'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."

Comments

at least 20 years old

[Dusthead Jr.]

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.

With Moller...

[Merk]

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.

Why aren't these stories ever critical?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

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.

Re:Back to the future 2!!

[mcrbids]

Hey, we just might get our flying cars. But they won't be coming from this guy. (See below for the bazillion posts of SCAM SCAM SCAM - this guy's been at it for years.

But there is a ray of light on the horizon, in the form of a real, honest-to-gosh flying car.

As a private pilot, I'm so hoping so hoping so hoping that this one actually works out! Light plane aviation has a number of problems:

1) Getting from your house to the plane is a hassle - the plane's at an airport, you have to park your car, leaving your car for very long can be expensive, you need a ride in a cab, etc.

2) Weather is a BIATCH. You plan a flight a week in advance, and then you get thunderstorms hitting right where you wanted to land. Small planes don't do nearly as well as the big jets in bad weather.

3) Hassle at the other end: Once you've landed, you're more or less stuck without a rental car. And in many smaller airports, that's a pain. Rental car agencies will deliver a rental car, but that doesn't make much sense when the nearest rental is 45 minutes away.

4) Parking - who wants to pay hundreds of dollars a month for what amounts to a garage that happens to be next to the tarmac at the airport?

The MIT "folding wings" car would solve all these problems:

1) Drive it to the airport.

2) If the weather gets too bad to fly, land at the nearest airport and drive the rest of the way.

3) Once you've landed, you fold wings and drive to your destination on surface streets.

4) At home, you park it in your garage!

All this for about $100,000?!?!?! Hell yes I'd buy one!

Moller is the ultimate carny

[blueZ3]

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.