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The End of Solotrek
bobetov writes "For those of us fed up with gravity and gridlock, the Solotrek XFV personal VTOL aircraft has been the real IT. A Segway is a nice scooter and all, but this thing can fly. But it all comes down to dollars in the end, and, with a recent test-flight accident and a missed milestone, Trek Aerospace is calling it quits."
And furthermore... If DARPA had interest in this project before, how is cutting funding going to help? What, if they can't have it working the way they want it by December 20th, they don't want it at all? It's not like they have a bunch of different competing designs for a troop transport aircraft such as this one; by cutting funding for this aren't they damning themselves to never having a vehicle of this type, or is it not as practical as it seems?
Look at the design, how the hell could you use this for defense?
Not a big fan of jump jets on your mecha? (kidding, kidding.. *grin* )
It is pure research. Never a bad thing. Had this been a 'show me a profit this quarter' deal, I'm sure it never would have left the ground. DARPA is one of the few places left to foot the bill for things that may be nothing more than a stepping stone for the next big thing.
I suspect it is a lot like flying a helecopter... it takes a long time before the machine goes where you think. A bit of PIC time and improved stability, there would be time to aim. Not sure what you would fire, but anyhow...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
I don't see how personal flight vehicles for the masses could ever come to fruition. It's been a struggle to reduce highway fatalities due to people losing control over a vehicle capable of moving over an essentially planar surface. Now, how about the problems associated with the ability to travel in the third dimension. Running out of fuel while in midair - you splat down hard, instead of coasting to stop. Collisions with trees, buildings, fogbanks, aircraft, including fellow SoloTrekkers, etc. Imagine the possibilities opening up for ordinary criminals and terrorists. If the ultimate goal is the rapid conveyance of people intra and inter city, we need to: 1. Use massive tax incentives to encourage working from home. Jet Blue, for instance, largely does away with call centers by having its reservation agents receive the calls at home. 2. Construct efficient new light rail systems. 3. Encourage a new generation of small ultraefficient jet aircraft to ferry small loads of passengers on the less popular routes. There has been an upsurge in fractional jet ownership programs, with ensuing competition driving down prices. Big airlines and big planes are showing their age. It's time for new thinking in the post-jet age.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Congratulations Mr. Marthouse, You've Invented The Train.
OK, time to share a personal experience. This happened my last year at UVa. Every engineering student was required to do a 4th year thesis, something that was held out as a matter of pride in the rigor of the engineering program. Mine was some software that tracked the edge of the roadway using splines. The justficication for it was that one day we'd have real-time MI that could drive cars, and that the technique might be a useful component of that.
Another student was designing a "volkscopter" personal flight vehicle.
Well, we all had to give presentations (including a Q & A) during the development phase, and I made the Trent Lott-like blunder of bringing up the fact that such things were routinely advertised in Popular Mechanics when I posed a question.
We were all so busy, I never got around to settling this issue with people. I just got some hardball questions during my Q & A from students sympathetic to the other guy, which I was able to dodge. The thesis project taught me as much about politics as it did about engineering!
To the student who was designing the volkscopter, I apologize. There was no need to drag you into what I was discovering.
First, I realized that asking an entire class of engineering students to do an "original" research project is just ridiculous. Truly original ideas are like winning lotto tickets.
Second, the whole idea of self-driving cars is just ridiculous. Why not just put us all back on trains? Well, we subsidize roads way too much. We're plunking $1 billion into the Springfield Interchange near where I live, and although I must say it has added some aesthetic flair to Springfield, it won't solve gridlock. Contrast this with how much money Amtrack needs to stay afloat. I don't think Amtrack was even asking for $1 billion, wasn't it $900 million? Regardless, the point is that if we subsidized rail at the same rate per passenger and freight mile that we do highways, things would, in my opinion, be a lot better.
So, at some point it dawned on me that my thesis was really just inventing the train. I thought to myself, Congratulations Mr. Marthouse, you've invented the train. Of course I never disclosed this to my profs. I wanted to graduate. My only form of protest was to refuse to change the title of my thesis to "An application of rational uniform bezier splines for edge detection in an automated navigation system" from "Snakes: an improved method for highway line following". I swear I'm not making this up. The prof was really disappointed I wouldn't give it an important sounding title.
What does this have to do with personal flight? Well, it's only safe if you build a train-like system where the vehicle "locks on" to a program and the user doesn't actually have to pilot the vehicle.
People will not accept this in a personal flight system until they accept it in a ground transportation system. If you try to do it in a ground system, they will ask themselves the same question I asked: why not just use trains.
The answer, like many things, has more to do with politics than engineering.
--Steven Marthouse, UVa ENGR '93.
p.s., the story of my "greening" after graduation has some interesting turns, but you'll have to buy my book. :)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Under the Purchase Skycar link, they say this:
As a result of the recent successful hovering flights of the M400 Skycar, Moller International is once again accepting $5,000 deposits to secure delivery positions for our M400 Skycar. Your deposit is entirely refundable and will bear interest at an annual interest rate of 5%
Woa, 5%! That is better than you can get sticking your money in a Money Market account at the bank. Plus, the deposit is fully refundable! I gotta do this.