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Flying Car More Economical Than SUV
fusion812 writes "The M400 needs 35 clear feet to take off but thanks to its 770 hp engine can whiz to 365 mph - cruise control kicks in at 326 mph - and climb at 6,400 feet per minute. You may hear it before you see it: it emits a rather noisy 65 dba at 500 feet. Interestingly, with a fuel consumption of 20 miles to the gallon on the road, it's rather more economical than a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and looks positively eco-friendly compared to a Hummer."
If you can afford one of these the MPG isn't going to be an issue.
But the cost of the flying car would be significantly more than an SUV.
What of the costs for learning how to drive/fly one of these things?
I'm not really looking forward to the time where people who run out of gas/petrol simply fall out of the sky to their deaths and those on the ground.
Would you let a cletus like character behind the wheel of one of these things?
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
"it emits a rather noisy 65 dba at 500 feet. Interestingly, with a fuel consumption of 20 miles to the gallon on the road, it's rather more economical than a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and looks positively eco-friendly compared to a Hummer."
How about NOISE POLLUTION???? 65 dba at 500 feet. Yeah that's eco friendly in my book!!!
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
20 (miles / US gallon) = 8.50287411 kilometers per liter
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Pretty soon most in city travel will move towards public transportation and small aircraft will remove much of the cost of building highways and their economic cost. Really this whole thing makes a lot of sense to the government.
Well i guess that the fact of a vehicle being a bit more "economical" that others does not make it better. There are alot of other features; support, part prices, driving abilities etc.
Moller and his Merlin series of personal aircraft have been on the drawing board since before most /.ers have been on the internet. I have yet to see one of them in flight.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
That someone actually spent 200 Million dollars on a project like this. Flying cars are a cool idea but lets face it totally impractical with todays infrastructure. Also given the paranoia over security today I cant imagine the US Govt being in any great hurry to allow the masses get airbourne.
I reckon he needs to find 400 people with more money that sense to but them as very expensive novelties to break even.
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What truth?
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the site has video/media page as well, in which you can see noisy hover test.
I don't mean to be cynic, but I couldn't help wondering what practical use this vehicle may have. with two passengers maximum, this looks to me like fancy miata of aircraft. maybe this can become California governor's commuter vehicle, but I don't want to see dozens of these flying around above my neighborhood.
If you get tired of waiting for flying cars, try some "life extending" organic almond butter from the good Dr. Moller.
I was under the impression that a tanker exploding was more environmentally friendly than an SUV. Better mileage too.
The point is how much SUVs suck. There is no excuse for having worse fuel efficiancy than a fucking airplane.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
Am I missing something or what?
65 dBa is quiet. Those crappy old desktop computers put out more sound than that. Most high quality cars have an interior road noise level of around 65 dBa at 60 MPH.
Did they mean 165 dBa or something? (now that that would be loud as hell)
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Everything in moderation, even moderation.
No, especially moderation.
Flying as a mode of transportation only works because there are relatively few aircraft in the air so they can be kept really far apart, and the pilots are well trained.
It is repeatedly demonstrated every single day that ordinary drivers cannot handle 1 dimension in driving, let alone 2 dimensions such as intersections and multi lane roads. 3 dimensions is completely out of the question. Are you totally insane?
First and foremost, gyrocopters can't stall. At all. That's why they were invented. Juan de la Cierva was obsessed with the dangers of stalling in fixed-wing aircraft, which is why he devoted his life to promoting the autogyro. (Ironically enough, he actually died when the fixed-wing aircraft he was riding in stalled and crashed.)
Autogyros aren't used commercially because helicopters are better at VTOL, slow-speed and hover flight, and fixed-wing aircraft are more fuel efficient and faster for distance and heavy lifting.
You can get a personal Experimental class autogyro for under $20,000 (about the same as the less expensive fixed-wing EA class kits) and they're much safer than either fixed-wing craft or (especially) helicopters for novice flyers.
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I have this suspicion that most people posting don't understand that the Skycar can glide. It's a plane. With wings. Control surfaces. It has eight wankel engines producing vented thrust coordinated by redundant controllers. Most of the flying chores are automagically smoothed out by the flight computers.
It can fly like any normal plane with only two of the eight engines operational. It doesn't have to VTOL; it can take off or land in the normal fashion. Since the engines are not mechanically linked in the normal sense, it would take a catastrophic failure to lose more than a few engines. You might lose the near-VTOL capability, but a pilot could land a troubled Moeller with less trouble than your average Cessna, theoretically. The power and control systems are far more redundant in a Moeller.
It's not a flying saucer. You might be confusing the Skycar with the "flying saucer" hovering testbed he made +-30 years ago?
If I'm not mistaken, the craft also has a 'chute that fires in an emergency. Or would, if someone would fund the poor man enough to build the full-scale prototype.
Anyone flying the Moeller would have to be a licensed pilot; this would cut down the "oops" factor.
Moeller has spent a lifetime thinking the engineering matters through. I wish he and Burt Rutan would have lunch sometime.
I'm surprised that the group that rips on Infinium Labs for being the vapor that they are doesn't rip on Moller for being vapor far longer than Phantom Console.
Skycar, IMO, is a scam. Yes, they have two "test flight" pictures, might be rigged or faked.
Don't count on 326 MPG on 30MPG. Remember, these are vapor numbers on a flying vehicle with barely any wings at all. If it's too good to be believed...
The FAA has proposed new rule for what will be called a Sport Pilots License. The rules should be approved this summer and it will make it much easier for anyone to become a pilot. For one, you won't have to take an expensive physical any longer.
However, there are a lot of restrictions on someone with an SPL. You can't fly an aircraft that has a gross takeoff weight higher than 1232lbs. You can only fly under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) conditions and you cannot fly any faster than 132MPH.
Because flight training takes place in the less expensive Light Sport Aircraft class (LSA) flight training should be less expensive. Also, a prospective SPL student only needs to fly 20 hours to get their license. Normally, you have to fly at least 40 hours.
Personally, I can't wait.
If you want to learn more about it, goto www.sportpilot.org
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