Slashdot Mirror
Buy a Moller SkyCar Prototype on eBay
HobbySpacer writes "Moller International has announced that it will offer its first working Skycar for sale on eBay starting January 31st - Press Release. The M400P prototype has repeatedly flown short hovering flights on tethers in tests since 2001 (see videos). The company warns that although '[a]ll systems are operational. Potential buyers are cautioned that this is a prototype model and considered an experimental aircraft.' Also, 'the Skycar has not yet been approved as a road vehicle.' A more powerful 2nd gen production version is currently under construction for longer untethered test flights this year."
How very Hanna-Barberaish.
Think 5 bucks will win the auction?
...is based on the DeLorean!
Mr. Smoove
I'd like to have one, but what's the point if its illegal to taker 'er out for a spin?
Why would a flying car need to be approved as a road vehicle?
The great advantage of having a reputation for being stupid: People are less suspicious of you.
Anyone have the link to the car on ebay?
So, basically I can buy a car that is perfectly legal to leave in my garage and never take out. Wicked, I can see it now: "Dad, can I have the keys to the skycar?" "No, son, we're not sure yet whether or not it will blow up." ... I say if someone has the extra money to buy this thing, he can give it to me instead, I'll put it to better use.
Lagito ergo expectabo
So I guess Duke Nukem Forever is coming out soon.
i've already got my own landspeeder
Any relationship with the flying exoskeleton also sold at ebay? Are all thie flying vehicles prototypes ending at ebay? Is no one succeeding to end in a real shop?
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
Why would anyone buy this?
It isn't approved for traffic, and it's pretty much a useless prototype.
oh well, ebay auctions are great for slashdot articles at least...
Why on earth would a company with something as groundbreaking as a flying car sell the prototype, especially a functional version?
Surely it would be the one that you'd want to keep and the one that has the most company history in it so to speak. In any case, selling the prototype off seems very strange...
And anyone who knows how roads in Romania look like will agree with me...
I'd like to see a Chocolate Factory up for sale on eBay, that would make my day, then I could finally make chocolate gold pressed latnum bars!
Oompa Loompa world!
The site says the car is "personally affordable".
Then, when you click on the purchase link you find out it costs $1,000,000.
I was all set to place a bid, and had my millions ready to put down. I complied with everything they wanted, then I saw right near the end it said:
"You must be 18 years of age or older to Bid."
dammit.
... I can act out stuff from, Kevin Smith's The Flying car
will it come down as fast as the server came down when 1000 slahsdot readers jumped on it?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
I'm seriously tempted to put a bid in for this and not pay. I'd get the mother of all negative feedback then!
Negative from SkyCar: Seller didn't pay and is a cunt. E-
Response by ukmarkyboy: Admit it. You're the goatse man.
-Mark
they'll have to use the income from the sale on e-bay to buy a new web server after this Slashdotting.
Moller's Skycar has been "six months away from flight" for longer than I've been alive. The thing is a nightmare from an inteference drag standpoint, and his figures for fuel consumption are totally unrealistic (especially as the BSFC for the type of engine he's using is worse than traditional spark-ignition reciprocating engines).
Based on Moller's track record, the thing will _never_ fly. All it does is suck investment money. He's even worse than Bede (at least a few of Bede's aircraft actually flew and were successful).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
They seem to be all in Real Media format, and I refuse to install that spyware-ridden piece of crapware called "RealOne". Links would be much appreciated, even to WMVs.
--sdem
If it is still a protype and experimental then why don't they just wait until it is far more developed rather than offering a mediocre imitation of what they promise which will probably make itself very apparent as such?
But when are we going to get the flying cars?!? Oh wait...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
it is not road legal
Okay, is it just me or does the thing FLY.
This is their way of tricking some fool into paying to be the test pilot.
word.
a prototype of Duke Nukem Forever as well?
*ducks*
Experimental aircraft (even experimental gliders) require a pilot's license. Good luck finding an instructor for this little gem.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
First MOO3, now a flying car?
Can you hear that? It's hell... freezing over.
That all the cool flying devices lately seem to be unable to um....how do i put this politely.....fly?
until the San Francisco Board of Supervisors gets a hold of this idea.
sulli
RTFJ.
It's funny, I thought that Duke Nukem Forever would come out before flying cars did...
on eBay.
Nothing to see really. Move along.
Even though everyone and their Grandma has to go to university these days just to get a living job, I don't think people in general are disciplined and smart enough to handle a flying car.
[cue Back to the Future theme]
Now, someone please tell me... when can I get my hands on a damn Mr. Fusion?! Ugh...
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
It's so nice to see my POE benefitting humanity in such a good way. The weird shit I see pass through here everyday. Flying cars, frankenstein squirrels, there isn't anything some sucker won't buy or sell.
But really I think they want the buyer to be the one to suffer the consequences if the thing explodes in midair. And I've always wondered when I was going to get my flying car!
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
The Experimental Aircraft Asscociation is a group of people interested in these types of aircraft. There's a large airshow hosted by them in Osh Kosh.
These aircraft are subjected to thorough inspection by certified mechanics and FAA inspectors during their construction or restoration. In addition, owners of this type of aircraft tend to be more knowledgable than your average privat pilot. The result is that aircraft certificated (it's an FAA term, not a typo) as experimental aircraft have an excellent safety record. You can fly them anywhere any other private aircraft may be flown.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
No kidding, it had several computer screens - they were C64s running on them. WTF. The function keys, from the keyboard were mounted to the left/right of each display.
Pages are extremely slow? I wonder why :). Show me a vehicle based on anti-gravity or magnitec technology... then that will impress me.
I'd sooner buy a Segway, and I ain't buying a Segway. Travelling on highways is hairy enough without having to worry about power lines, birds, and oh yeah, that ever present assh*le who knows nothing about how to drive a flying car. Just a bad idea.
You really want these things flying overhead? Home insurance would go up because of these things falling through your roof.
I suspect that if flying horses ever once existed, we killed them off after the umpteenth horse turd ripped through our shingles.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
become legal.
Will there be a need for "flying" insurance?
Will "fly-by" shootings get an extra ordinary amount of media attention like their grounded counterparts.
Will fast food "fly-throughs" replace drive-up windows?
How will the government tax - air space tax?
- Gentlemen, start your hybrids!
or does that thing look like it could transform into an autobot? --
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
the website hasn't flown untethered either.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of neurons.
On their webpage, Moller said something about using the money generated from the car to fund its production. It looks like the link to that quote died, though...
Yeah. I have Moller's brochure from 1974. His "Discojet" was supposed to be about a year from commercial delivery. That was 29 years ago.
His "Skycar" doesn't fly. Hovering while suspended from a crane doesn't qualify as flying.
In three decades Moller hasn't produced a free-flying prototype. That's inexcusable. Such things were built in the 1950s, after all. The AvroCar and the Hiller Flying Platform both flew in the 1950s. Stability was lousy, range was lousy, and fuel economy was lousy, but they flew. VTOL is only hard if it has to work well enough to be useful. If all you need is a cool demo, it's straightforward. But he can't even do that.
Moller also claimed in 2001 to have a contract with CALTRANS for an unmanned "Aerobot" for bridge inspection, but that project doesn't seem to have been heard from since.
How the hell is this ever going to replace the automobile? Listen to the noise that thing makes! It's like a couple dozen chainsaws all in chorus. The people who are near the testflights have to wear ear protectors and some kind of face masks to keep dust and other debris out of their mouth while breathing.
Conversation of the future:
Dad: OK kids! Let's get ready to fly! Don't forget your ear plugs and dust masks!
Kids: Yay!
i don't think this is an investment fraud. These people just believe in their inventions. Cool.
Now I can chase down those @#$$~~! birds after they shit on my newly waxed car!
They are not designed so that you can really fly them. They were/are designed to fly themselves. You tell it where you want to go and it handles the rest.
I have followed this thing since its inception years ago. They were looking to create a means for travel for more than just a few people (though the cost ensures that only a few trust-fundies will ever own one so it doesn't matter as much). They knew it would make the skies too dangerous for most yahoos with a car to transfer into the air, plus it would be an FAA licensing nightmare. Thus, they intended to take it out of the owner's hands and make it automatic. You may "drive" it out of the garage and taxi a ways, but when it comes time to fly somewhere, the intent is you enter the destination and let it rip. It takes you there, flown by itself with inputs from a still nonexistent system for air traffic control. You as the passenger would simply sit there and read, look out the window, play video games, etc, until the thing got to the destination and landed - then you could have it to taxi/drive to a parking spot.
Give me total control over it - let ME fly the thing - and it becomes cool. Otherwise, its richboy trash.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
As for whether anyone has succeeded, well, the closest thing you'll find is probably this Japanese mini-helicopter that was featured on /. a while ago. It flies, but from all reports it's not exactly the safest gadget ever made...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
..that will even pay for the privilege!?
This is the mother of all cunning ideas!
Sigged!
I've been following the Moller SkyCar for years. Like most vaporware it seems to always be just about to ship.
I think my feelings are best summed up by Fox Mulder, "I want to believe!"
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
They scoffed at the Wright Brothers. Now we have Airplanes.
They jibed Sikorsky. Now we have helicopters.
They called Goddard a loon. Now we have rockets.
You know what? All that bitching never helped. There simply is no benefit from it. Let the people with vision do their wacky things. Sometimes it won't pan out. Sometimes it will.
Making progress is not easy. Complaints from the peanut gallery that it will never work because it hasnt been done before is just stupid.
You cannot fly experimental aircraft anywhere any other private aircraft may be flown. There are specific restrictions. From the FARs:
"No person may operate an aircraft that has an experimental certificate over a densely populated area or in a congested airway"
This includes over large cities and congested airspace within (usually) 30 miles of a large airport.
Weren't we all supposed to be driving aircars by now? And where the hell is my lunar hotel? Why aren't we all using picture phones?
Dammit, this technology of the future thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. I wan't my personal robotic assistant!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Anyway - this thing almost went for $6.7 Million US but got pulled becuase people assumed that it was operational, which it wasn't.
Seems this inspired the competition ;-)
-- Contradictions only exist in thought - not in reality.
Bob the Angry Flower in "Up"
Sigged!
fortune (6) is the font of all wisdom :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I bet bank robbers could really :)
get some use out of this tech.
Ansi's and stupid tricks!
Geez people cant you see this is just a plot to lure saddam into provoking a war? saddam buys sky car, intends to use it to spray chemicals over US population.
An engine failure in a helicopter is a lot safer than one in an airplane. I'll take it over a dead-stick in a plane any day.
When autorotating, if you have a space the size of a football field you can land on it easily with no damage. If you have a clear spot the size of a tennis court you can hit it with some hard landing damage but nothing catastrophic. You will land with virtually no forward speed, and maybe some vertical speed depending on skill.
A conventional airplane needs just as much room to land power off as power on. even the smallest normal planes need 1000 feet or more to land (yes, yes some STOL planes get in under that). If you don't have a runway you will hit the ground with a forward speed of 100 mph or so and be in for a really scary ride, usually killing you in the process.
Helicopters have other failure modes that are pretty hairy (loss of main rotor, tail rotor or transmission failure) where you will drop like a rock. But the wings come off airplanes too.
retired army aviator, rotary and fixed wing rated.
all that said, the previous poster was right about the Moller being hyped for years and never working. 8 engines doesn't help when you run out of gas. And people run out of gas in airplanes every day.
Moller has been bilking investors with promise of an air car "real soon now" since the 80's. This unit, if you buy it, won't even be capable of flight... they say "with the engines removed" but more like "because it never could fly in the first place".
Even a helicopter can land if it's engines fail. That thing will fall like a rock, and the passengers will die.
When I went to athe Moller website and clicked on Purchase Skycar, I got this response:
/purchase was not found on this server.
"Not Found
The requested URL
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.27 Server at www.moller.com Port 80"
I think I'll be watching the eBay auction with interest... and I'm certainly going to check out the feedback the buyer leaves for the seller.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
You'll never get a licence to drive it here in Russia.
WTF??? And what happens when all those thousands of people on the freeway ALL have one of these? People can barely handle the two dimensions they have to deal with now. Add a third, and the casualty rates for driving will sky-rocket (all puns intended). You think you will be able to go straight to your destination? and what about major metropolitain areas with those skyscraper things. How the hell are you gonna land the damn thing? Im just going to call up my school and tell them to install a flying car landing pad? Oh yeah, and what about running out of gas... at 350 MPH... 100 feet above the ground. Idiots...
This guy is a crook and a scam artist and is no better than the dozens of "revolutionary inventors" just like him. He's been around spouting this bullshit for 20 years, why are perfectly respectable media outlets still giving him press and treating this thing like it's real??? This is the same thing as the free energy machines, or the guy who could give you TV quality video over a normal phone line and 56k modem. For some reason Moller seems to be immune to the persecution he deserves.
Hmmm... [checking...]
Ahh yes -- here it is -- "Buy your own exoskeleton flying vehicle"
yup, modus operandi seems to be the same: sell a vehicle that has only made "tethered flights" on e-bay with a starting bid of $1 million and a proviso that you can't fly it [in order to figure out the fact it probably cannot fly in the first place...]
(ok, looks like a bit more than a week -- that one was dated jan 11th...)
Look here, this Australian company has licenced the technology that has even done demos. Check out this site: http://www.mediaworld.com.au/mwb.html
What the hell are you smoking, anyways?
;)
A conventional airplane needs just as much room to land power off as power on. even the smallest normal planes need 1000 feet or more to land (yes, yes some STOL planes get in under that). If you don't have a runway you will hit the ground with a forward speed of 100 mph or so and be in for a really scary ride, usually killing you in the process.
Uh, bullshit. Each and every plane has a different best-glide speed. A Cub or 152 that rotates at 45/50k or whatever sure isn't going to need to be doing an approach at your speeds. And a lot of GA still flies those, so don't give me the excuse nobody uses those anymore. Now, I'll give you that trying the flying brick approach with a "doctor-killer" Bonanza or a Saratoga means things need to happen at a quicker speed but it's still no less safe.
Helicopters have other failure modes that are pretty hairy (loss of main rotor, tail rotor or transmission failure) where you will drop like a rock. But the wings come off airplanes too.
Respectfully, if you ARE a retired Army aviatior and you fly without knowing anything about the maintenance history of an aircraft you deserve what you get. I would never fly a machine that I was not allowed to see the logbooks for. Knowing your mechanic and trusting him accounts for quite a bit too, as I'm sure you know. And honestly, how often do wings just fall off an airplane?
-- El Sacarino tiene gusto de la chocha
They're still working on that part about making more engergy than they are using...
science is a religion