Neiman Marcus Offers First Moller Skycar For Sale

It doesn't come easy writes "Neiman Marcus has just unveiled its 2005 Christmas Catalog of Fantasy Gifts last Tuesday, and one of the items up for purchase is the prototype M400 Skycar from Moller International (for only $3.5 million US). If you've ever dreamed of owning a Skycar, this may be your only chance." From the Skycar site: "Can any automobile give you this scenario? From your garage to your destination, the M400 Skycar can cruise comfortably at 350+ MPH and achieve up to 28 miles per gallon. No traffic, no red lights, no speeding tickets. Just quiet direct transportation from point A to point B in a fraction of the time. Three dimensional mobility in place of two dimensional immobility. No matter how you look at it the automobile is only an interim step on our evolutionary path to independence from gravity. That's all it will ever be. "

Comments

Nice.

[Tavor]

But did it ever win it's FAA cert?

Requisite "It's fake!"

[Krid(O'Caign)]

It's unquestionably a heavier than air vehicle (Especially when full of people), so it can't generate lift from density differences. It doesn't have any significant wingspan, which means that it can't use bernoulli's principal to generate lift. Therefore, the only reasonable remaining possibility is that it must be creating a downward thrust equal to the mass*gravity of the vehicle. That's very, very bad for gas mileage, making the "28mpg" claim more than a little dubious. In theory, strapping four engines with those claimed power/consumption ratios to a compact car with no standard engine and the wheels in neutral should generate highway speeds at vastly higher MPG ratings.

Re:Requisite "It's fake!"

[birge]

Jesus christ. We should just put a moratorium on aerospace subjects on /... Bernoullis principle AND Newton both explain flight perfectly well. They are both consistent, and different ways of looking at the same thing. The pressure differential predicted by Bernouli is exactly the lift. And the transfer of momentum to the airstream predicts the same lift.

The only thing that's wrong with the high school physics book picture is that absolutely nothing requires the air particles passing over/under the wing to ever meet again. In fact, they can't, because the rotation of air around the wing (faster over the top) is essential to lift.

Re:Come on though imagine if these get cheaper

[EnderWigginsXenocide]

100 feet over the highway on your way to work going 300mph and you suddenly colide with a high-tension power-line because the FAA designates MAGL for powered flight to be 500 feet in almost all of the country (exceptions for takeoff/landing and some offshore corridors, and of course law enforcement.)

That will probably mean..

[thrill12]

..most people can't ever fly a car without some serious artificial intelligence built-in. I myself took quite a while for my drivers-licence in the Netherlands, were they do have very high standards + high costs for getting a licence.
I am not pilot-stuff, so most likely am not really any good for a flying car, except as already stated - parked in someone else's home...

Instead of focussing on the technology to get a car flying, why not focus on the technology to control an object safely in 3D, with hazard-avoidance built-in ? And while your at it, spend a little more time on the flying-technology itself and use hydrogen as a fuel-source: 'two flies in one swat'.