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'Flying Saucers' to Go On Sale Soon
gihan_ripper writes "Perhaps the ultimate nerd acquisition, the flying car, is to go on sale in a few months. Speaking to the BBC, the inventor Dr Paul Moller described his creation, dubbed the Flying Saucer, as a VTOL aircraft designed to hover at 10 ft. above the ground. The flying saucer has eight engines and is expected to sell for $90,000. Dr Moller expects to produce a successor within six years, a 'Skycar' capable of a climb rate of 6000 ft./min. and an airspeed of 400 mph."
from holding my breath
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I had a flying saucer once, but when it landed it broke into a thousand shards.
Be relentless!
Strange thing is, the other day I was thinking about Back to the Future 2, how all those years ago the writers thought we might all have flying cars in 2015, and how off the mark they were. Looks like they were right after all!
I lost me sig.
I saw this and previous veriations on this way back in 1987 on a tech show called Beyond 2000. 20 years later and still a prototype.
I'll believe it when I can actually buy one. Much as I'd like a flying car, his always seem to be "Real Soon Now(TM)" AFAIK, Moller has never actually had anything for sale. Downside(R) lists his company as a scam because it has been a few years from production for 30 years. There have also been SEC complaints for "fraudulent, unregistered offering and the filing of a fraudulent Form 10-SB by Moller International, Inc. ("MI" or "the company"), a California company engaged in the development of a personal aircraft known as "the Skycar.""
I'd like to be wrong, but I sure won't be putting down any money just yet.
Is a dog like Astro and I'll be all set!
Flying cars would be too useful. Firstly we wouldn't have to wait in traffic anymore. Secondly we could travel between two locations "as the crow flies" . This combined would save immense sums on gas consumption. Not to mention the bonus of autopilot navigation systems allowing you to drink while not driving
The Skycar has been in the works for decades with barely anything to show for it. There are too many stories that just talk about the positive future that it supposedly represents when it's been a boondoggle so far. There was even action against Moller by the SEC.
...does every shot of it hovering have a crane in the background?
If the development of this vehicle is as rapid as that of the automobile or the aircraft, expect to see wide-spread use in another 20 years or so.
The game.
Moller's been pushing this nonsense since his first snowmobile engine modifications in the 70's. He has been collecting investment money for decades promising VTOL vehicles to the masses. There's a whole sky full of problems with this. First, getting into the sky is a series of tests and checks and licenses here in the US because, essentially, many people don't really want every Tom Dick and Harry flying over our heads. The skies are a-crowded already, from a management point of view.
Second, while the technology may be sound and there were doubters to the helicopter and "aeroplane" alike, this design seems a bit more like rocketry than either of the prior two. Ducted or directed fan technology is hugely inefficient compared to wing technology. Coolness aside, there's something of an "experimental" quality of these machines that they cannot seem to shake. If I'm watching YouTube videos of the Moller employees coming and going in these contraptions, then perhaps my doubts will be alleviated, but until then, I keep picturing a screwball in an oversized frisbee darting over the park and eventually plowing into the trees.
I have been following this guy for about 7 years or so. I have been waiting for this to come to market. Although the last I heard, the projected price was supposed to be around 60k instead of 30k. I guess they were trying to get it certified to drive without a difficult to get license at one time.
My understanding is that it is relatively good on fuel too. They were talking about it on an Art Bell program years ago when Art actually was on it. I guess fully loaded it get better fuel economy per passenger then a fully loaded bus does per passenger. Or at least that was their target. The skycar is supposed to go higher and faster and was promising to be affordable enough to compete with the cheaper luxury cars. (60-80k)
They don't have brakes.
c.f. to your typical driver on the road: can you imagine the licensing problems? Might as well just stick with planes and autos.
The only issue I foresee would be allowing the average mom and pop trying to hover around houses, buildings even at only 10 feet without any piloting experience. Surely you wouldn't want to have 2 layers of traffic on a set of lights (one on the ground and one hovering above the "normal" traffic below). Imagine what would happen in the event of an engine failure. Maybe recalibrating the dilithium matrix would work?
The only way I could see this working is if they work out a few infrastructure challenges. For starters, the article mentions that you won't be able to fly one over 10 feet without a pilot's license. 10 Feet won't get you over some pickups, much less off the highways. Next, how do you work out right of way, parking and so on. These are challenges that will be difficult to overcome even IF flying cars were readily available.
Next is safety. While cars have been pretty focused on protecting their occupants, this takes that to a whole new dimension. A stall is no longer just an inconvenience, but a high probability that you are going to die. What about the people on the ground that you crash into? How many car wrecks are there in an average size city. Now imaging that for each of these wrecks, you have a heavy, flammable piece of metal, glass and plastic falling to the ground! It would seem to me that the only way to make these things remotely safe would be to equip them not only with a parachute, but with airbags on the outside to protect those that are going to be in their homes beneath these things!
Economy. With all the current focus on global warming, dwindling oil supplies, wars in the middle east etc, I don't see how flying cars will help alleviate any of these problems. As a matter of fact, I see the exact opposite happening! Could you imagine what would happen to the demand for energy if half the auto's on the road were not flying over it!
Of course, these issues are just a few issues that my ignorant-ass can come up with in a few minutes. I'm sure that there are problems that real life engineers haven't even dreamed of yet! So I'm afraid that building a flying car will be the easy part.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The last time he was in the headlines was a few years ago. The SkyCar was going to go on sale soon. What the press release and news articles didn't say was that it was *the* one and only prototype SkyCar that was going to go on sale, in the Nieman Marcaus catalog. This guy comes out with a press release every few years to raise cash for toys. Last time I looked at his web page he was also selling some kind of diet supplement pills, right on the same page with the SkyCar info! Scam scam scam scam scammity-scam scammity-scam! Can I have his scam? I like scam!
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
See to it, Frank, see to it....
I'd be more interested in the problem being solved by a new technical approach rather than by an application of brute-foce technology we already have mostly sussed out (except for the control systems, but that's just micro-SCADA to be worked out). Anyone have a take on Drexler's (I think it was Drexler's) "fan cloth" idea? Wings don't have to be solid lumps in cross section in order to provide lift. Bazillions of nano-sized engines that capture individual air molecules at random vectors and send them downward in a single direction to provide a pressure differential & thus thrust. Interesting stuff, I wonder if it would be workable.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
...some cheap alien costumes and a few friends. It is going to be awesome cruising lonely country roads looking for gullible tourists. The National Enquirer headline - "4 Martians Mooned Me".
There is nothing new about this except the proposed release date... this item has been in widely-advertised development for many years. Further, the picture accompanying the article is not of the Flying Saucer. That is a picture of the Sky Car. That one is not being released yet (and may never be).
Too much, too much, too little.
A few flying cars buzzing overhead will cause significant outcry in many communities. Unless it can get bladerunner quiet, it's not gonna happen in large scale.
Fuel, ahhh ah ha ha. Unless you are travelling far, good luck with that being econimical. Of course if your a CEO, who cares!.
Infrastructure, where do you park it?
umm...think about the energy needed to keep a 'flying car' at a given altitude. I can't seen the savings in either traffic or straight line navigation equaling or exceeding the energy required to keep this thing aloft. ...but i'm sure big oil will be happy to sell you some jet fuel or whatever energy-dense liquid flying cars will run on.
...hot alien babes?
...a cup holder?
...a flying cup?
...tea?
...an application for a Darwin award?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Exactly. Who wants to think that at any second, some flying car could come falling out of the sky and landing directly on you? It would make a small crater.
Until we have flying buildings, we don't need flying cars to get where we are going.
These issues have been addressed in other forums. You touch on a few of the actual reasons we have not seen flying cars yet.
First, though, I would like to mention the economy issue. If this were a standard winged vehicle, many commuters would actually see a significant decrease in fuel use and cost, because of the more straight-line nature of the commute, and the fact that it takes much less time. But this is not a standard winged vehicle, and so it can probably be expected to get dismal gas mileage.
As for the other major issues: In fact, the reason most people do not commute by air today (other than fuel) is lack of infrastructure. If the vehicles are going to be safe for the average user, then they will have to be equipped with automatic safety and routing systems. Driving, in the usual sense of the term, is out of the question. There would be so many collisions that it would be sheer mayhem. Automatics are the only answer.
Having said that... where are the automatics? The control and positioning systems would have to be very widespread, and must be able to switch from one tower to another in an instant without appreciable lag time. There would also have to be considerable computing power devoted to each vehicle on a continuous basis.
Until recently, such a system we unheard of. But we have one now: the cellular phone network. The infrastructure for flying commuters would not be exactly the same as a cellular network of course, but at least we now have a good model. And only now... it did not exist before. And without that, there would never be widespread commuting by air.
What good is hovering 10ft above the ground, except for fun. How do you get from home to work in this thing?
Surely you can't fly over people's backyards so you'll have to follow the roads. 10ft is too low to get you over trucks so you won't be able to fly over the traffic easily, so you'll just have to follow the traffic like in a car except for the temptation to skip over low cars and cut across corners etc. while avoiding the power lines, overpasses etc.
No way will this thing ever be legal unless the whole infrastructure and traffic laws are changed to accommodate which ain't gonna happen either. So, what good is it?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
While I agree with all the skeptics, having read about this same damn car years ago, some of the skepticism is unfounded.
Moller may never produce a 'flying car', but someone will eventually.
When that flying car hits the market, it will likely be little different than when the first automobiles we're being sold. There were no parking spots in front of the general store, only places to tie up your horse. As more of these are sold, more spots to park them will become available. More gasoline/diesel stations will accommodate them as well. It will be slow. There won't be any real regulation of them for a while, but that won't stop people from using them. And these will likely be flying deathtraps for a while. So was the car for the first two decades of it's life. Same for the train when we started laying tracks everywhere we could find a place for them but couldn't design brakes worth a shit. As dangerous as these flying cars may be, people will fly them.
If I could afford one, I would buy it to fly it to work everyday. It would be easy for me; I'd just follow the river. The first automobiles were not utilities, they were novelties, just like the flying car will be when someone eventually manages to start selling them.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
Moreover, there are no videos of the thing actually rising out of ground effect and flying any distance in vertical flight. So, unless I see more, I think that is all of what this thing is capable: Hovering in ground effect.
step 1: buy flying car
step 2: marry Jane
step 3: father two children named Judy and Elroy
It's not the easiest business to pull together, and I don't see many more people even trying. What is it to any of us to wait a couple of years. Hell, I'll wait ten -- twenty years if I have to. But every journey begins with a single step.
This company is all about raising successive rounds of venture capital. Where are the demonstrations of the thing WORKING (as in flying in complex, controlled and safe maneuvers)? What a joke these guys are.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
what a waste of space this guy is... a poster above tried to say fuel efficiency per person better than a bus full of people !!!
lol - last time i saw it took 2 400hp engines to get off the ground... power doesnt come for nothing so clearly this will be as fuel efficient as the shuttle taking off...
so in a world where resources are becoming scarce everyone who can afford it should buy a flying car which requires 600hp to travel along and takes 2 real time pc systems to try and keep it level... or you could ride a 10kg bike and take a train.
Not sure if it's VTOL, but...
Step one: permanently affix chair to car. Any car will do.
Step two: place conspicuously in Ballmer's office just before an Apple media event.
Step three: there is no step three!
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Moller's been expecting to build the Skycar (volantor as he calls it) "in six years time" for the last 30 years. Don't believe him. None of his aircraft have managed an untethered flight outside of ground effect - every so often he pumps up some publicity, presumably to get new funding after the last lot of venture capitalists see that he's going nowhere.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I'm not holding my breath for this one, I learned my lesson from The Phantom .
It'll boost the economy, what with all the Anti Moller Skycar devices being sold (aka SAMs)
Saw his flying saucer demo from the 70's that everyone else has seen. That thing is so unstable, has so many moving parts, it looks like it would flip over or malfunction at any minute. Sticking to the good old fashioned helicopter.
Is Cowboy Neal really this freaking gullible? I mean - I'll give the BBC a pass because, hey - they're journalists. Judging by most of the "technical" stories I read by journalists, I've come to the conclusion that the bulk of them would be hard pressed to explain how to tie a knot, let alone understand something even mildly technical.
But you'd at least expect someone editing for a self proclaimed nerd site would be a bit more savvy than this. The first thing I did was tag the thing !news scam. I seem to recall this guy hawking his wares in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics back in the early to mid 70's. You'd be better off taking a helicopter and adding a flight control computer to it that translated traditional steering wheel inputs [with the forward/aft motions of an airplane yoke] into cyclic, collective, and rotor pedal inputs. Granted, helicopter maintenance is obnoxiously expensive, but it sure as hell doesn't take that kind of horsepower to keep one aloft [although hovering outside of ground effect takes a fair amount of power].
Now. If he developed an engine for it that ran on water, that would be another matter entirely.
A short commissioned by Jay Leno, Dante and Randal were demanding a flying car in 2002. Watch this if you've never seen it.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
One 70's video of this one is on http://www.moller.com/videom200x.htm
B sure 2 have a helicopter ready to rescue the pilot after he crashes.
and up
Is this thing taking off for real or it's just a scam (i.e. tied up by a thin cable to the out-of-picture crane)?
at the Watertown Strip Mall
So get yours before they're all gone!
What?
Below is a link to a video of a Russian production facility that asserts to show a flying saucer design to be commercialized soon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjBiy2nikBI. Not your usual blurry UFO video...
The BBC report shows the 400 Skycar, while the 200 looks more like a saucer shape. They must need more investors after spending so much money without a successful product.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
There is no technical reason why we couldn't have had "flying cars" (or something close enough to count) 70 years ago. The problem is cost: I recently moved to a city with a small airport, which offered flying lessons. I looked up their prices, and found it would cost about £10K (US$20,000) to get a licence to fly small aircraft.
One of the biggest problem with the Moller sky car is that it has no glide ratio--and no margin of safety during an engine failure. Even helicopters can land without power by going into "auto rotation." The Moller sky rock cannot.
While the sky car could use a rocket launched parachute like those used by some paraglider pilots, those don't help unless you have some altitude for it to deploy and decelerate your fall. Moller has been sucking up venture capitol for decades but he is to flying cars as Lyndon Larouche is to the presidency--it ain't gonna happen.
I really like the look of the Entecho Flying Saucer looks nice and apparently is going to retail for only 30,000 AUD I heard an interview with one of the designers who claims it will be on sale to the public with in 3 years. Unfortunately it will be limited to climb to 1.8 meters off the ground for safety reasons and only seats one person how ever the plus side to this is there is a good chance it will become a registered road worthy vehicle in Australia. Perfect for cruising over the tough corrugated roads we have here in Australia.
Well, joking. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/01/014821 0 had an article about the first skycar being for sale, but the rebuttals for their technology are to be found in the comments, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163945&cid=136 93215 and http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163945&cid=136 92203 for example (but the others make a good read as well).
my other sig is a 500 page novel
linux is for dick smoking fags. go fuck yourselves. get the aids and die. i hate the dumb shit you try to spread.
astroturf, fud and faggotry is all the linux crowd has to offer. fucking homos.
So much so that the SEC (The Securities and Exchange Commission, a U.S. regulatory body) filed a lawsuit against Moller Int and Paul Moller in 2003. The details are available on the SEC website at: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp17987 .htm
In the introduction to the suit, the SEC said:
"This matter involves a fraudulent, unregistered offering and the filing of a fraudulent Form 10-SB by Moller International, Inc. ("MI" or "the company"), a California company engaged in the development of a personal aircraft known as "the Skycar."
Under the heading, "False and Misleading Statements and Omissions", the SEC said:
19. The promotional material used in this solicitation campaign contained materially false and misleading information.
20. For example, the Skycar, according to Moller, would allow any person to travel at speeds over 400 miles-per-hour in the uncluttered airspace above the roadways for about the same price as a luxury automobile. In MI investor newsletters, Moller projected that 10,000 Skycars would be sold by the end of 2002.
21. In reality, the Skycar was and still is a very early developmental-stage prototype that has no meaningful flight testing, proof of aeronautical feasibility, or proven commercial viability.
Nobody seems to have noticed that in the background of all those BBC vids, there is a massive crane! Yes that's right - the thing is not flying at all - it's on a string hanging from a CRANE. And then there's the crap he spouts about it - I'm disappointed in the BBC for believing this crank. "We have this wonderful natural resource above us," Dr Moller told the BBC. "Look at the sky above us - how many aircraft do you see? It's a great space that is not being utilised. That is what we plan to use. Cars are finished as a means of getting around. It's only a matter of time." Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
For the general public anyway. They might make good military vehicles or some other special purpose.
If they ever become fully computer controlled then maybe.
Deleted
Moller should go into the hot air balloon industry if his intent is VTOL. His current ventures are enough of a speaming pile of sh*t to make any balloon fly.. Scam all around.
It's amazing that after 30 years of scam he has not been sued out of existence yet.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Races between these vehicles would be... spectacular.
Deleted
Who needs flying cars? Soon we will have flying broom (yeah, real quidditch style, very good for saturday night gatherings). Here in Hungary someone paented it this spring. The essence is, a multiple piston longitudinal oscillating Casimir-drive goes in the handle and it supplies power to a series of coaxial, contra-rotating Podkletnov disks hidden under the large batch of fibres.
Of course it requires a small bottle of on-board helium supply, because the super-conductive disks must be cooled to near absolute zero to achieve the gravity repulsive effect first discovered by Mr. Eugene Podkletnov. This limits flight time to about one hour currently. The broom also includes a mechanism to limit flying height to no more than 15 meters (50ft). This is NOT a technical limitation, but rather a rider safety measure and also a legal trick to keep FAA away from regulating it (They only have authority over things that can fly above 50ft, e.g. wing-in-ground effect seaskimmers are exempt).
Additionally, I don't personally think that the general public should be allowed the opportunity to purchase a "flying car"; I have yet to see the general automobile-driving public demonstrate consistent proficiency in:
[Setting: A car dealership]
(Jerry and George are looking over some cars)
GEORGE: When are they gonna have the flying cars, already?
JERRY: Yeah, they have been promising that for a while..
GEORGE: Years. When we were kids, they made it seem like it was right around the corner.
JERRY: I think Ed Begley Jr. has one.
GEORGE: No. That's just electric.
JERRY: What about Harrison Ford? He had one in, uh, Blade Runner. That was a cool one.
GEORGE: (Sarcastic) What's the competition, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
JERRY: Well, what do you think the big holdup is?
GEORGE: The government is very touchy about us being in the air. Let us run around on the ground as much as we want. Anything in the air is a big roduction.
JERRY: Yeah, right. And what about the floating cities?
GEORGE: And the underwater bubble cities?
JERRY: It's like we're living in the '50s here.
Another reason I don't believe in these being successful: they have got to be insanely noisy. I've never seen a Moller prototype, so I've never heard the engines, but I figure each one is probably as noisy as a leaf blower... and this thing has 8 of them!
If you look up "deciBels" you will often find "jet engine" as an example of "really damn loud".
15 years ago when I sort of believed in these, the Moller guys had some hand-wavy thing about active noise cancellation quieting them down. Actually, that won't work.
Please, someone invent some new physics and then invent anti-gravity or something!
Surely flying cars of any description come with one VERY major flaw - the typical driver. Who amongst us that drive, including myself, hasn't had some sort of sphincter twitching moment from time to time while driving. I shudder to imagine the roads/airways full of boy-racers, old codgers who can't see more than 10 feet ahead of them, learners and even the good drivers (we all make mistakes). Conventional wheeled cars are fairly forgiving of minor mistakes but a flying vehicle would not be. How would air-roads be layed out, junctions, roundabouts, avoidance of power lines and buildings? There are many more issues to be resolved than purely building a flying car. Presumably any flying vehicle would need engine(s) and fuel, what happens when the engine stalls or fuel runs out - it plummets to the ground. Until an anti-gravity device is manufactured so the car simply halts in the sky this is another serious flaw.
re:"It would seem to me that the only way to make these things remotely safe would be to equip them not only with a parachute,"
You have a parachute that deploys and fully works in 10 feet? COOOOOOOOOoooool! I want one!
If you bothered to RTFA, or taken 5 seconds to google "Moller flying car" you would have noticed a link to the homepage, and demo videos of both this M200x flying around and the Skycar (which, granted, only hovers thus far).
Since they are ACTUALLY selling these things, they are far from the Duke Nukem Forever of anything. It's also pretty remarkable that they've accomplished so much given the size of their operation."Cheeze it!" - Bender
The ultimate nerd acquisition is an "original replica" of yourself, frozen in carbonite http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/20/155624 7.
Well, actually, the ultimate nerd would put an authentic blue and yellow eighties Cray Supercomputer Tower sofa in his/her(?) living room. And you know what? Called "retro-chic" when they went on the auction market, these things still look cool, which is to say, they're style, as opposed to fashion.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
that remembers seing film and reports about the Aero car of the mid 1940s? As I remember, the wings and tail were towed in a trailer-like fashion, and attached at the airport. Lifting the license plate allowed attachment of the pusher propeller. While the Aero flew sucessfully, it never actually entered prodiction. I think I hear that one of the originals was still flying as recently as 2006.
I am sure a modern version of such a vehicle could be produced that would be easier to get ready for flight, and be more fuel efficient. Not sure how much demand there would be, as a pilots license would be required, and you would still have to drive to the airport. However, it would solve transportation problems of getting to and from the airport on both ends of the flight.
and The War on Drugs are reasons why the MIT-folding-wings thing (and this flying-saucer thing) will NEVER be classified as a light aircraft. Not to mention the War on Free Trade Between Nations Without Abusive Protectionist Taxes. No government has the resources to avoid the flow of people and merchandise once instead of patrolling a two-dimentional line it has to patrol a 3d surface. Planes don't really count because as they can't park outside airstrips/airports -- in principle --you only have to police those. Choppers are becoming more and more of an issue...
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Did anyone notice that the "car" seemed to be swaying back and forward in the clip while a crane is clearly visible behind it? Maybe its just me but that screams fake...
...Duke Nukem Forever will also be released at the same time as the Flying Car.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Most flying vehicles can make a controlled descent even when the power fails. This one looks like it would drop like a rock...
Not because of any engineering difficulties, although I'm sure there's no shortage of those. Engineering difficulties can and will always be overcome. Someone will develop a better fuel, a lighter/stronger material, a more elegant design. The real reason these will never happen is because there is no way any government will ever let their citizens have the freedom of the 3rd dimension. The Solotrek looked very promising until an accident with a safety tether caused a crash (note, not a failure on the part of the machine!). Paranoiacs wishing to generate conspiracy theories about this incident are of course welcome to do so.
Go read Bob Shaw's 'Vertigo' for some idea of what happens to a society where personal human flight is commonplace. Borders become meaningless, passports doubly so. Criminals are going to love these things - how do you set up a roadblock in the sky? And also, no matter how carefully you build the vehicle to be safe, and easy to pilot, the human element will always be a factor.
"People who were in a hurry tended to switch off their lights to avoid detection and fly straight to where they were going, regardless of the air corridors. The chances of colliding with another illegal traveller were vanishingly small, they told themselves, but it was not only occasional salesmen late for appointments who flew wild. There were the drunks and the druggies, the antisocial, the careless, the suicidal, the thrill-seekers, the criminal - a whole spectrum of types who were unready for the responsibilities of personal flight, in whose hands a counter-gravity harness could become an instrument of death."
What's a cop going to do, chase you? Muhahahahahaha...
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Dr Paul Moller is a visionary, just like many of us and many other people at most successful companies. The only difference is that he's been holding onto his vision for far too long. That makes him "ahead of his time." OTOH, Edison worked for less than 2 years on the light bulb.
Look and almost any non-trivial software project and you'll find a program manager with a vision that convinced upper management to dump all the money in. I read somewhere that 80% of those projects fail. Of the remaining, less than 2% come in on time/budget. Heck, wasn't MS-Vista started in 1998 and promised in 2002?
Moller doesn't have the same deep pockets as many software companies, so he has to convince investors that THE vision will just take a little more money. It is the way of the free market system.
80-200 years from now when the weight/thrust/sound problem is solved, we'll all still be driving cars instead. I will anyway, since I believe in reincarnation. That's my vision.
I like the idea, but where would you use it? 10 ft isn't high enough to clear houses, fences, trees etc. So you would still be restricted to using the road system. Then there's the problem of tunnels, bridges and overhangs which could mess your day up when cruising along 10 ft above the ground...
Would these things even be allowed to hover along roads? I'd imagine they would pose a considerable hazard to regular traffic who wouldn't be expecting a 'bunny hop' overtake.
I don't see a market for it in the real world, the mega rich have helicopters and personal jets already.
The entire reason the "flying saucer" is limited to 10ft is that they are trying to avoid any requirement of a pilots license.
Fire up your Blender!
OBVIOUSLY, these flying saucer MORONS haven't heard of PEAK OIL.
Does it come with a complementary anal probe?
Picture this scenario:
Some random person is flying around just above city level in a skycar at 400mph.
Some random person is exceptionally prudent and therefore exhibits only 1/10th the probability of the average random person to drunk drive and/or crash into things.
Some person still on a regular basis crashes into schools, buildings and other cars. Only at 400mph. In a fuel-filled car. At the only way to 'pull him over' is with a Stinger missile.
As technology progresses, the capacity of ordinary humans to do catastrophic damage (how to turn a dvd diode into a laser pointer lulz) increases steeply.
How is this thing going to travel anywhere 10 ft above the ground?
Clipping every semi trailer along the way...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I for one welcome our new Flying Saucer overlords:
z =18&om=0&t=k
http://maps.google.com/?ll=-34.608743,-58.364643&
Free copy of Duke Nukem Forever with every sale.
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
Yes I too have heard all about Moeller and his promises over the last 10 years. Flying cars will never make it to the mass market person on the street.. and I will tell you why ; just think about how many deaths and injuries are caused just be regular cars. If we cant even get people to drive a car safely how can we expect to teach people how to FLY a car safely! .People are the weak link, why do you think we only let qualified pilots fly planes and not some regular dumbass from anytown USA. No it will never work.. too much money training people, creating a new infrastructure, insurance,fuel, oh and gravity is a problem too.Maybe create flying car routes through deserts or uninhabited areas.. we dont want mid air collisions and wreckage falling out of the sky into peoples houses.
If you want a solution to the automobile crisis go read Robert A Heinleins short story "The Roads must Roll" , ok we need to invent high power low cost solar cells first, but that doesnt sound as far fetched as a flying car.. Delorean or otherwise.
I saw a an article a magazine (Popular Mechanics?) in '86 that interviewed Moller and showed pictures and such, went into detail about his work in the previous 10 years to develop an engine for the Moller series ('Moller 400' was the main one, there was a smaller craft, maybe the 'Moller 200'?).
The origninal article had more background and detail, but this could easily pass as an abreviated version of it. And yes, they were hoping to get the Moller 400 into production within the next few years -- that would put it about '89. Despite the specifications, I would say that the M400 is very slowly going nowhere.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
That's a bit like saying the Star Trek Enterprise's warp engines look a lot more feasible than other types of faster-than-light travel like those totally unbelievable Hyperdrives from Star Wars.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
The Skycar better have a carPC so I can play Duke Nukem Forever in it!
You guys can have the flying car. I'll stick with the lawnchair tied to helium filled weather balloons.
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
Do it as an experimental. Sell kits that have 45% of the work finished, and detailed instructions, and let the new owner finish it, register it as an experimental, and go. The FAA still has to issue an airworthiness certificate, but the threshold for getting an AC is far, far lower than for getting FAA type approval. Plus people feel like they're getting a deal, so they're more likely to buy.
I think the problem is: where do you go to get instruction? You're not legally allowed to fly these things without a pilot certificate coz they weigh too much to fit into ultralight categories, and more critically, they're a different type of certificate. To fly a Moeller or the like, you need instruction in 'powered lift' not 'fixed wing' or 'helicopter' or even 'autogyro' -- and there are precisely two 'powered lift' vehicles in existence, the Moeller and the Osprey V-22. Nobody has flown a Moeller, and the only Ospreys are being flown by US military and Boeing/Vertol research/design people. There are no instructors and as such there is no way to get instruction, so the market for an aircraft you're not legally allowed to fly is pretty slim. Moeller has to get a dozen of these things built and four dozen certified flight instructors trained up -- when nobody has any idea of what constitutes a certified flight instructor for powered lift -- before there will be a market for his machines. IF they ever actually work.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Here's an interview with Dr. Moller that we did at NetworkPerformanceDaily.com, which includes an audio podcast.
Interview & Podcast
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
400mph is the speed of fighters near the end of WW II. Anything going 400mph is not designed for vertical operation, not even close. It's using wings for lift at that speed and 6000 fpm climb is not out of the question.
... I'll believe it when it flies, not from press releases.
Now whether he can actually go 400 mph
Infuriate left and right
Moller must be running low on disposable cash. He'll pull this same stunt every couple of years to try and milk gullible investors. If you doubt this, take a look at what the SEC had to say in 2003.
Know what? I think that Moller is really the reincarnation of P.T. Barnum. It's the only explanation that makes sense. Next thing we'll probably see is a blurb for special "Skycars" for the military, equipped with high-power lasers.
I refuse to be "Mollerfied" by a press release!
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
The main reason aviation is so expensive is not the inherent costs of building and maintaining aircraft. It's lawyers. Most of the cost of a new aircraft is insurance the aircraft manufacturer pays. The manufacturer is liable for any break downs of the aircraft. That's why kit planes are so cheap compared to new aircraf.
I'm not saying that lax insurance laws would let everyone have a helicopter to commute to work. But it might make aviation as popular a hobby as boating.
The Register were talking about this earlier.
The tone of the article? Scathing and very very sceptical.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
I swear this guy puts P.T. Barnum to shame.
"Dr." Paul Moller has been promising to sell his skycar "in a few years" since the 70's. When I first saw something about his concept (in a late-70's Pop Sci, as I recall) it looked pretty interesting. At the time (almost 30 years ago) Moller was promising these "soon." But as time has gone by it's become clearer and clearer that the only thing that Moller is selling is old-fashioned snake-oil and the only folks he's selling to are the gullible.
If you look at what he's offering for sale "soon" you'll see that it's not the long-promised skycar, it's a flying saucer type craft that looks like something out of a Mario Party minigame. Seriously, it looks like four weed-whacker engines in a fiberglass shell molded from an old Texaco sign.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Moller has been claiming he'd have a flying car Real Soon Now since the 1960s. Here's his 1974 brochure. The schedule back then was "December 31, 1974 - Preliminary test flights complete - December 31, 1976 - Full-scale production begins". Thirty years later...
In the words of the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation (Moller had a bit of trouble about selling unregistered stock, making false and misleading claims, and other securities law violations), "As of late 2002, MI's approximately 40 years' of development has resulted in a prototype Skycar capable of hovering about fifteen feet above the ground."
What Moller is talking about now, the "M200G", is closer to a hovercraft than a flying car. This isn't the big red "flying car" prototype he's been touting for the last ten years; it's a new, simpler model. He does have a prototype flying, at least while tethered to a crane. Performance is worse than the AvroCar, circa 1960.
It's not that a flying car is impossible. It's that Moller isn't good enough to bring it off. If somebody like Burt Rutan was doing this, it would be flying in a year or two.
The basic problem with a flying car today is that nobody ever found a way to make a cheap, reliable, small jet engine. It's possible to make a small jet engine, but below bizjet size, they don't get much cheaper. That's why general aviation is still mostly piston-powered. Piston-powered VTOL, which is what Moller is trying, is a marginal idea. It was tried extensively in the 1950s, and the power to weight ratio just isn't good enough. Moller is using Wankel engines, which helps a little, but not enough.
I hear that the entertainment system in this thing will come standard with Duke Nukem Forever....
To boldly use to and too two times and get it right too! They're not gonna believe their eyes when they see it there!
Who would buy the first flying car that comes out? Everybody knows they need some time to fix the design issues.
isn't his "car" lighter weight than the aircraft you describe?
wouldn't it then follow it would rise faster?
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
Here's an essay explaining Why There Are No Flying Cars. And it explains that no, you shouldn't hold your breath.
These are a better option since it operates on far simpler, and well-known principles.
Seems like it would be a lot less dangerous to occupants and those on the ground alike, since if you run into something you just bounce off, and if you lose altitude because of a leak or some such it won't happen catastrophically. If you can figure out a quick way to rapidly in/deflate to a semi-rigid structure for easier storage, you've got a promising possibility for personal air transport.
Besides, it's sort of been done already. There was a guy named Alberto Santos-Dumont who built his own personal dirigible and flew around Paris with it at the turn of the 20th century. There was a Nova show about it, I believe.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I was looking while posting and found it after I'd mostly given up. Here is FAR 91.119:
"(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.
(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure. "
So I was double the actual requirement for both remote and congested areas.
Note if you have engine failure that requires a landing on or within 1000 feet of a building, you are automatically in violation of FAR 91.119 part A and will get busted. This has been interpreted to mean that it's functionally illegal to fly small airplanes over large cities, since you can't fly high enough to glide to a safe, legal landing.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Avionics engineers? Flight instructors? No way, jose...
Nothing says "scam" like the one and only job opening is for a guy who can pull off good scam videos:
From http://www.moller.com/jobs.htm:
CGI Animator
Wanted: Computer generated photo-realistic animated sequences of Moller M200-based volantors (see www.moller.com). Looking for multiple 2-to-5 minute animations of the M200 being used in recreational, agricultural and public safety applications. Ultimately these sequences will be posted on our web site and/or provided to interested parties via DVD. Demonstrated skills with 3D modeling, rendering, and animation are required. Award of contract will be given to the firm with the best fixed price bid able to demonstrate the best a high-level storyboard, sample scenes and brief sound track segment. Contact Bruce Calkins at Moller International, Inc. via bruce@moller.com.
It'll only take a week until some dipshit on a cell phone crashes into a landing 747.
crap.
Know what the second engine is for in GA aircraft? If one breaks down the second one will get you to the scene of the crash.
In other words, those things need two engines to get off the ground, there's no redundancy or failsafe component to them.
To hear the gods laugh tell them your plans.
These will not be sold on the North American Continent for obvious reasons. The USA will pressure Canada, Mexico, and the mesoamerican republics to prohibit sale, possession and operation of such vehicles. Petroleum refineries and chemical storage facilities would be the first target for this sort of thing.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
Flying car w/ dirty bomb + anti-aircraft gun = doing the terrorists's job for them.
That's real bright.
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
I'd give my left foot for the flying car. But I don't want the local.
Here's my comment from 2001. Comments on Moller are about 2/3 the way down. Only now he says 400 mph, and a picture of one maybe hovering, maybe with the wire airbrushed out.
FFS, THINK about the energy required to climb at 6000 fpm. A Gulfstream V has an initial climb rate of only 4200 fpm. It only goes down from there.
BTW, there's nothing magic about 10'. One can fly ultralights for instance much higher than that without a license. 10' is not listed in any regs anywhere.
Merde, il pleut encore!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Everyone worries that the skies will become a deathtrap when flying cars, driven by people without pilots' licenses, hit the market. But the collision-avoidance solution is simple if they're all flying autonomously. In 2007, it's trivial for inexpensive consumer devices to communicate with each other wirelessly. Similarly, flying cars need to broadcast their positions and velocities to all other aircraft within a few km radius (via WiMAX or similar technology).
It then doesn't take much computing power to compute the slight course adjustments needed to avoid collisions, or even to avoid intersecting another aircraft's wake vortices. This will also eliminate "air lanes," and the fear of them becoming saturated with traffic. All aircraft will simply fly the shortest point-to-point great circle route, except when the computer tells it to deviate to avoid another aircraft, its wake vortices, or an ADIZ.
Because three-dimensional airspace is so vast, it will be able to accomodate expoentially more traffic than the current "air lanes" concept.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Considering this skepticism I can't imagine how much the wright brothers must have put up with.
/. posts, he should just make the car without thought of cost or safety and treat it as a tool.
We have flight we have hovering vehicles we simply need to combine them.
Actually this is more practical than most people appreciate, if we can get the cars to hover 3-5m above the ground if they crash in our roadways other traffic won't need to stop or even slow.
Truck traffic can continue underneath.
Eventually this will be practical, and I suspect far earlier than similar advances from maglev or other competing techs.
This guy's problem is obvious, he makes a cool hobby car get's close to something cool then backs off to reduce cost or increase safety.
This is largely because of the kind of whinning you can see in all the
Society will find a use for it or not.
The SkyCar is a poor aircraft mostly because he's fixated on VTOL -- VTOL is complex and dangerous. The SkyCar is a poor car because it would be a PITA to drive on congested city streets.
/.. There's a short posting window and then the discussion is shelved and burried in "new news" that's days, weeks, months or years old...and then there's the dupes that nobody cares about. Ugh. News for nerds, discussion that doesn't matter.
Sure, you don't need an airport to take off or land but, uh, you still need some space (50sqft, min?) and once you're on the ground, where ya gonna go in your short-bus-sized, stickin'-out-like-a-soar-thumb, beast?
What he needs to do is bring out a SkyCar based on an autogyro, instead. Autogyros can't take off and land vertically but they are STOL. Compromise. 60ft to take off isn't bad and they can often land in 10ft or less.
Autogyros have been around a while. They're aviation's best kept secret. I wonder why. Maybe because they're the best place to start for a real flying car. An acre is all you'd need for a "carport" too. Any semi-decent field would do - think soccer/football or farmers field.
By failing to compromise he'll fail to bring his "dream" to life. Given the money I could (hire people to) develop a real flying car and have it out in 3 years or less. And I bet we could hit the $60-80k target price. Like I said, the trick is in the compromise. I want a decent looking vehicle that functions well as an aircraft or a car. It doesn't need to be the best at either. Personally, I think the autogyro is the place to start.
This post won't be seen though, so my secret plan is safe. One of the things I both love and loathe about
Airbags on the outside won't protect anyone. Even if they did absorb all the impact energy (which, lacking magic, they can't), that still leaves a ton or more of Skycar sitting on someone's roof or rolling about like a bowling ball on crack.
The reason that Prof. Moller made it to the news again is this: Moller International wins Department of Defense development service contract DAVIS, Calif., 2 August 2007. Moller International has been identified as the primary vendor for a Department of Defense development service contract which will utilize the company's propulsion and airframe designs. The effort is being lead by a nationally recognized educational institution and was issued by a branch of the U.S. military. Disclosure of additional information is limited per the security directives of the contract. Moller International's experience with ducted fans, manned and unmanned vertical take off and landing aircraft designs, and high power-to-weight rotary engines motivated the prime contractor to include the company in the proposed work. http://mae.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cf m?Section=ONART&PUBLICATION_ID=32&ARTICLE_ID=30226 5&C=ONEWS
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