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

it's a ringer

[DragonTHC]

looks like the US NAVY's skycar prototypes from the 1960's

Nice.

[Tavor]

But did it ever win it's FAA cert?

Re:Nice.

[ldspartan]

Not even a little. As far as I know, that particular model has never flown untethered.

Moller's been talking about Skycars as long as I've been alive. As far as I know, its always been "less than five years away" for the past 20 or so. He also really likes talking about his "highway in the sky", which is essentially... run of the mill avionics.

And really, given the number of accidents on the highway-on-the-ground where folks only have to worry about two dimensions, I'm glad he's been a failure thus far. At least accidents on the highway don't usually come flying into my house.

--
lds

Re:Nice.

[Concerned Onlooker]

And really, given the number of accidents on the highway-on-the-ground where folks only have to worry about two dimensions, I'm glad he's been a failure thus far.

On the other hand, if people had to go through as much training to get a driver's license as they do a pilot's license the roads would probably be a better place.

I was certified to fly gliders only after many hours of instruction that included emergency situations as well as learning how to give myself large safety margins. Just the thinking process of getting my pilot's license caused me to really evaluate my driving habits as well.

As long as the license to fly a Skycar didn't end up being some sort of quickie certification you might not see as many problems as you think. Most of the truly boneheaded won't make it far enough to get the license to fly. Then again, I had some great instruction from people who loved to fly and weren't just putting in their 9 to 5 time.

Re:Nice.

[Keruo]

> On the other hand, if people had to go through as much training to get a driver's license as they do a pilot's license the roads would probably be a better place.

> I was certified to fly gliders only after many hours of instruction that included emergency situations as well as learning how to give myself large safety margins. Just the thinking process of getting my pilot's license caused me to really evaluate my driving habits as well.

How long does it take to get a drivers license in US, and how expensive it is?

Here in Finland, if you're 18 or older, you can get a license. The process is split in two phases, first phase consists of 10 x 1,5 hours of theory and 10 x 1h driving lessons.
Then there's written exam including traffic situation pictures, and finally driving test. If you pass both tests, you get temporary license which is valid for 1-2 years.
(don't recall if the hours are accurate, I've had my drivers license for several years now)

If you manage to drive 1-2 years without too many mistakes (3-strike system, if you fail, you have to do first phase again) you can start second phase.
In second phase, you have few more theory hours, 5 or so, mostly about driving in dark and on slippery surfaces. Some of the theory also focuses on driving more economically. There's practice run on slippery surface track and basically training for driving on icy surfaces. After completing the second phase, you receive your final drivers license which is valid until you turn 70. After that age, you need to take medical and with doctors approval, the license can be extended.

The whole thing costs about $1200-2000, depending on the driving school, more if you fail any of the tests.

Re:Nice.

[Vexar]

For reference, Moller's been trying to get around this whole accident thing by having his little Jetsonesque sky hoppers entirely computer-piloted, so that the craft are driver-less. This, unfortunately, reminds me of the "Johnny-Car" vehicles in Total Recall. My Dad knew this guy 30 years ago, in graduate school at UC Davis. He said Moller's on what is known as white-collar welfare, or government research/private investor dollars for the scientists who refuse to work in the real world. I point to the VentureStar space plane project as perhaps the greatest white-collar welfare project: an abysmal failure costing tens of billions of dollars.

Re:Nice.

[tyler_larson]

How long does it take to get a drivers license in US, and how expensive it is?

The requirements vary by locality, and are getting more restrictive as time goes by. However, when I got my driver's licence, I only had to pass the written test and the "drive arount the block with a DMV guy" practical test. Total cost was negligable. Total experience required was laughable.

Note that making license acquisition even moderately expensive or difficult is a very politally-charged proposition. Leftists tend to argue that a driver's license is required in order to conduct normal day-to-day business, and therefore is a right, not a priviledge. Making license acquisition out-of-reach for the "bottom" of society--those with less resources and less opportunity for proper training--impinges on the rights of these individuals and is an unacceptable form of discrimination.

When I got my pilot's licence, on the other hand, it was after 41.5 hours of flight time (I learn very fast, the national average is 60 to 80 hours before they can perform maneuvers within FAA standards), at a cost of around $4000. Once again, the average cost is closer to $6000-$8000 dollars. The requirements also include a written exam (a REAL test, not the hokey crap you do with the DMV), an oral test, and a practical test. Only the first hour or two of training is spent explaining "how to fly." The rest is spent learning how to safely handle every situation you can possibly get yourself into (of which there are plenty, by the way).

Along with your license, you need a current medical release signed by an FAA approved doctor, which needs to be updated as often as every 6 months or as seldom as every 3 years (depending on age and what type of flying you do). And of course, there's recurring training that must be accomplished every 2 years. Beyond that, there's requirements about flying you must have done within the past X months in order to carry passengers in various situations.

None of this includes instrument or commercial ratings, either, and is only valid for the specific category of aircraft that you trained in.

So, in order to fly, you have to really know what you're doing. The requirements are strict because the stakes are high. If drivers were required to reach pilot standards before getting their license, only 10-20% at best would ever make it, and accidents would be so rare that fender-benders would make the news. Roads would be extremely safe, the automobile industry would crumble, and mass transit would be the norm, rather than the exception.

Something new...

[BrynM]

Imagine going to DMV for that...

Lucky-*ucker: Hi, I'd like to register my Moller Sky Car.
DMV drone: What year is your Buick Skylark?
Lucky-*ucker: No, my sky car. Sky CAR!

I can see the look on the driving tester's face at license renewal. $3.5 mil and flying, it gives new meaning to "Tax and Licensing".

We should all pool our money and buy this.

[Mustang Matt]

I'd donate a spot in my garage and you guys can come take it for a spin any time you're in town. :)

Finished product?

[Lisandro]

This car has been on an "almost ready for production" state since i have memory - i recall reading on Popular Science about it and how it would revolutionize transport when i was a kid! So, are they selling these days? The site's a bit vague about this... and the one mentioned in the article is a prototype - a working prototype, yes, but still.

Re:Nice. // FAA cert

[cometman]

The Moller FAQ page says they expect it within 4 years.

Re:So..

[jcr]

I was expecting a couple of prototypes, but 75! I'd say they're going onward full bore.

I'm very skeptical when it comes to Moller. The guy has been promising that he was five years away from shipping a product for at least 25 years. I hope I'm wrong, though.

-jcr

Re:Is this legal?

[hughperkins]

From the website:

"M400 Skycar Deposit Information

"Deposit is refundable until after a successful transitioning flight has occurred. Thereafter deposits are refundable only if Final Delivery Price exceeds List Price (as adjusted for CPI-W) by 5%, OR Standard Equipment List has been shortened OR Guaranteed Performance Specifications are not met, OR FAA Certification Date of the M400 Skycar occurs after December 31, 2008 or a Purchase Agreement is executed prior to FAA certification. "

"Your required deposit amount is as follows:

"Delivery Position List Price
25-100 $995,000
101-200 $750,000
201-500 $500,000"

So, they're anticipating obtaining FAA approval by 2008. The price for a car depends on how long you're willing to wait. Starts off at one million, and drops to half a million if you're willing to wait till 200 have already been sold.

Hugh

Forget Skycars

[TheAdventurer]

Forget Sky Cars. My dad works at a company that makes Sky Buses. And you can ride anywhere in the USA for less than a thousand dollars. These Sky Buses have comfortable seating, attendants who give you food and spill drinks on you, and even a little TV you can watch with headphones.

Yep, Boeing makes these awesome Sky Buses with wheels and everything.

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!"

[ezweave]

Yeah, many people have thought that the skycar has been an investment scam, and it probably is. Hey the SEC thinks so!

Although I see that Bernoulli's principle strikes again! Alas, that is not really what generates lift (my modern Physics professor in college used to teach at the Air Force Academy and said they still teach that to pilots... ghastly). While there is a Bernoulli effect that influences lift, there is an assumption and crude explanation (hey the air flows above and below the wing have to meet up).

Many readers new to this topic may be looking for the explanation that is commonly put forward in many mainstream books, and even scientific exhibitions, that touch on flight and aerodynamic principles; namely, that due to the greater curvature (and hence longer path) of the upper surface of an aerofoil, the air going over the top must go faster in order to "catch up" with the air flowing around the bottom (and hence due to its faster speed its pressure is lower, etc). Despite the fact that this "explanation" is probably the most common of all, it must be made clear that it is utterly false.

here

Of course Bernoulli was a natural philosopher which explains why this was easily accepted (thanks Neal Stephenson, for fictionalizing that part of history).

Scientific arguments aside, the Moller sky car graced the pages of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science when I was a kid. No one in their right mind would buy it, it is a silly impractical (not to mention unsafe) idea. Do you know how much work it takes to get a pilot's license? Or instrument rated? Time and $$$$. That is why it is a dumb idea. But hey, rich old men can dream, can't they?

Re:Requisite "It's fake!"

[Floody]

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.

Unfortunately for your pet theory, the Bernoulli Principal has very little to do with standard airfoil generated lift; you've been incorrectly educated (as have many). The principal responsible is the Coanda effect, and the humorous bit is that it actually causes exactly what you deride as an extremely inefficent method of generating lift (although I will agree, 28mpg seem a tad ridiculous for any aircraft). To quickly understand the Bernoulli fallacy, puzzle over this one question: How does an inverted aircraft remain both aerodynamically stable (relatively) and continue to maintain or increase altitude when the very airfoil shape that causes the Bernoulli effect is completely upside-down?

Re:Requisite "It's fake!"

[Alioth]

An inverted plane (with a normal non-symmetric airfoil) flies upside down (badly) due to the angle of attack. The air flowing over the 'top' (now bottom of the wing) still goes faster than the air 'underneath'. In fact, the air never goes faster 'to catch up with the air underneath' - the air flow over the wing is MUCH faster than underneath (where it tends to slow a little). A wind tunnel can demonstrate this quite ably.

But it's a fallacy to say that x% of lift is caused by Bernouilli's laws (which predict the pressures very accurately) or the Coanda effect or... and y% is provided by Newton's equal and opposite reaction - it's not cumulative. 100% of lift can be explained by pressure differential, and 100% of lift can be explained by Newton's theories. They are just different ways of looking at the same thing.

Re:Requisite "It's fake!"

[zippthorne]

There were eight Bernoullis. and the bernoulli 'effect' is physically real. It doesn't say anything about catching up or whatnot. It is simply that the energy in a streamline is constant at any point in that streamline. This whole catching up thing sounds a like high school physics text 'virus' to me.

You can produce lift simply from a curved wing design provided there isn't 'boundary layer separation.' So IF the streamlines meet again after the wing, you can calculate how much lift this would provide. It's not much, but it's not zero.

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.

One would assume...

[imag0]

One would assume if you can afford it, you're pretty much past the law to begin with, eh?

Re:Is this legal?

[daniil]

From the Moller website: Moller is currently working with the FAA to obtain certification of the M400 Skycar under the "powered lift normal" category. /../ In addition, the FAA has established a "powered lift" pilot's license. This, together with a thorough familiarization, will be required to pilot a Skycar, primarily to ensure adequate flight management and navigational skills. So, to answer your question: they're working to legalize it, and you will need a licence to pilot one.

Cute, but it'll never be practical.

[OwP_Fabricated]

Well, never in terms of our lifetimes and probably a couple more lifetimes after that.

For flying cars to ever work you'd need insane amounts of safety systems for every kind of failure. We're talking backup systems for the backup systems that backup the backup systems.

You'd also need central traffic network computers to control them, because there's no way in hell the vast majority of the population could fly something at 100MPH with any safety. You think a fender bender is bad? Wait until it also makes you fall 200 feet out of the sky.

And don't try to imagine the death and devestation the first time the traffic system fails (insert "lol crash" jokes here).

Of course, anyone can figure all this out pretty easily. I'm being over-critical.

Re:Cute, but it'll never be practical.

[BrokenStructure]

had you taken the time to check out the web-site you may have read that there are 3 back-up electronics systems and 8 engines (2 per propellor). Any one could fail and the craft would still be able to fly and land safely (according to the web-site). I think if we could convert the lexus' detection system that slows the car down or speeds it up to compensate for traffic when cruise control is engaged, only for collision detection, this thing might be relatively idiot proof.

Typically vague Muller

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.moller.com/news/pressrelease/SkycarInNM arcus2005.html

We have offered the prototype "for sale" in the catalog for $3.5 million on the condition that it be delivered after its inaugural piloted test flight scheduled for later this year or early 2006. Well, except that he notes elsewhere they really are "working towards" that day, and have NFI when it will actually happen.

Yep, it's "for sale"! Oh, but not the one in the photo! That's the shiny production version see.

You get the far uglier testing one shown here...

http://www.moller.com/skycar/ ... after they've finished with it. So the used up and probably modified-badly-between-tests, not-legal-to-fly, hopefully-not-crashed, uglier, prototype is your "for sale" "when it's done" (and we all know how well that's worked for Nukem Forever). For ONLY $3.5 million!

Yes, typical Muller all the way! What a visionary!

Re:Come on though imagine if these get cheaper

[Kiffer]

this might sound like a stupid question ... but how slow can it go?

Re:Nice. // FAA cert

[Joe Random]

The Moller FAQ page says they expect it within 4 years.

Five years ago, the FAQ said that it would be available in two years. From the Wayback Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001110012400/http://w ww.moller.com/faq/#M400%20Skycar0

In other words, take any deadline that Paul Moller gives you with a big ol' honkin' chunk of NaCl.

Re:Fuel gauge?

[MichaelSmith]

I hope it has a good early-warning fuel gauge system so you don't plummet out of the sky when gas runs out!

According to TFA it has both a fuel warning system and two ballistic parachutes.

Ducted fans

[XNormal]

During forward flight the vehicle generates a significant part of its lift using airfoils. These airfoils are small, but at cruising speed they are up to the task. Remember that normal aircraft use wings sized for low-speed takeoff and landing, not for cruising speed. Low-speed hovering will naturally consume much more fuel but it's only for a short time at takeoff and landing.

Ducted fan vehicles are feasible and should theoretically be capable of doing all Dr Moller claims they can do. It's a different question whether Moller's company can achieve it. People tend to become skeptical after decades of of promises...

Re:Comfortable Seating?!

[NeMon'ess]

My hip bones don't rub the armrests in coach. I'm also a healthy weight.

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.)

Re:Comfortable Seating?!

[afidel]

Yes, but for ~$2.5M(US) you can have a Cessna Citation Mustang 6-person bizjet which is currently in shakedown testing and which will almost assuradly become certified before the skycar. Or if you are commuting by yourself or with only a few passengers there's the Dayjet Eclipse 500 which seats two pilots and 3 passengers for ~$1.3M which is also in shakedown. Basically the skycar is overpriced, underperforming, and overhyped. Basically there's a bunch of 3-6 seat bizjet's currently in testing or early production which cost less than the $3.5M pricetag of this thing, many are listed here. Since it's a page from one of the competitors in the space take all claims about estimates with the appropriate amount of salt, but even when being estimated by a competitor all of their costs come in under $3M.

but....

[plonk420]

but we made a cooler commercial glorious *cough* (but streamable) quicktime or window$ media video

Does anyone read

[bad_bwoy]

All these questions were answered in the provided link. Just go to the FAQ section.

4.22. How can I obtain a video of the M400 Skycar?

Since the M400 has not yet been flown, we do not have available video footage. You can however, obtain a Media Kit which includes a compilation video of interviews with Dr. Moller, a BETA master of our most recent flight test featuring the M200X (1990) and informational brochures on Skycar and Rotapower Engines for $50 plus shipping. Please see our Sales page to order.

4.21. Will I need a license to pilot an M400 Skycar?

Currently the Skycar is categorized as a "powered-lift normal" aircraft by the FAA. This means that, yes, you will require a "powered-lift normal" category pilot's license to operate a Skycar. However, it is our intention that the volantor will eventually evolve into a completely automated form of transportation making you a passenger - not a pilot/driver. At that point, no pilot's license would be required as long as you operate within this control network.

Are we ready for these types of technologies?

[JimBrownie]

Hello to everyone is slashdot, this is my first post. I just wonder will society ever be ready for forms of technology that require more than "point and click". I mean these days, with all teh science and technology out there, still wouldn't know how to set the time in a VCR. With technilogical progression, shouldn't our grasp of these technologies rise as well. Computers were suppose to make time for more work, more discovery, not for more leisure. If we continue to use technology as a crutch and not as a tool, regression is inevitable. We've all seen the Sci-Fi interpretation, civilizations lost due to ignorance and sloth. Just food for thought i guess i'll stop now lol

Re:Fuel gauge?

[volfro]

Nah, no hybrids, I bet. His are rotary engines built to run off of pretty much anything--including alcohol and biofuel. I remember reading a Time Life thing about him in the eighties that said the engine could run off of peanut oil. And on the site, it mentions the idea of running off of vegetable oil with small conversion efforts.

So that means low to no emissions there. Supposedly.

Re:Truly

[kfg]

Like space flights?

Like when you jump off the top of a skyscraper?

Space travel is not flight. The term is a misnomer born of inapplicable earth based intuitive concepts. Space is not, despite dictionary.com, a medium. The space shuttle only flies when it lands. In space it simply falls and has some inertial motion.

Going to Mars, or Pluto, is no different and unless you burn three axis thrusters the whole way the path taken is ballistic, because. . .space is not a gravity free zone.

The medium the thrusters work against are the spacecraft itself, not a medium the spacecraft is moving through.

As an aside, penguins are not flightless, they simply require a denser medium than air in which to fly.

KFG

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'.

Re:That will probably mean..

[Firethorn]

Neither in yours, give that it's been falling in the USA for the same period
Reference: All told, 42,636 people died on the nation's highways in 2004, down from 42,884 in 2003. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) was 1.46 in 2004, down from 1.48 in 2003. The fatality rate has been steadily improving since 1966 when 50,894 people died and the rate was 5.5.

Overall deaths can actually go up while having the VMR and per 100,000 rates go down because the USA, more so than Europe, is still increasing in population.

Re:Comfortable Seating?!

[ErikZ]

Did you read the blurb? 28 MPG.

Sheesh.

Profit!

[cowboy76Spain]

Let's see the numbers:

1) Get 75 PWMANB (People With Money And No Brains) to give you 74.625.000$
2) Get 100 PWMANB to give you 75.000.000$.
3) Get 400 PWMANB to give you 200.000.000$.
4) Put your 349.625.000$ in a guaranteed fund, to get 1% a year (as a minimum) for three years.
5) Wait for three years.
6) Return the 349.625.000$ to the 575 PWMANB, claming that the prototype is not ready/the FAA did not want them/a lobby from other company pressed to get it banned.
7) Keep the 3.495.250 yearly of interest earned $$$$.
8) Claim that you are getting your ultimate prototype for 2013....

Anyone wants to give me a deposit so I can claim their terrain at the Moon when I become its emperor??? Refund granted!

Re:cool

[Anitra]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought that...

But then again, isn't the SkyCar as much a work of fiction as Brooks' Kingdom of Landover?

Skycar will never truly fly

[Nick Driver]

The Moller Skycar will NEVER be able to fly the way he claims. First of all it's a purely vectored-thrust, powered-lift machine. All flying machines of this type are inherently unstable as hell. If any component in its controls or thrust systems fails, the machine will be wildly uncontrollable. Think bottle-rocket with the stick removed... wild unpredictable flight path... firey crashing death to any occupants of the vehicle. These kind of flying machines are very difficult to keep under control and are also *extremely* fuel-hungry. Look at the size of the Skycar, how much fuel tank capacity do you think it has. Not much? You're right. How many engines will the M400 have? EIGHT 150hp dual-rotor wankels. You know how much gasoline a 150hp engine uses? About 7.5 gallons per hour if you lean the mixture to the point where it barely runs, and of course is not putting out the full 150hp at that point. At full 150hp 100% output, such an engine will burn about 11 gallons per hour. At low altitudes, you'll need full power from all eight engines to keep the thing in the air since all the thrust will be doing the duty of lift vector. That's almost 90 gallons per hour fuel burn at full power! FAA regs say that an aircraft cannot even take off for daytime VFR flight without enough fuel to complete the flight plus a 1/2 hour reserve. Moller is now saying that he expects to run the engines on alcohol instead of gas. Well, any high school kid who has just begin to learn about engines and fuels can tell you that it takes almost 2 gallons of alcohol to do the work of 1 gallon of gasoline in an internal combustion engine. I call shenanigans on this machine. Anybody who thinks this is a viable flying machine is smoking crack.

Moller should've just stuck to making SuperTrapp mufflers for motorcycles, at least that is a successful design that works quite well. Or work some more on that wankel engine to finish getting it up to snuff for small conventional airplanes. If they could get that 150hp dual-rotor wankel to have at least a 1500 hour TBO and equipped with a planetary gear reduction drive to keep the prop at about 2700-2800 max rpm at full power, they could sell a lot of these engines to the experimental airplane homebuilders, and perhaps a de-rated 100-120hp version to the Light Sport aircraft makers That's where the real money could be.

Flying cars...

[Nick Driver]

We've already had a Flying Car since 1979.

Screw the Flying Car

[camusflage]

I'm waiting for the more environmentally friendly Hoverbike to be released!

The Elephant in the Room is not the Motor.

[Ubiquitous88]

Aircars in a post 9/11 world? Even if Moller succeeds in the next decade - and even if the FAA approves his machine - can you really see the Dept. of Homeland Security letting these things within range of an office building? And would you want them to? The George Jetson dream was born in the middle of the last century, when Americans by and large thought that technology would be used for the best possible purposes and that everyone likes the good ol' USA. The car catches the imagination, yes. But it also is a dream of another era.

Skycar/Moller a 40 year con

[Teahouse]

This guy has never made a functioning prototype. He has scammed hundreds of venture capitalists over the years promising the inevitable "breakthrough" in just a "few more years." His current iteration (the M400) has been awaiting a non-tethered test flight for 5 years now. First it was the insurance, then it was the engine, now it's waiting for a man-made lake to test this thing over. The reality is that this thing can't get higher than ground effect. He is no closer to a flying car today than he was in 1972. I am so sick of this guy getting press for his failure. There are real flying car vehicles out there, Moller isn't one of them. He's a long-term grifter, nothing more.

Mod parent down, -1 Completely Uniformed

[birge]

You have no idea what you're talking about, so please don't post about aviation. The 'highway in the sky' is a concept that has been bouncing around NASA for quite a while, and involves nothing more than the presentation of existing navigational routes to the pilot in an intuitive way, as if s/he were flying on a virtual highway. In no way does it imply there will be aircraft flying in close proximity. The same rules and conventions separating aircraft would apply. Furthermore, one facet of the proposal is to have traffic information integrated into the display, making the concept even safer in terms of collision avoidance.

But thanks for contributing your ignorance to the public. We already have enough reasons for the public to be irrationally afraid of progress in private aviation, thank you.

You're also wrong about Moller. The recent progress on the skycar has been significant due to improvements in engine technology and avionics. While nobody can be sure he'll get everything together, he is definitely closer than he's ever been, and tethered flight is still flight.

Powder + Water = Gasoline

[rlp]

Safety Cap wrote: Hey, I hear you can get some green powder that changes Water into GASOLINE ...

It is possible to create a powder that mixes with water to create gasoline. Years ago, while taking Organic Chemistry in college, I learned about the Grignard reaction. This synthesis can produce a solid that when mixed with water can hydrolyse to produce a hydrocarbon.

Just two minor problems - 1) It also produces an alkali (such as KOH or NaOH) which would be bad for the engine and the environment, and 2) the initial synthesis starts with a hydrocarbon! TANSTAAFL