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Fairly Realistic Flying Car Offered for 2009 Delivery
An anonymous reader writes to tell us about yet another promise of a flying car. The Register is reporting on the latest from Terrafugia Inc called the "Transition" which is a combination car and airplane that runs on unleaded gas. The idea is that it's a car that you can drive to the nearest airstrip and, with the touch of a button, convert to an airplane, fly to an airstrip close to your goal, then convert back to a car to reach your ultimate destination. Of course, how many times have we been promised flying cars only to suffer in perpetual disappointment.
...when cars fly.
Plus it's a converted Datsun, comes with a golden gun/cigarette lighter, and a midget bartender.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Where are the flying cars?
It's the year 2000.
Where are the flying cars?!
They have a Gorilla-influenced plug-in hybrid SUV and a few other strange cars coming out - pics on yahoo news today.
...
Why can't they make a rotor-based flying car that's a plug-in bio-diesel hybrid? Or a modified jet pack that uses bio-jet-fuel?
Heck, even a giant propeller beanie with a backpack frame so your head stays on
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Can I get my own cool Spectrum mask?
when you need him? Bring us Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang! Now THERE's a flying car.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
From that picture, it seems like there are some pretty major blind spots (i.e., if you do a shoulder-check before a lane-change, you're just going to be looking at a friggin wing). So who cares if the thing can fly...you're probably going to get creamed once you join up with traffic on a busy road.
Phew, being "fairly realistic" is pretty high up my list of desirable features for any air transportation I use.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
More like the 30s!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
This idea was never practical for the simple reason that the average driver can't be trusted to fly an airplane. Now that we live in the age of "Homeland Security", it's doubly unlikely that any government will allow "unknown flying objects" buzzing around.
The world is my oyster. That's why it's always in a stew.
That car looks really keen, Wally.
instead of making cars that can fly, why not make a small private airplane that you can drive on the roads & highways...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
This is not a 'flying car'. Yes, it may go on the road, and may actually fly. But it does neither well. Very impractical for actual driving with those blind spots, and if you're flying, why are you hauling a heavy roadable drivetrain around?
550lb total payload. -120lb gas, -200lb pilot + 150lb passenger = 80lb left. What...you were eplanning on bringing a little luggage?
here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_flying_car
This won't ever become mainstream without a serious amount of automated control. We already have enough problems driving in two dimensions. I can't even begin to imagine driving in three.
This looks very similar to the AeroCar on display at the Seattle Museum of Flight. http://www.airventuremuseum.org/collection/aircraft/Taylor%20Aerocar.asp From what I recall the AeroCar actually came close to serial production back in the 40s-50s, however was ultimately dropped.
Submitters, please either bring us crapload of algae/hybrid/electrical/fuel cell/ethanol/biodiesel/thyme-powered car stories, OR X-wing/SUV/flying-car ones, but not both. It justs doesn't make sense to prone energy-efficiency on one hand and use barrels worth of oil for stupid stuff on the other. Thank you.
Will it come with OnStar?
Look out below!
I find it interesting they're claiming it'll run on plain old unleaded fuel.
Especially since aircraft tend to run on a higher grade of fuel because they need all of the energy they can muster to actually achieve flight.
I'm gonna need to see a working prototype before I think anyone has achieved VTOL on unleaded fuel and in a package which can both safely fly and drive. To date, the military with very big budgets hasn't always been able to make VTOL work.
Until then, this is just an "artists rendition" of something.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Ecogeek is reporting that you can get a car that looks like an airplane and gets close to 300 mpg. It also starts selling next year. The car in question is pretty sexy - you can preorder one at this extremely annoying web page.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Fairly realistic operating system - released January 30, 2007.
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison
... looks like some of the ricer street racer kiddie Honda Civics around here. Just put some purple neon tubes underneath, some 19" rear rims and 15" steel wheels on the front (complete with cupped and heat deformed tires) and you can take it to the local industrial park for some good times.
I'm sure this THING won't fly at the FAA. Their certification standards are extreme and rightfully so.
The article says its top speed in the air is 115 mph. That's too slow.
Also, the carrying capacity is very limited with a capacity of 2 people or 1 person with luggage. 2 people with luggage is a much more acceptable figure.
The autonomy is less than 500 miles in the air, not so great for interstate trips.
The air mileage mileage, however is 25 mpg. That's good mileage.
And it has a 120 gallons fuel capacity, not bad at all for a car.
Just imagine, driving a car from the street onto an airstrip, with several gallons of liquids in the tank and a trunk big enough to house a thermonuclear device. Why do you need a button for transfoming it into an airplane? Airport security will dismantle it anyway before allowing it onto the runway and I am sure for a couple of dollars extra, they'll reassemble your car as an airplane. Saves a lot in production cost, if you do not need all the fancy pneumatics, hydraulics and transforming gizmos...
GM announces the capability to stall cars via the OnStar system
(here).
Have gnu, will travel.
Aren't we suppose to be trying to get away from our dependence on gasoline? This car is probably such a gas guzzler it will way too much to maintain it.
If the average person is 60 times more likely to die in a car crash than plane crash, what are the odds of dying in a flying car crash?
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
I can't wait to watch that high speed chase.
Would you want your grandmother flying it?
'nuff said.
The construction of a plane is nowhere nearly hardy enough for typical road use. If you end up hitting just a bit of potholes, speedbumps, etc, are you ready to that vehicle in the air? Hell, cars these days are build with crash bumpers that are supposed to take a 5mph bump without driveability-affecting damage - no planes have them. The undercarriage of a car includes some of the world's most advanced engineering tuned for stability, handling, suspension and road noise - which adds significant weight. A plane has a few wheels (one that turns) and struts, nothing so complicated - because its light and just durable enough for landing on the runway. TFA mentions drivetrain and wing storage as two other clashing designs, but there are several more (road worthiness, air worthiness, strength, durability, luxury, maintenance).
It comes down to tuning for the target environment. A car is not a boat. A plane is not a car. Shoes are not wheels. Targeting two has predictable results: Everyone is let down.
From the latin, "terra" meaning "ground" and "fugia" meaning "flight into."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Hm.. I RTFA and what I would expect to see in an article about a flying car, is well. . . maybe it flying.
It can't fly yet . . . then its not a flying car. Its a car with wings.
Look I found someone else who invented a flying car and you can build it at home for just a few dollars!!!
It's a common mod to make a little cessna fly on regular gas. Ya, they fly better with avgas, but they can fly perfectly fine with car gas. I'm sitting right this second about 400 yards away from a 172 that gets flown all the time with such a mod.
Wel all have told, or have heard someone tell about how our or someone else's car ran out of gas in the middle of the dessert - or the engine failed for some inexplicable reason. Well... we certainly won't be hearing those stories anymore!
Wouldn't it be more reasonable and rewarding to develop cars that can sense/react to their environment and drive themselves in the first place?
I really hope to god that the general public is never allowed to fly any vehicles, just look at how downright horrible people drive cars and trucks. Even after written and driving tests, they do nothing to keep them from creating havoc on the roads. I can only imagine how much more dangerous it would be in the air, and add to that the vastly increased potential for terrorism. On the other hand, public transportation like local air-buses would be ok I think, but nothing will be without risk.
Let's get this out of the way: flying car.
exactly what does this mean in the context of a vehicle that one would be risking their life to fly in
it better be pretty damn realistic, if I'm going to sit in it
Antigravity makes flying vehicles much more controllable.
And violating conservation of energy (or puling the extra energy from somewhere unexplained) helps a lot with fuel costs.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So who cares if the thing can fly...you're probably going to get creamed once you join up with traffic on a busy road.
My first thought on seeing that was: "What's a fender-bender going to do to your expensive folding plane when the 'fender' is a wing?"
Will these things be airworthy after a 5MPH crash? Bet they're not.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
To be a capable and licenseable road vehicle, it needs to have things like Lights, Bumpers, Side-Impact protection. Not to mention meet pollution regulations. And um, pneumatic tires, wheels, a transmission, and capable brakes. Those all add a heck of a lot of weight. At least 500 pounds that an airplane does not need. So it's going to be a mighty lousy airplane. Carrying a useless 500 pounds at air-freight costs is not an economical way to fly.
Then there are the FAA regulations, which are very strict, and hardly in conformance with the road regulations. Many very basic regulations about configuration are very hard to reconcile with the needs of an auto. The alternative is to license it as an experimental aircraft, which gives you some freedoms, but closes a lot of windows too-- making the plane difficult to insure, finance, and restricts its uses.
This is slashdot. The population is diverse.
Thinking of "submitters" as a homogeneous mass of nearly-identical units is the kind of category/magical thinking characteristic of the old-line media. That's one of the reasons they're dying off as the internet rises.
Here on the internet the population really is diverse.
Heck: The same individual is often "diverse" from hour to hour. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
When my engine stops, either due to failure or me forgetting to add more gasoline, it stops. It stops on the road it was driving on. In general this isn't a dangerous proposition.
However, when my airplane stops for similar reasons, it stops. It stops and it falls out of the sky, accelerating towards the Earth. I very likely die.
I guess what I'm saying is if Ford starts making these, I won't be shopping those lots.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
What's the fucking point if it can't submerge to 20 atmospheres? Sheesh!! When will these companies learn that if you're going to try to sell exotic products you have to do it right? I'll wait until they build something that's actually cool.
The article spends most of the time talking about how hard it would be to create a flying car, and it includes a 3D rendering of someone's concept vehicle. Then, the last page has a quote from a non-existant company about how they will exist in 2009, even though the engineering required to build it isn't even known yet. The first page even links to an article about how NASA helped finance a flying car but there were no takers. I'll be driving a Moller Skycar powered by a perpetual motion device before this thing even makes it past a design review.
http://www.backtothefuture88.com/movies-TV/bttf3_pic6_train.jpg
qz
I can't wait!!
:)
Instead of "No Parking" signs everywhere, you'll see "NO LANDING" everywhere, including on the top of every building!!
Where will the aliens park?
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
It's doable from and energy standpoint, but auto gas often has a higher vapor pressure than avgas. This thing will possible (probably?) need beefier fuel pumps than a typical aircraft to avoid vapor lock situations.
The real problems, as I see it, will be intergrating two disparate systems and organizing two fundamentally different control sets (flying and driving) from a single cockpit.
A few people have also commented on the 550 lb payload, that's actually fairly reasonable for a light plane.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
This reminds me of SkyCar http://www.moller.com/ Though these types of 'cars' look like attempts to make private planes road-legal. I was expecting something more along the lines of hovercraft this time...
I think the DMV might need to get a new class vehicle. Class 0 Airplane
"Fairly Realistic Flying Car Offered for 2009 Delivery"
Well, as "fairly realistic" as the chance of the average slashdotter getting laid.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Did anyone actually look at the thing? Yeah, it's got a ways to go before it's a "practical, four-door family car".
Install a timer that burns out after ten minutes, and make it $1000 bucks to replace.
Problem solved.
Of course, you could just give old people real road tests (because it's old people who do the stupid blinker thing, save the flames you know it's true, and they don't get anything but an eye test in most places).
Picture flying car with OnStar.
"Hello, OnStar - can we help you?"
"Hey Onstar! - someone stole my flying car!"
No problem... (bzzzzzzt!!!!) we've just stalled it out...
NO!!!!
Meanwhile, flying car plummets to earth, lands in a shopping mall killing hundreds. Government declares it a terrorist action. film at 11.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
You insensitive clod! You can not imagine how often I find myself stuck by trains. And they just run on simple tracks. I mostly worked in the machine/computer room of my last employer. Only as a last last resort was I ever sent into the field. And then, they always figured I would spend at least 30 minutes waiting for a train.
I once got stopped by a man waiving a flag at a train crossing that said it was decommissioned. The guy told me this was the first train that had run on this set of tracks in several years!
That last thing I need or want is trains coming at me from the sky!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Laserdisc was even more of a niche product in Europe. It didn't flop completely, but it was tiny relative to VHS.
(IIRC Video CD was genuinely popular in South East Asia in part because it was less prone to humidity problems. But that's a different case altogether. It's questionable as to whether Video CD's better than- or even as good as- VHS. Even if it was, the benefits wouldn't have been enough to warrant replacing/augmenting VCRs in Western markets where everyone already had VHS. (It's not even recordable- and I'm talking about when it came out, not the late-90s/early-00s period when Video CD-Rs were used as a poor-man's recordable DVD).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Can a vehicle be built that can function as a fixed wing aircraft and also can trundle down the highway acting reasonably like the rest of the traffic? Maybe. But even if it can, it's likely to be a lousy aircraft and a worse car.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Sorry but global warming and the freaking high cost of fuel have made me lose my desire for a flying car.
Heck cellphones make me lose the desire for a flying car. Who wants to be in the sky with someone chatting on the phone and applying lipstick in the rear view mirror at the same time?
Think Deeply.
Where we're going we don't need roads.
Looks like a piece of trash.
Moller Skycar on the other hand... the M400 is beautiful and already operational! Scheduled for sale in December of next year! I can't wait to get one... well, $250,000 first...
drug-addled mid-90s grannies with vision problems suffering heart attacks at high speeds. ...
um, can someone lift this flying car off of my broken body?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I read the material and see this for what it is: an attempt to make an airplane drivable. It is clearly intended for use primarily as a plane (under visual flight rules only!) but can be driven on the roads to and from your house. The "carness" is supposed to be good enough to drive in bad weather that you wouldn't fly in. But, there is a note on the page that it really isn't suited for city driving.
So, for the target audience, say a salesman with a large territory of fairly rural clients somewhat close to airports, this could be reasonable.
Will it succeed? Who knows? how many new airplanes succeed? how many new cars succeed? They're having to beat both odds
Chances are, you've not noticed, but we've had flying cars since the 1930s. "Why don't we all have one?" I hear you ask. Main reason: it costs UK£10,000 to get a light aircraft pilot's licence.
the way I see msot driver drive on road (seat belt ? why the govt is trying to impose law on me ? Speed limit ? They are for the others.... Orange/red light ? Come on I passed the crossing before the other road had their green. Bicycle ? Just let us ignore their right altogether, even if they come from the right side. Alchohol, drug and so on ? naturally I know my limit ! Phoning & driving ! That's ok I am good at it ! Turn light ? Are they decoration ? etc...etc...etc...). And before somebody tell us therre will be a "piloting" licence, well there is a driving one too, and cheer number statistic tell me that bad apple WILL get their pilot licence and do all the above, in the sky above your head.
In other word, not a chance in hell regulator even let this become mainstream even if cost are cheap (which I don't think it would be).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
This video demonstrates the flying car. As you can see it is a modified Reliant Robin, not a Datsun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3JjUUdjWU
NASA and the FAA are actively promoting this idea, so cynicism about Homeland Security blocking this is probably unjustified. Real-world IFR conditions, drunk pilots, computer failures, poorly maintained vehicles, and $148K not exactly being an entry-level price point are more realistic obstacles.
... if you travel between 100 and 500 miles at a stretch, particularly if your trip is either starting or ending in a more suburban or rural area, then the Transition® is for you"
Although it's more of a goofball NASA idea than anything the FAA will ever have resources to carry out in the next century. NASA' vision is a fully automated system - just like Blade Runner and the Fifth Element, especially the dystopic future part where the rich swells live in their fortified country palaces and the proles make do with their hovels in the huge city:
""It is not intended for use by short-distance commuters, by people running errands, or for any trip through city traffic or under 100 miles
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
There's no fundamental reason this thing can be built. It's a light sport aircraft with folding wings and good taxi capability. The wings just fold, which looks stupid in car mode but can be done without much trouble. They don't retract into the fuselage like one of the cooler-looking but unbuildable designs for flying cars. It's going to be a lousy car, though. Too fragile, and with all that sail area, hard to handle in a crosswind.
There's probably a market for some kind of ducted-fan thrust vehicle usable in tight spots. Moller is unlikely to make his "Skycar" work, after forty years of failure. But someone else might. Such a vehicle needs turbine power, will cost as much as a jet helicopter, and will be a fuel hog. The military could use something they could drop down into an urban street. With helicopters, the rotor circle is too big for that.
Interestingly, we're seeing small UAVs with those properties. Flying robots will be deployed before flying cars. The stability problem for small pure-thrust VTOL aircraft seems to have been solved.
The vehicle itself is intended for pilots (not your average driver) as a way to drive home if the weather gets rough. Don't think of this as your standard mass-produced city-cruising vehicle, as it is intended to be a specialty vehicle.
The team of engineers is pretty solid (I know and have worked with several of them). They will deliver a viable vehicle. I do not know how the market looks or how well it will be received, but they are certainly getting support from the general aviation community.
The company website is http://www.terrafugia.com/
The guy who owned Chitty Chitty Bang Bang used to drive it around just like a normal car. I remember seeing it parked around town when I was a kid (in the late 70s). I don't mean in special reserved parking spaces, I mean in the mutli-story car parks, etc. when he went shopping.
I think it's in a museum now, in Keswick, uk.
(Or maybe that's a different one, I think there were several cars made for the filming).
No sig today...
We had a ranch in Northern Arizona and like a lot of ranches in that area, we had a private airstrip. A neighbor misinterpreted his newly minted instrument rating as permission to fly no matter what. He loaded up his family and took off near a thunderhead. The flight lasted just long enough to kill the entire family.
Weather in Arizona can get particularly nasty, even when you're paying full attention. Once, my father inadvertently flew under a thunderhead and survived by pointing the nose at the ground and pouring on full throttle. Even still, he only managed to not gain any altitude while he traversed under the cloud.
I think if these vehicles ever see the light of day, we'll see Darwin step up to the plate in a major way due to people 'laughing at the weather.'
How about you get in a vehicle that is adapted for ground travel... when you get to a place where aircraft take off and land, you grab your bag, get out of that vehicle, and climb into a vehicle designed for air travel? Stay with me here--I know it sounds crazy.
You could have a "friend" pilot the first vehicle for you and take care of storing it afterwards. Maybe you could even "pay" someone to "taxi" you in such a ground travel vehicle to the "airport" (for lack of a better word) where you enter the second vehicle.
It just takes a little imagination to change the world.
Cool as a flying car sounds, how is owning one of these advantageous to driving to your local airport and flying a "normal" plane to your destination? I guess it saves you the issue of finding transportation when you arrive.. Keep in mind that take-off checklists, wait times, etc., will add even more time to the flying car "commute".
Granted the plane will not be great. But I bet it will outperform this POS.
Does anybody realize how much it costs to maintain an aircraft engine? Why would you burn hours driving in traffic at those costs.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
now instead of worrying about just the idiots around me who can't drive, now I gotta worry about the ones above me too?
they'll be on their cell phones and eating a burger while flying their cars.
Of course, how many times have we been promised flying cars only to suffer in perpetual disappointment.
Seven. Unless you count Popular Science covers, then 43.
On the bright side, maybe we can harness our perpetual disappointment as a clean energy source.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The alternatives - batteries, fuel cells, and biofuels - are perfectly acceptable for powering ground vehicles, are either unlikely to be available in sufficient quantities, or aren't energy dense enough, for everyone to have a flying car.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Tell me that this thing doesn't look like Inspector Clouseau's "Silver Hornet"
compare:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/10/transition_flying_car_quite_realistic/page2.html
to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEFfISdA8LQ
-- QED
"Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads"....
http://cellar.org/iotd.php?threadid=11712
It's really not that great of a technical challenge to make a car that flies. The real challenge is the infrastructure. For the flying car to become the norm, you need a system where your average reasonably un-trained person can operate the thing safely.. And really the only way to do that is to make it fully autonomous. Also you'll have lots of issues with keeping the traffic out of the way of general and commercial aviaton.
It isn't going to happen any time soon, no matter what that crackpot Moller has to say about it.
These guys have got your "flying car" right here. It's a lightweight, streamlined tricycle design, with a Mazda rotary running on diesel/Jet-A and retractable stabilizer and gyrocoptor rotor blades. It looks like a pretty good attempt, and the HITS (highway in the sky) system (see here for similar example) would certainly help the punters to navigate.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
The car of the future runs on standard gasoline? I thought we were trying to get away from that...
Reminds me of when I watch the old Star Trek movies. It's good to know the CRT was brought back in the future.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do we really want flying car's? There are already too many morons driving around on the ground on motorized vehicles that they can't seem to control causing tens of thousands (45,000?) of deaths per year on our highways plus more off the road. These people have a hard enough time in the 2D environment of driving on the ground. In the air they'll be a total disaster and passing right over your house, your backyard and your head. No thank you.
Genetic engineers are already at work designing Kongs.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Will this thing also have up and down turn signals ?
What a depressingly stupid machine.
Less chance for catastrophic failure. There was a guy in Paris at the turn of the 20th century (1900) who used to party hop in a personal dirigible. Sounds so awesome it's hard to imagine why it didn't catch on, or why it might not catch on in the future. I'd rather have folks flying overhead in those than airplanes that can smash into buildings; a dirigible would just bounce off, no harm no foul.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
It's called a "Helicopter"
They were once considered to be the future "flying car" and were theorized by some to eventually grace every garage in America. But they are prohibitively expensive, difficult to fly and require a level of training and certification that not many people would ever bother themselves with.
But I maintain that helicopters will be our best shot at the "flying car" at least until the end of this century.
No one, with the exception of exuberant millionaires is going to by a "car" with folding wings that you need to drive to the airport to operate... Isn't the whole point of the flying car that you DON'T need an airport?!
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
The Acme company announced it's new line if reenforced steel roofs for houses. Said it would withstand hail, flying pigs, and small hybred car/planes. :)
Most people can't handle a car that moves in two dimensions (direction and speed). Compounding that with altitude sounds like a disastrous idea. Just wait until a soccer mom lands her minivanplane on your house. Cell phone drivers will park through the window of your office on the 23rd floor.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
So hows the MPG on this car? Will it meet the new CA emissions standards? Can see it now -- rats...my plans for a flying car foiled by California anti-smog rules...
The problem with flying cars is they present way too many problems to ever get off the drawing board. Geez, where to even start??
I'm not even talking about technical issues-- you could suppose for the argument that all of the technical issues are solved, and we have the AeroCar-2150 sitting in the showroom ready to fly away for $19,500 on a 5-year loan...
That's simply not the issue--
When was the last time you took a trip around the beltway (or the highway or wherever for you non-DC'ers) ??? How many "Hoopties" did you see out there? Cars so ragged you can't help but wonder how soon it will be before they roll over and heave their last (or worse, roll over on YOU)...??? How about all those cars with dents in the fenders and scuffs on the paint? You want them flying around? It'd be like having a swarm of flying lawn-mowers buzzing about.
And how do you keep those cars on the right track? What's to stop some kids from hopping in one and joy-riding (flying) around the neighborhood, buzzing houses and little old ladies? (Or egging same, or worse...)? What's to stop those weekend Wally's from opening 'er up and tinkering around inside? Do you really trust your next door neighbor's aero-engineering skills? Or how about that fat guy down the street in his shorts scratching his belly with one hand, sucking on a brewski with the other while maintaining that 2-inch ash on the end of the dangling cigarette in his mouth? (Hey Dude!)
What about drunk-flyers? Do we now have to start worrying in 3D? I'm only asking 'cause I'm still coming to grips with 2D concerns... And how do the cops pull over someone for FUI anyway? And what exactly do they walk on when they give the field sobriety test (and will they have to rename it since they're probably 1,000 feet above the nearest field??)
What about running out of gas? How do you stop that? Its not like coasting to a stop and having to get out and push to the nearest gas station. And at low altitudes, parachutes aren't gonna be practical. So what if you have a sensor that automatically lands the thing if the fuel gets low-- how do you make sure its working? How many people continue to drive their regular cars around long after various sensors and safety systems break, expire or become faulty? Why are flying cars going to be different? Do you really think people are going to magically wise-up just because they're airborne??? (I'm thinking about that guy who strapped however many weather balloons it was to his lawn chair...)
Are there gonna be speed limits? Why (or why not) ??
How about traffic jams-- what happens if you run into gridlock at 1,000 feet (and at 900 feet and 800 feet and 1,100 feet...???
These are just the issues I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure with more thought there are plenty of others. I think some of these items are show-stoppers. I don't mean to be a buzz-kill or anything, but there are lots of problems implicit in the idea of flying cars. As cool as they seem, and as much as I would personally like to have one, I'm not sure how, as a society, it can ever be practical enough to work for real.
These guys have a real flying car capable of going down the road and flying fast. Finally, a USEFUL vehicle! http://www.labicheaerospace.com/ The idea that you can't make a good car and a good airplane work is false. This does both really well! Jim FSC-1 Customer
You do understand that the Twin Towers barely even shook when the gigantic, heavy, full-of-fuel jet airliners smashed into them, right? It was the wings full of fuel that did the buildings in; I'd go so far as to say that if you throw a stripped down Toyota with a 16 gallon tank (about what this is) at a tall building, it will just go "smash" and that's it. Replace a few windows, redo some sheet-rock, and you're good to go.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
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.
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