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Flying Cars Ready To Take Off
Ant writes "CBS News has an article, images, and a free streaming video clip of Elwood (Woody) Norris' invention of a working flying machine, AirScooter. He asked one of his test pilots to demonstrate it for 60 Minutes on a hilltop outside San Diego, California. It can fly for 2 hours at 55 mph, and go up to 10,000 feet above sea level. This week, he will receive America's top prize for invention. It's called the Lemelson-MIT award -- a half-million dollar cash prize to honor his life's work, which includes a brand new personal flying machine.
Woody Norris' and others' inventions are for NASA's 'The Highway in the Sky.' It is a computer system designed to let millions of people fly whenever they please, and take off and land from wherever they please, in their very own vehicles."
Should say:-
Flying cars to be made available in fifteen years time
This is just a sickening attempt to get our hopes up.
Moller Skycar Info.
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Each person having their own flying machine....can you imagine the waste of fossil fuels and danger involved? It's bad enough with cars!!
Homeland Security will have a fit!
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I'm still waiting for my hoverboard...
Fooget Flyin Cars!
Im fairly sure these device wont be valid road going vehicals for a while atleast. .
I am wonder (fairly sure they will)if they will need to introduce a new license scheme for them and a whole new set of transit laws
The potential problems that machines like this could cause is immense if this is not as tightly regulated as standerd aircraft not to mention the cross with auto mobiles
However if these things are avaliable for 50k from people like Mr Morris then I will definantly be rather tempted to get when if i ever have money like that laying around(Lets hope some unknown rich relative dies).
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
wonder if it looks like that hover car on the Simpsons last night... hmm...
If this thing is "real", we're going to need 15 years to get things straightened out so people aren't flying drunk, teenagers aren't racing their air scooters in public air corridors, and Starbucks has a chance to start opening outlets at 10,000 feet.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
So, will you get a speeding ticket flying 55mph on a 35mph road if you don't touch the ground?
Buy one now before the air commute becomes congested as well.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Norris says you won't need a pilot's license if you fly it under 400 feet in non-restricted air space. And he's going to sell it for $50,000.
But the car will fly to 10k feet right and it will sell for $50k right? That means that a lot of idiots will be flying one of these things and they will have the ability to go over the 400 foot limit.
Looks like a serious issue.
Damn...and I thought people were finally getting the idea that we have to conserve energy. Imagine how much oil/jet fuel that flying car would go through? It has four sets of rotary engines! I'd much rather see people driving an electric vehicle like this Reva NXG that can go 200km after a 6 hour charge.
....can it fold up into a briefcase after you land at work?
He does a good job at getting the press attention every year or so yet no real advances are made. the Moller skycar is still the same point it was 5 years ago. he still has not flown it (tied to a crane is not flying it) or anything else other than his PR stunt shows.
Lots of promises are made but nothing solid or real is ever shown or demonstrated, it always feels like the snake oil or perpetual energy people. Look at what I did! no you cant see how it works or it actually work in real tests.
how about he untether it and fly it across the country? Experimental aircraft licensing is really easy to get.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It depends on what you commute is like. If traffic and an out of the way route are part of your daily commute, it might be more efficient.
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
From TFA
"...But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars."
If that's how this guy does math, I think I'll wait for some other manufacturer to create these things before I buy...
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
I know of a place where you can sit in one Starbucks and look out the window across the street at guess what... Another Starbucks!
Just curious, this Starbucks doesn't contain remarkably similar looking people to the one you are currently in?
Buy a piece of land. And wait.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
About this "car".
It's a one seater.
The driver/pilot position is open to the elements.
It has no cargo carrying capacity (as far as I could tell.)
Max speed 55mph, 2 hours of flight per tank.
Skids only (no wheels), so you can't park it in a ramp/underground garage, so can't fly it to the city...
Cool toy? H3ll yeah. If I ever win the lottery (unlikely, as I don't play it) I'll be all over one of these. Replacement for a car? Bah.
Woody Norris' company invented a device to aim sound, something like a laser does light. There was a good article in the NY Times about it a couple years back. This Popular Science article appears to cover it as well. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/bown/article/0,16106, 388134,00.html
Looking at the AirScooter video, and at thinking about the motorcycle handle and the lack of foot pedals, how does the pilot correct for uncommanded roll, as might occur in turbulence, or thermals, encountering wake turbulence, ...?
"Well, I've done the math. I think it's a modest number if you could sell a couple thousand, when you look at snowmobiles and quads and those things -- not cars," says Norris. "That's a big market. But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars." [emphasis added]
2*10^3 * 5*10^4 = 10*10^7 = 100,000,000 != a billion
And this guy, Woody Norris, is the chief inventor? "Self-taught"?
I'd rather ride the bus. Or a flying car created by Woody from Cheers.
From the article, the engine is only 65hp, so fuel consumption may be better than some cars.
It also says 2hrs flight time, 55knots (approx 60mph), on 5 gallons. That is >20mpg, which would definitely be better than the worst SUVs.
""Well, I've done the math. I think it's a modest number if you could sell a couple thousand, when you look at snowmobiles and quads and those things -- not cars," says Norris. "That's a big market. But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars." "
Uh no that would be 100 million dollars.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So how long before I hear about a small squadron of explosives- and fuel-laden flying cars take out the Empire State Building hmm?
When I was a little kid I used to read all the time about these neat flying cars that were only a few years away, once the designers worked out a few kinks and the government figured out the regulatory side. As I've grown up I've continued to see these stories coming along, always promising that these guys have a new flying car that will be ready for consumers at some time right around the bend...
It ain't happening, folks. Now and then these guys might pick up an award or snowball another big team of journalists into reporting on their work, but safe, reliable, affordable flying cars that get reasonable fuel economy aren't going to happen any time soon. And when they do, they'll be tied up in regulatory and insurance messes for years, continuing to prevent wide adoption. At the rate this stuff is moving, by the these designs are ready for the market and the market is ready, the fossil fuels needed to run them will cost so much that people won't want them, and we'll get to wait another twenty years for hydrogen-powered models to arrive.
DIY surface to air missile systems
http://xs4.xs.to/pics/04481/p556222.gif
For the same $50,000 you can buy a "flying-car" that won't fall out of the sky if the motor stops working.
American Autogyro
Better safe than sorry.
At the present rate of oil consumption, which is increasing by the way, the crude oil reserves will be exhausted in about 20 years.
It's a physics based fact that keeping a mass, such as an air car, airborne consumes more energy than a ground based rolling car. So unless they can figure out how to make an air car run on a renewable energy source, which has less energy than oil based fuels, it'll never happen, or at best, it'll happen as the last of oil reserves are used up, and it'll use them up faster yet on top of that.
That would only be true for a given mass. There are diesel powered airplanes in production that get the equivalent of 20-30 mpg (US). Compare this to a Ford Excursion or Chevy Suburban and you will see that the airplane is actually more economical in fuel usage. It may well be more economical in total energy picture, factoring in manufacturing as well.
In addition, the DA40TDI runs on diesel. It is not currently certified to operate on biodiesel, but there is probably no technical reason it could not do so. (Yeah, yeah, the standard arguments against biodiesel like supposedly taking up all of our farmland to grow fuel, blah blah blah)
So your blanket statement does not hold up even with present technology.
About the use of fuel, from http://www.moller.com/skycar/
The Rotapower engine produces little NOx, the most difficult pollutant to eliminate. In addition, using a stratified charge combustion process greatly reduces the unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emitted....The Skycar's fuel-efficient engines and ability to run on regular automotive gasoline result in low fuel costs. The Skycar is significantly more fuel efficient in passenger miles per gallon than the tilt-rotor V22 Osprey, helicopters or many commercial jet airplanes.
I remember when this first came out, and the inventor claimed on a TV program also that these engines (unmanned versions already in use by municipalities working on bridges and such) can also run on extremely alternative fuels. I remember he specifically said that it could even run on "used McDonald's fry vat grease". In my opinion, this kind of rubust and effecient engine (in terms of flying engine effeciency) is exactly what the world needs. If someone can link to the alternative fuel use information from long ago, I would enjoy reading it again.
Cleaning the net one sed at a time! s/sex/sermons/; s/hot/holy/; s/goats/thebible/; www.holysermonswiththebible.com
This is kind of like saying "I need to continue to grow my per day spending. I need to find new and more plentiful ways to make money. Having lots of money has change my life, where I live, etc... I'm not sure I can afford a yacht any time soon, but If could, wouldn't that be cool?"
It's true; spending energy is fun and has many positive benefits, but at the moment our primary energy source is oil, and it isn't renewable. One day, maybe we'll have some new, safe, and more plentiful energy "income" sources, but right now we don't. When you're out of work, spending all your cash reserves is a dumb thing to do, and that's what we're doing with oil, right now. There's no "energy Visa company" we can borrow from while we're out of oil and waiting for fusion or high-altitude wind generation, either.
It is, in fact, even worse than the cash analogy; development of new energy technologies requires energy. If we let our energy reserves drop low enough, eventually we won't have the resources required to invest in new energy technology. It's like driving down the highway, and being close to empty. It's nice that there's a gas station 40 miles up the road, but if you keep the pedal to the metal, and burn up all your gas in 20 miles, you're still fscked.
Last year the story ran about a $30k personal helicopter.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
It's a physics based fact that keeping a mass, such as an air car, airborne consumes more energy than a ground based rolling car.
No, it isn't.
There are far too many variables involved to make such a blanket statement: L/D ratio of the aircraft, mass, rolling resistance and air drag of the ground vehicle, terrain, speeds, stopping and starting, etc, etc.
As an extreme example, consider what kind of gas mileage a glider gets, even counting whatever gas is used to tow (or propel, for a motor-glider) it to altitude. Compare that to an SUV with under-inflated tires. Even a (non-gliding) Cessna gets better gas mileage than an SUV (I don't recall the exact numbers of the top of my head, aircraft fuel consumption is listed in gallons (or sometimes pounds) per hour.)
Now, something that relies on a fan instead of a wing for lift probably will have higher consumption, but you're blanket statement is simply false.
-- Alastair
People have been predicting the end of oil for as long as we've known about oil... At some point it might happen but you're not the first to claim it'll 'run out in 20 yrs'. In reality, we continue to improve efficiencies in extracting oil and even ways of making oil that fundamentally challenge the historical thought that oil takes millions of years at extreme temp and pressure to produce. And, we continue to find new sources of oil. My point is, if the new sources dry up (Canada Oil Sand are a 'new' source that alone can keep the entire world supplied for decades)- If/When the 'new sources' don't materialize, we'll be working on improving extraction through efficiencis and conservation - more drastically than we are now (which isn't too drastic at all). So, Oil running out - not likely in 20 yrs even at current levels of use and extraction.
Some are sloppier than others - depends on which one. No one will argue what a dozen means, most people ar clueless about a peck... couple, & few depend on who you are talking to. Not to mention some words have always had two meanings... one being ambiguous
1/10 = gry1 = single
2 = couple
3 = few
4 = gang
5 = punch
6 = half dozen
7 = several
8 = peck / basket
9 = bunch
10 = carton / minyan
11 = short dozen
12 = dozen
13 = long dozen / baker's dozen
14 = fort
16 = kenning / half bushel
20 = score
24 = case
32 = bushel
144 = gross
1728 = great gross
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
It might seem cool the first time you see a shiny new sky car zipping over top of your house. Lets fast-forward 40 years into the future.
The second generation of sky-cars are out on the market, and the first generation are nearing the end of their lifespan. Finally, the average citizen can afford to go out to the used sky-car lot and pick up an old beater. Now, you've got some guy who barely has the cash to buy the thing in the first place, let alone pay for gas, maintenence and insurance.
He's flying over your house with the tank on empty, and he doesn't have the insurance to pay for the damage when he breaks down and crashes into your house. Doesn't seem quite as cool anymore. It's bound to happen.
"we will run out oil eventually... this running out will happen relatively abruptly, leading to something of a crisis in our society on account of our dependance on private transportation."
This is very much NOT true. We will not suddenly wake up one day and find all the oil gone. What will happen is that price of oil will slowly continue to rise for decades. This will facilitate a smooth transition from oil to alternative energy sources.
What most people don't understand about oil is that we dig up very little of the blackstuff. When we drop a well down and start sucking up reservoirs of this oil, we are really only dragging up the easiest to reach oil that is just sitting there. Most oil is left untouched due to the fact that it would be very expensive to remove it.
Three things are going to happen to make the cost of oil slowly rise as it is depleted.
1) Speculators will make sure that it rises slowly. Speculators watch the supply of oil and basically bet on how much it is going to cost in the future. While they do drive the price of the oil up by buying out supply, they also ensure a more even distribution over time of its distribution. For instance, if suddenly the oil companies were to announce that HOLY SHIT we are out of oil in a year, speculators would quickly buy up the supply and start parceling it away. The price absolutely would go up, but we wouldn't go from oil gushing out of our ears to being bone dry.
2) As the cost of oil is driven up, oil companies will naturally start digging up more expensive to extract oil. At $30 a barrel it makes no sense to go to an old oil well and start extracting all that stuff that takes $50 a barrel to extract. However, once the price of oil hits $100 per barrel, that $50 per barrel oil will make a tidy profit. So, as the cost for oil goes up, more and more expensive oil will be introduced to the market. The oil will not suddenly run out. Instead, more expensive oil will be introduced to the market that will slowly drive the price up.
3) As the cost of oil goes up, the demand for oil will go down. This is economics 101 supply and demand. Oil is the energy source of choice simply because it is relatively clean (compared to some thing), a very dense energy source, and extremely cheap. Today oil is cheap for the amount of energy you can make from it. The stuff is plentiful enough to fuel the world, and cheap enough for almost everyone to be able to buy it. This will not always be true. As the price goes up, more people will start to spend a few extra dollars to avoid having to shell out so much at the pump. Alternative energy sources will be comparatively cheaper then oil. People will move naturally away from oil. You can see a perfect of this by looking at Europe and the US. The US, where this is almost no taxation on oil, people own big ugly fuel hungry cars. In Europe, where the taxes on oil account for a full ¾ of the costs, people use significantly more fuel efficient cars and in general burn much less oil. Up the price of oil by 500% and even Americans will find it in their hearts (or more likely wallets) to be more fuel efficient.
The net result is that as the price of oil goes up, the consumption of the stuff goes down. As consumption goes down, the price slows its upward slope. The result is that you have a gradual increase in oil prices and a gradual move away from using it.