical technology produced by different hardware/software teams.
Um, last I heard Rolls-Royce do a nice line in turbo-props (and they have a lot of patents themselves) but mostly for slightly larger aircraft (medium range commuter). I guess they would certainly come up with something if they saw a market.
One big issue I see with personal aircraft, particularly helicopters is noise. If your neighbor staring his uber-carbuerated muscle car at 6:30am is bad, just wait until he fires up the chopper. Freeway noise can carry for miles yet the indivual cars aren't particularly loud. Helicopters are very loud and clouds of them over cities would be deafening.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
That sez it all. Stressed out soccer mom yakking on the phone, swatting at her ADHD babbling kids who are fighting, while the family Ford Erection SUC (sport utility copter) jamms in traffic.
Somebody carooms out of the KFC flyby w/o looking on a right bank.
BOOM.
Traffic gets all honked up. Tempers flare. The rockets red glare. Dozens die film at a 11.
I've skydived and looked into other air sports, hanggliding, paragliding and so on. They're all dangerous sports simply because they involve flight.
25-35% of all skydiving fatalities are landing errors. When you have an accident in a land vehicle you're horizontal to the ground and you generally "bleed off" speed unless you slam into an immovable object. Wipe out on a motorcycle and you skid along the ground and get road rash.
With air vehicles accidents involve slamming vertically into the ground, you have nowhere to bleed off the energy of the accident so the injuries are often leathal.
Flying is sort of like driving a car or riding a motorcycle, except every accident involves hitting a concrete wall.
You also have other random factors like turbulance and wind conditions you don't have to deal with on the ground.
It takes lots of training and a constant use of safety procedures to fly safely(and even then it's more dangerous than driving a car).
Until we have computers that can totally automate the flight, I don't see it happening for the average driver. It's too intolerant to errors.
That's the same basic concept that supposed "high availability" products like Sun Cluster & VERITAS FirstWatch (err... VCS.. sorry) use.
And guess what? It's a damned mess.
OK, you've got 3 machines. Two of them lose the connection to the third. Who's the master? Two of them think they're the only ones alive, so they elect a master. The guy off on his own thinks _he's_ alone, so he elects himself a master.
Now we've got 2 masters. Oops.
This is commonly referred to as a "split brain" situation. It's definitely a non-trivial problem to solve.
And that's only one possible situation. There are all sorts of failures that can have nasty repercussions.
Ick.
--NBVB
I agree. these type of airbags should be looked at more closely for flying vehicles. Also, the manually deployed vehicle parachutes for ultralights could be used.
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