Slashdot Mirror
A Flying Leap for Cars?
pillageplunder writes "Businessweek has a story about flying cars and how they could be an actual viable thing in less than 10 years. First flying taxis, then, like the Jetsons, personal flying cars. Several are already on the board, with Honda and Toyota already having prototypes of small flying devices. Even General Electric is getting in on the deal, developing a small jet engine for Honda. So...would you buy one?"
Given how many people never bother to check water, oil etc until they break down at the side of the road, I really hope these cars will run full diagnostic checks before they let you start them...
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
most human beings are dangerous enough driving in a 2d environment. imagine how dangerous they'll be in a 3d environment!
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
Now instead of getting all our cars to drive environmentally friendlier and less expensive (keywords: electrical, hybrid, bio-fuel), we drop the effort and start producing a new kind of vehicle that flies.
And ofcourse it uses kerosine for that (ever seen an electrical plane, man-sized ?).
This gives us a whole new excuse to soup up more oil and pollute even more..
What's next ? Real personal rockets ?
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I can see the headlines now: "200 people killed when drunk driver collides with office building". If we have problems with people staying on the road in a car, what will it be like if they can fly?
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
The US Department of Homeland Security will never allow flying cars. Imagine trying to stop terrorists with cars full of diesel/fertilizer mix able to attack from all angles. Tinfoil hattish, sure, but that's how those brownshirts think.
Trolling is a art,
How many miles per gallon will a flying car get?
We have been fantisizing about flying cars for generations, but in reality, are they ever going to be practical? Sure, you can go faster without all the resistance from the tires, but it takes a hell of a lot of energy to keep such a heavy object in the air. In the Jetsons, we had this notion that somehow we'd be able to overcome gravity and the cars would just float, but to date there's no evidence for such technology. For now, we have to blow a bunch of air down and the corresponding reaction is that the car stays up. Not very efficient for travelling.
I hate to be the skeptic, because I would love to be able to fly to work, but I don't see it being practical in our lifetimes.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
So what is the essential difference between that and, oh, I don't know, say, a plane?
Anyone who wants to take a small light aircraft up (and has one/rents one and has a licence) can pretty much go for it.
Flying cars aren't going to raise your danger from terrorists (which is incredibly small anyway). Crap drivers crashing into your house - now that's a different matter.
Not to burst anyone's bubbles, but just looking at the fuel efficiencies of current cars, after 100 years.. is this even feasible with the oil crisis as it is?
I'm not the devil.. just his advocate.
There will never be anything but autopilot in the civilian models. Also because of that there will be no licensing in the sense we have today. If you are rich enough your children will be able to use it for pre-programmed routes to school, the cinema, and the like.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I think I will stay on the ground, after all.
Personal aviation used to be a lot more popular than it is now. The thing stopping people is that insurance rates skyrocketed, insurance for the aircraft makers in particular. Basic planes that used to cost as much as a typical luxury car of the time would now cost four times that of a typical luxury car now.
Unless the cars run on autopilot and manage to pass FCC muster, I doubt it will work in an affordable manner such that anyone but those already flying with a pilot's licence and own their own aircraft will be able to afford to use them.
You'll need a license to pilot a flying car. Flying cars will be expensive. If you fly a small enough plane you can already get a license for it pretty trivially. Hence, this is already an issue, or should I say, a non-issue.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have always been a cocky driver, until i started commuting 50 miles every day.
I learned that no matter how good a driver YOU are, and how few mistakes you make, that still makes it so you cant avoid getting hit by someone else.
I feel safer when I fly now, because I know there are hundreds of people keeping track of where planes are, and hundreds responsible for the re-fueling, tracking, air avoidance etc...
When you bring that responsibility down to a single individual, who has no stricutres on maintanence, gas, impaired level of thinking, i get shivers.
People that currently fly alone, they have to go through a pretty rigorous flight training program, and the quality can be high because their are so few.
Imagine trying to process 300 people a day to get licensure for a flying car?
I know when I went to get my drivers licence for the first time, they just had me drive around the block once and gave me a licence.
Imagine doing that for a flying car?
I think we should probably focus on HIGH SPEED mass transit. the time would be comparable, and less risk of individual user error causing a disaster.
We cannot even handle automated cars, i think it is a long way off to automated car planes.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Everyone seems to talk about successful personal air transport as a 100% replacement, and consequently see it as unfeasible or unlikely. TV doesn't kill radio, Internet doesn't kill TV, and flying cars don't need to kill conventional ground transport to be a success. They will become a new, useful and probably small part of the transportation ecology. But it won't stop walking, biking, trains and conventional driving.
Promote civility: mod down any post starting with 'ummm'.
The energy economy of a personal flying vehicle whould make a suburban look like a prius.
Airplanes do alright, but they don't have the ability to hover which would be a necesity for any urban personal air transit. Until an energy efficient way of maintiaing a position in 3 dimensions is developed I really don't think personal flying vehicle will be adopted on an appriciable scale...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I'm amazed at how much Fear and panic there are in these comments.
It's attitudes like this that stifle progress.
Yes, there's a danger but that's the nature of progress. The danger will be curbed by technology and beaurocracy(sadly)...
I say, bring it on.
00101010
Quite late in the thread, so this probably wont get read, but this was the flying car argument I had the other night.
The "flying car " (moller, honda et al) should not be seen as a replacement for a car. The driving/ piloting restrictions will (and should) be very stringent. Not as hard to get as a commercial flying license, but harder than a driving test.
This creates a new niche market for corporates to have a fleet of cars & pilots where it will be cheaper than flying its execs all over the country, where we can get flying taxis, or the well to do will have a chauffer who can both drive their limo, or fly their moller.
Car companies will not be the ones effected, but instead the short haul flights business will see a dramatic drop in sales; if anything these companies should invest in flying taxis, the planes will become flying coaches instead
As a private pilot, I don't think this pig will fly. Yes, planes could be made that would allow nearly anyone to fly, but then there are all kinds of additional complications. You have to teach people about controlled airspace, emergency procedures, and where exactly does the TSA inspect the baggage?
Someone above stated that flying vehicles wouldn't be any more of a problem then ground traffic. I'd have to disagree. Light aircraft have a small radar signiture, and can slip by relatively easily. You might recall the German kid who flew a small plane right into Red Square in Moscow, or how the private pilot crashed his plane into the front of the White House. Yes, transponders are supposed to help, but if the pilot turns it off, he's unlikely to be seen. And, even when it's on, I've been told by ATC that they couldn't see me because I was at 1800 ft. ASL...too low for them. Now pack that thing with 500lbs of C4, and tell me that it's not a risk!
Now, try multiplying the number of planes in the sky by an order of magnitude, and tell me how we're not going to have a bunch of mid-air collisions too?
Just another day in Paradise
We have enough car accidents where only forward motion is involved. Let me put it this way. Would you want one of these things flying over your neighborhood, piloted (yes, piloted, not driven) by someone who could be a total moron, yakking on his cell phone, or maybe just drank a six pack?
Yeah, I'd sure like one of those things falling through the roof of my house, I can tell you right now. Not.
Roads aren't just to make wheels work. They also provide boundaries of where you can't go.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Spherical wheels have less contact patch to the road than regular wheels do. Also, what sort of tread pattern do you use on spherical wheels that go in all directions? Better to have regular wheels with 180 degrees of turning capability than spherical wheels. Probably easier too.
Live forever, or die trying.
myself, I've become convinced that many pilots are incompetent much of the time and all pilots are incompetent occasionally. And this is after a rigorous training program. Real aircraft are much more difficult to fly in real time than MS Flight Simulator (or *any* simulator).
The idea of "an airplane in every garage" has been around at least since the 1940s judging by my recollections of Popular Mechanics articles alone. But it never got closer than the 1950s. I can remember airports with hundreds of private aircraft (Stinsons, Luscombes, Cessnas, Pipers, Beechcrafts, etc) tied down in lines. Those lines of airplanes are conspicuously absent at the few airports left which cater to private flyers. A testimony to the expense of building, maintaining and operating even the simplest flying machines.
The ubiquitous "air-car" could only work if there were strict control over both the air-car and the pathways it travels combined with fail-safe recovery techniques in the event of mechanical failure. In other words, give the "pilot" control only over what time he leaves and his destination. Everything else - altitude, speed, course - is controlled by a common system that can keep theat vehicle - and every other vehicle - on the path it's been assigned to.
The air-car would also have to be able to stop and maintain altitude and position in mid-air in order to reduce the chances of collisions.
This combination of control and mechanical reliability would be *very* expensive not even including the cost of fuel. It would take a society that was dedicated to the premise that some very rich people could free themselves of ground transportation while the rest of us paid for the infrastructure.
Which is basically what we do with helicopters and personal jets now.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
(OT: Is your parachute after-market, or do you fly a Cirrus?)
irb(main):001:0>
The Moller Skycar has been in the works for years. Popular Science has done several issues on them. Now suddenly Honda and the like are planning on making flying cars? Is everyone just waiting for his patents to expire or something?
One fallacy that many people in this argument seem to be making is that once flying cars become feasible, everyone in the country will instantly replace their ground cars with them. In reality (if I may even use that word here), adoption is going to be slower and more gradual. I wouldn't be surprised if the first customers are emergency services; wouldn't they snap up a vehicle that can be stored in a garage and driven on the ground by personnel without special training, and also bypass traffic jams and instantly reach the roof (or even any window of) a skyscraper? They already use helicopters anyway.
I agree completely.
Currently, the only methods for making things fly involve high velocities (rotors, props, turbines) and the associated noise from those moving things.
People already move next to the airport, then sue the airport management for excessive noise. Nobody is going to tolerate a jet-powered car next door.
Finally, it's just not practical to use that much energy to commute downtown. And if you find a destination for which this makes sense, it would probably be better served by an airplane anyhow.
I can see certain applications for the technology (search and rescue, surveillance, etc); but even those are served well by current technology.
As the parent implied, until we find an anti-gravity technology, flying cars will always be a lark.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Setting up rules to manage heavy congestion with vehicles that can't stop will be quite a challenge.
Indeed. As I see it not only are we going to need rules but some serious means of enforcement. A fender bender at 2000 feet would be a hell of a thing. I'd even guess it would have to come to the point where the machine would have to be built to the point that it can't break the rules even if it wanted to. A simple case of road rage could potentially leave scores dead.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Note the transponder (just like a license plate)
Levy a fee
Revoke the license
Impound the vehicle
Put it on an APB
Flag it and give it a ticket
Charge the owner with civil/criminal offenses
GPL Deconstructed
Acutally, they've just released a special license for ultralite aircraft, powered parachutes and the like. If you can invent a flying car in the same class, one that can take off and land on standard roads, you'll have a great thing. Make it efficient (some of these ultralite devices get gas milage equivalent to a motorcycle) and you'll have a great thing for those of us who currently drive a dogleg interstate to get to work. Driving 80 mph "as the crow flies" would cause me to use less gas and get to work 5 minutes faster with less congestion of the single lane onramp to I-87. These are all great things.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Probably not as bad as you think. Why is a truck-sized explosion 400 feet up any worse than a truck-sized explosion (from, say, a truck) at ground level? We already deal with the threat of ground-level trucks. Two US skyscrapers have been hit with truck bombs in the last fifteen years. They make a mess, and people die. Making trucks airborne won't change that much.
In fact, people have crashed small planes into buildings, both before and after September 11th, and it doesn't do that much damage.
September 11th (clearly implied, if not mentioned, in your post) was different in that the projectiles were jumbo jets carrying thousands of gallons of fuel. Flying cars won't have thousands of gallons of fuel, won't weigh 100 tons, and won't do any more damage than cessnas or land-bound Ryder trucks do now.
About half the posts modded 4/5 are talking about people "driving" these things.
We already have the technology to fully automate this mode of transport - you use the car as normal on the ground, but to fly you change to computer-controlled mode before the car leaves the ground. Navigation, maneuvring and landing are all accomplished by the computer. The manual overide will call home and involve a HUGE fine if you use without good reason (storm coming up, unknown obstruction in path etc.).
European auto manufacturers have auto car control systems running dozens of vehicles around tracks and across intersections without human drivers - if this technology was mandated in, say, 2008 we would suddenly have shorter journey times, fewer crashes, better fuel economy etc. But you would never steer your own car again except in emergency.
The technology to do this is HERE, it's just not commoditised yet - as soon as there is enough financial impetus behind it, you can bet your bottom dollar someone will do it.
What if the transponder was messed with?
(like people switching plates now)
How would you get them? you'd have to pull them over. And how do you pull them over at 900 feet? (assume the transponder/autopilot is off)
Do you shoot them down? (assume school or other meaty area below)
Can you fly 12 miles to international waters and thus escape jurisdiction?
I see a lot of obstacles...
"Piter, too, is dead."