Slashdot Mirror
Where Are the Flying Cars?
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Complaints of the non-existence of flying cars as expressions of disappointment in the failure of the present to measure up to the glory of past predictions have long been a staple of popular culture but all that is about to change when Terrafugia introduces their $148,000 "Transition," a 19-foot, two-seater that the company describes as a roadable light-sport aircraft. The problem is that the U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure in place to make landing in front of your house a viable alternative yet and a sky filled with people who don't have pilot's licenses could also be a problem. The idea is to take advantage of the 6,000 public airports in the U.S. so a pilot can fly into a small airport (video) and instead of getting a rental car, just fold up the wings on the aircraft and drive away. Terrafugia expects the first production model to be ready in 2009 and says they've already received advanced orders for 30 to 50 Transitions."
Man those folded up wings make for some gigantic blind spots when you're driving on the road.
Coming soon, the flying car! Comes with a complimentary copy of Duke Nukem Forever!
Have they done some crash test as a road car?
You can't generalise about the outcome of future predictions. If you could, I could save the world by claiming we will eradicate all diseases in 50 years time. As we have no flying cars, a generalisation would lead us to beleive we would in fact find dramatic new medical techniques as a result, unfortunately reality doesn't work that way. Having said that, I'd love for somebody to prove me wrong.
So what is the Highway Patrol going to do when some jerk decides that the speed limit is meant to be broken and flies above the commuter lane? Normal road driving is scary enough as it is.
The tail fins kinda remind me of a '57 Chevy. I noticed thespecs on the transition mentioned a 100hp engine. Will that engine drive both the prop and the wheels? If so, my mom's neon would leave this thing in the dust.
In all, I see this as a largely impractical vehicle. I would have a good laugh if I saw a car with wings folded vertically going down the highway.
The game.
The Moller skycar is a little more revolutionary, since it takes off and lands vertically, and since it has multiple engines - how many of these Transitions are going to be crashed by celebrities when the one engine conks out? But Moller's stuff has been vaporware for twenty years, so don't hold your breath.
A-Bomb
Anybody else having trouble understanding that first sentence?
Well, if anything, it's a great promotion for Benjamin Schweighart's business.
If it flies, is it still a car?
There are roads, not runways, in front of houses, grocery stores and office buildings.
Shouldn't flying cars be VTOLs? I always thought so. I don't think it would be a good idea if a "driver" couldn't just "pull over" (understand, get stationary) and had to properly land on an airport. Just imagine running out of gas in the middle of nowhere..
Anyways, somehow, I feel that in a few decades, we'll enjoy affordable and easily operatable (understand, mostly automated) flying cars, and that we'll mostly enjoy the greater safety, although it would seem counter-intuitive that a flying car would be safer than a normal car (but on a second thought it's easier to avoid trees and obstacles when you're 1,000 feet high, not to mention the cars in the opposite way lane wouldn't necessarily have to come as close as one foot from your vehicle, in the air you have more space).
But back on topic, I don't see people taking off and landing horizontally, too dangerous, VTOLs are a must.
You just got troll'd!
Why aren't there flying cars? Why are we growing new body parts? Why no Repet? It's the government's fault.
Many views into our future on the silver screen and no Sci-Fi back when they played science fiction had things that are possible today but politics and ignorance (same thing) get in the way. In some cases, I'm glad government hasn't really allowed for flying cars yet. Too many people already can't drive worth a damn, though I'd expect a license for one of these - perhaps "Class F" - to be much harder to get than a driver's license, where apparently in the US not being able to speak or even read English (like "STOP") lands you one of those.
But look at all the block the Bush Administration has put on various technologies around cloning. I'm not for cloning entire people, but cloning body parts - which reduces the rate of rejection to practically nil - is a wonderful idea. I needed a bone graft once and it didn't take from some other donor. It would've been nice if that could've been cloned from me.
Science and the government don't mix. It's like nerds and jocks in school. When we have revenge of the nerds, then we'll see progress.
Will gas mileage requirements count flight miles too?
Seriously...does anybody really think this can work?
Do you want the same people you see tailgating, talking on their cell phones, and doing 45 in the fast lane, or drunk flying in the air?
I didn't think so.
Only way it would work is if it was all fully automated with no or little human intervention.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
1) a 4-8 seater collapsible airship with a practical max speed of 200km/h (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship), for long distance travel which doesn't need a ground crew
2) an ultralight helicopter like the Mosquito or the Airscooter.
I would prefer a personal airship, though.
I don't think flying cars will ever make much sense. Barring some absolutely physics-defying discovery, it takes a relatively huge amount of energy to keep a vehicle off the ground, and it's not clear to me what the advantage is (other than being terrifically cool). When you're traveling point-to-point on the surface of a ball it's just not worth it most of the time.
Steering, stopping, and idling in the air are far more expensive and imprecise because you've got nothing fixed to hold on to -- we get a lot of freebies by being in contact with the ground.
I think it's apparent too (or soon will be) that one of the great challenges for mankind going forward is how to do everything we do more efficiently, not less. The technology bottleneck is going to be energy acquisition.
So sure, this may be a nice addition to the lineup of available planes, but I don't think we'll see "flying cars" in our lifetime, if by that we mean "ubiquitous airborne personal transportation".
Does your significant other love shoes?
Too right. Helen Keller in a flying car is only marginally more dangerous than your average soccer mom in a SUV on her cell phone with two kids squalling in the back seat.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Personally, I'd rather they work on a hoverboard.
From the article:
"We're not going to have a flying car, as people think of it, for a while," said Anna Dietrich, chief operating officer of the Woburn, Mass.-based company. "I would never say it's not going to happen, but today the infrastructure is not there, nor is the training, nor are the avionics that would make the training unnecessary... What makes sense right now is a roadable aircraft."
Ok, sure. THAT'S why we don't have a flying car--we don't have the infrastructure, training, or avionics. Give me a break.
What about a viable PROPULSION SYSTEM. I mean give me a break, you really think what's holding back flying cars is "training" and "infrastructure"? That's like saying what's holding back faster-than-light travel is our schools just aren't graduating enough hyperspace drive engineers.
Where are the flying cars?
They've flown away for the winter
Worry not, the investigative team at the Onion News Network is all over this issue of the blatant lack of flying cars, and are demanding answers from the big auto manufacturers.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/mean_automakers_dash_nations_hope
FSM, grant me the serenity to preview that which I cannot change...
I'm sorry, but I refuse to go anywhere near a flying car until we've fixed all the problems with two dimensional travel. Can you imagine what a pile up would look like when there's three dimensions of cars?
Forget it. People aren't patient enough to deal with traffic on roads, never mind the air.
Only the police need flying cars.
This won't happen till we have vehicles that use anti-gravity technology. Relying on forced air levitation is just TOO RISKY, the vehicle needs to loose ALL power and still not fall from the sky.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I don't know about other people, but around where I live we don't have the infrastructure for the cars people want to drive. One Hummer parked on the side of the road, and there simply is not room for anything bigger than a Vespa to pass. With the building of the houses, many without adequate garages, I find an increasing number of roads to be impassable. Road that just a year ago were navigable and safe, have become impassable and risky due to the vehicles and driving habits of the new residents. God help us if they got a hold of flying cars.
Here is my idea of the use of flying cars. People who want to live in the suburbs can either build their houses for flying cars or drive their regular cars to a departure area. They can then fly to the bus, and take the bus in the 10-15 miles downtown. For may people, it would be no different from what they do now.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Many people think that flying cars would be really cool. I don't (and I love flying.)
Why on earth would anyone want that teenager/clothes changer/parent/eater/drunk driver to be piloting anything over my house, head, or anything else. It's bad enough that we have drunk pilots, but imagine the nightmare when it is really difficult to be "pulled over", as that involves landing somewhere unscheduled.
Not to mention the noise and air pollution. Go up in a hot air balloon, and you'll realize how well sound travels when there is nothing to block it. When you're up, you can have a conversation with two people on he ground at the same time- but they could be a half mile apart from each other. Listen for the airliner flying at 50,000 feet. You can hear it, although faint. Now listen for the cessna flying over head at 1000 feet. Imagine the sky filled with that sound from hundreds of them.
Please people, the fact that we don't have flying cars is a good thing.
The designers must not be familiar with either the United States D.O.T. rules governing cars on the road OR the F.A.A's rules governing manufacturered aircraft. IF such a car/plane could be manufactured to meet both sets of standards it would NOT be under $150,000 or anywhere close. A kit sold in Popular Mechanics for $150,000 maybe, but my guess is that a manufactured version would top $1,000,000 by the time it meets all the regulations, is certified and has product liability insurance on it. For the foreseeable future, flying cars are the stuff of comic books and cartoons....
The reason there's never been a "skycar" has always been computing, not engineering. I look at the idiots I see every day on the roads and the idea of letting them get a thousand or so pounds up where it can do some real damage scares the crap out of me. I'll even allow that I haven't been perfect. Though I've never been in an accident that was my fault, I'm sure that's because some other driver was more alert than I was at some time.
Bottom line: until there was a computer that could fly a plane safely, there's no way any sane person would hand the keys to anything flyable to an everyday driver. We've got that now, so just maybe we can give it a try.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
...until one actually gets produced and you can point us to a page that shows video of the thing working properly.
In the mean time, you might as well point us to Heinline short stories and YouTube clips of Luke zipping around on his landspeeder.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
so finally all the people who quote statistics about one's chances of dying in a road accident being greater than in a plane crash will be wronged
- Safety for everyone on the ground.
- Safety for driver and passengers.
- Economics - gas prices will go up.
- Legal issues - Is it a car or an aircraft? It may have to cope with regulations from both domains.
- It will be a great getaway-vehicle for bankrobbers.
- Terrorist anybody?
There may be more reasons too...If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Terrafugia ... says they've already received advanced orders for 30 to 50 Transitions.
Either you have an order or you don't. You cannot express the number of advanced orders received as a range unless you want to tip off a world full of rational reasonable people that you're simply blowing smoke.
Therefore, since you have to land at an airport anyway, why not leave the wings at the airport? Detachable wings (safety certified, however that's done) would save lots of weight. Land at your airport close to your ultimate destination, drop the wings (tail surfaces and fins too while we're at it, secure the prop however that would be done, and drive the fuselage out the gate to the road. When it's time to go home, drive to the airport, put the surfaces back on, fire up the engine and take off. Land at home FBO repeat, drive home. It's not like you're going to want to deploy the wings on I95 to get over a traffic jam.
Not In My Back Yard
and I like it to stay that way
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
I think no-one actually pre-ordered those cars, and this man is dreaming!
Why would someone pre-order those? it's like throwing his bucks away, if it will succeed I'm sure they will be more than happy to sell you those cars, but to pre-order them is insanity.
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
In a recent rerun of "Ripley's Believe It or Not!", they had a bit about a flying car.
;)
In the problem, it took Sweeny and his wife 20 minutes to attach the wings of the plane to their car. Somewhow, I think wings are one of the greater obstacles for a flying car.
People have enough trouble driving a vehicle that only has X and Y axes. And some folks keep wondering when they'll be given the Z axis, too. I don't think it'll happen until computer control of cars, their navigation, and driving has occurred, and probably not until it is mandatory on all vehicles.
Yuppie housewives can't even navigate their ginormous Escalades; I don't want them to have flying versions!
Jory
Good luck backing the thing OUT of the garage. Near as I can tell from the animation video, the rear and rear-quarter visibility, when the wings are folded, is zero.
The problem with flying cars is... WEIGHT.
Cars needs tires, wheels, transmission and brakes that are useless while flying, yet they still are there eroding the Lift with wheight and poor aerodynamics (while flying).
On the other hand, Flying crafts needs wings, proppellers (or a turbine) and other devices that are useless when the vehicle are running on a road, yet eroding cost/effectiveness because the weight and poor aerodynamics (while runnming on ground).
Not to mention the main problem with flying vehicles: they DO HAVE AS MUCH MECHANICALS PROBLEMS as ground vehicles. The more you use a vehicle, bigger is the possibility that it will fail while you're using it. And a flying vehicle with problems can't just park on the emergency lane...
You can't have the best of both worlds, only the worst.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Heck, Godzilla is only marginally more dangerous than a pissed off soccer mom behind the wheel.
Forget the rules. It won't happen because it's just plain stupid. It's stupid for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that any conventional propulsion system (propellers or rocket engines) is too disruptive for city transportation because of noise, wind, dust, safety, etc... Unless we have a revolution in physics (should not be discounted as a possibility) that allows us to build crafts with no visible means of propulstion that can stop on a dime, forget it.
"A sky filled with people who don't have pilot's licenses could also be a problem"?
Huh?
It won't happen. You need a pilot's license to fly one of these things.
You need a pilot's license to fly ANYTHING that is capable of going more than 10 feet off the ground.
Does this mean the flying car will actually be released?
Because we said this about Half-Life 2, and it was released. We said it about Windows Longhorn (now Vista), and it was released. We said this about Team Fortress 2, and...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
"To activate the mechanism that folds or deploys the wings, you have to be on the ground. There are sensors that tell the plane if you are on the ground. The engine also needs to be off. And you have to enter a personal identification number that only the pilot knows... We built a lot of safety mechanisms into this."
;-)
Oh, really? You have to enter a PIN that only the pilot knows? Does this mean that the aircraft can sense whether someone other than the pilot knows the PIN, and won't activate in such case?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsFfBB2W7IA
so what would you give for the flying car?
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
Additionally, even mildly bad weather would kill hundreds of flying-car drivers.
I'm talking about bad weather like fog or 25 MPH winds or heavy rain. Any weather that even slows down road traffic will kill the "drivers" of flying cars. The wings will ice up, the low visibility will lead to crashes into other flying cars and ground-based obstacles, the wind will cause stalls or blow the drivers into things, hail will damage the wings, etc.
Piloting an aircraft is a skill. Not crashing an aircraft is because of wise, disciplined decisions. There's a lot to learn in order to be a safe pilot.
It's simply not worth the effort for individuals driving to the office. Plus, it would be slower because of the pre-flight checks and all the rest of the preparation you need to do before you fly.
Wrong.
Car hits a truck head on at 75 mph.
Plane hits mountain at 150 mph.
Roughly the same energy.
There, that wasn't so hard to think through, was it?
Physics much, do you?
Here is an interview asking the same question.
It's not all that hard: You get somewhere faster, usually about 1/3 the time it takes to drive the same route.
Makes a big difference when you're going long distances (Rockies to East Coast, for example).
My weekly "commute" is 1 hour by plane, 4 hours by winding road.
That should clear it up for you.
..to make numerous ignorant comments about flying, aerodynamics, the ATC system, and pilot skills, now that an aviation-related post has been made on Slashdot.
Go ahead... you just KNOW you want to.
a sky filled with people who don't have pilot's licenses could also be a problem.
Could be a problem...just a possibility, of course.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
the actual major innovations to happen in the future are beyond our imagination (and much more valuable than flying cars). Do you think anyone would have believed you 50 years ago if you had said that something called the internet would allow uncountable numbers of people to work together from all over the world on projects as massive as the Linux kernel or Wikipedia?
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
of safety problems and energy requirements.
Such a craft will consist of a semi-rigid compartmented inflatable bladder of light but strong material with a separate passenger/engine compartment attached. The bladder would be either hydrogen- or helium-filled. To ascend, helium would be pumped into the bladder; to descend helium would be pumped out of the bladder, compressed and stored for reuse.
The only economic problem is the cost of materials.
The steering characteristics of such a vehicle is more like a boat (but less responsive) than a fixed-wing plane. Also it's much less responsive than a helicopter.
Early versions of such a craft will be slow, but as technology improves (and in particular the ability to "rigidify" the bladder into a wing shape) speeds comparable to fixed-wing craft will be possible.
We don't have flying cars because some people aren't willing to sacrifice for it.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
This direct link appears to work better than the website embedding they have setup.
Direct Link to Movie File
http://www.terrafugia.com/mov_terrafugia_landing.mov
This is the year freaking 2007, I wany my flying car and robot wife while i wait for the cubs to win in 2015!
Http://Stineomite.org (Yeah Thats Right I'm An Organization)
According to the then-popular 1980's era film, Back to the Future, flying cars will be here by the year 2015. This leaves us about seven years to get the technology perfected.
However, I doubt flying cars will ever get here. Just think of the danger. The roads are already dangerous enough. Now you want to give drivers the ability to fly as well? If an accident happens, the cars will fall out of the sky and right through your roof. That just ain't funny.
Considering the number of bad drivers we have to deal with already, I for one am glad we don't have flying cars.
You can also fall out of the sky for no known good reason and crash into someone's house. (Except if the car is made in China, in which case you will have a known good reason. And the obvious question "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of falling air cars..." will be answered. Butidigress.)
A falling object of that size is more likely to kill people in the vicinity, not just hurt them.
Cars involved in road crashes do not normally plow through houses, which makes your home fairly secure from being involved in most collisions. Falling air cars will invariably involve houses. In many many many cases. And worse off, you won't have any idea that it's coming until WHAM! it crashes through your roof and kills your family.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
Absolutely right; don't click on the GP's link.
I think the placement of the main wing, the center of gravity and the wheels seem very odd
and I cannot see how the thing could fly.
In order to be aerodynamically stable, the center of gravity needs to be slightly in front of the main wing.
In this case there seems to be quite much heavy components behind the main wing.
The engine, rear wheels and their suspension, transmission and driveshafts to the rear weels
and a sturdy frame to link all these heavy pieces together.
I don't know how they can move the center of gravity far enought to the front in order to get this thing to fly.
And when they do, they are creating another problem at the very same time.
At the moment of takeoff the front of this plane needs to get up into the air and rear wheels stay on the ground
in order to to create the angle of attack necessary for the main wing to provide lift
However the rear wheels are so far behind of the center of gravity that
it takes enormous amount of lift to take the front wheels off the ground
and the frontmost wing looks far too small to be able to provide this huge lifting force
The whole thing just looks very unaerodynamical with so many things hanging out from the huge main canopy
which is totally blocking any clear airflow to the very small propellor.
Prototype at 2008 and deliveries at 2009! Oh give me a break.
There is not one word about FAA or DOT approval on the site.
I would like to see the prototype fly before I belive this concept has any potential at all as a plane.
And FAA and DOT approval is a must before anybody should plonk any money down.
Sorry, but people have a hard enough time controlling a regular automobile in 2 dimensions, and there are tens of thousands of accidents every year.
And whoever suggested complete auto-pilot is a moron. What happens when someone's auto-pilot screws up? The poor bastard in the cockpit still needs to know how to operate the thing safely.
Sorry, but The Jetsons is still a long, LONG, LONG way off. If ever.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
tornado season, there are lots of them ;)
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Idiots on our roads can't handle two dimensions(forward/backward and left/right), what makes anyone think that a third(up/down) would be a good idea? Also, I sure as hell don't want some moron CRASHING INTO MY HOUSE because he's decided to fly home from the bar after a few beers.
But where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars. I don't see any flying cars. Why? Why? Why. Because billions of people all over the world can work together on the Web 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You don't need flying cars, but you will need a different kind of software.
It's a different kind of world; you need a different kind of software.
Rob
Even with hydrogen, you need quite a large volume to lift anything. About 1 cubic meter per kilogram, or about 85 cubic meters of hydrogen to life the average adult. Which means you'd need a sphere at least 5.5m in diameter, or over 18 feet. Besides the fact that everyone would have to triple the size of their parking spaces, such a large shape has a huge drag coefficient, so only low speeds in low winds are possible.
Lighter than air vehicles have been around forever, and it doesn't seem like newer materials will help all that much.
Neat...so all we have to do is attach huge helium balloons to our cars, then we can lazily float away above all the traffic, with a small electric propeller for propulsion.
when we come up with fusion (in the future....hehe) we'll just line the underside of our highways with superconductors and some energy inefficient way to keep em cool, and levitate our safe, friction free plastic cars. or...ourselves!
This is not to enable typical freeway drivers to take to the air, it is to allow qualified pilots to be able to drive their plane to their final destination from the local airport. I thought at least the old timers read the summary....
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Would you want millions of tons of metal buzzing around overhead, piloted by the same people who don't know how to drive on the freeway now? I didn't think so.
Besides, can you imagine the premiums on the liability insurance?
Never mind pilot's licenses. The only way we're ever going to have flying cars is if they're completely automated.
I get that slash isn't the new york times, but this post was so patently written by a PR flack that I found it hard to even read. Every few months there is a flying car/jetpack story that surfaces, there's no need to be insane boosters of these hare-brained schemes even though we all like the idea.
Since most of the discussion has been about flying cars (And not driveable airplanes) there are a couple relevant details about the category of Light Sport Aircraft.
Firstly, while you do have to be a licensed pilot, getting an LSA certification takes (around) half as long and costs half as much. Private pilot certification requires a minimum of 40 hours flight time (nat'l average is around 75) and costs anywhere from $5000 to $10000 if you go to a private flight school. That lets you fly something like a Cessna 172 prop plane during the day and in good weather. You cannot fly at night or in bad weather; that requires an additional certification called IFR (i.e. you are 'instrument rated' to fly just off the instruments). For a long time in the US, the Private Pilot cert was the "lowest" level you could get.
As of last year or so, the FAA introduced the LSA category. This applies to one- and two-seat aircraft under 1200 or 1300 pounds (can't remember which) and with a top speed of 120 knots. These aircraft have been around for a while but regulations were more friendly to that kind of thing in Europe than in the US.
LSA is a big deal because they are less expensive to fly and maintain and you only need half as many hours to get your certification. It's still not something you're going to do in a weekend, but it makes general aviation much more accessible. Most LSA aircraft cost around $100,000 as opposed to $300,000 for traditional "light" aircraft -- and aircraft lose their value as quickly as most recreational vehicles, so you can pick up a decent small airplane from the 70s or 80s for the cost of a new Toyota. A nicer Toyota.
Between LSA, GPS devices, and some of the great simulator stuff out there, getting yourself in the air is a lot easier than it ever has been. Hopefully it will never become so easy that everyone does it.
I don't want flying cars for the masses. Not that they arenb't totally cool, but I don't want Joe Scumbag to get road rage while flying over my house. Flying cars will get banned when a-holes start taking them "off course" (off road in car-speak) and crashing into stuff.
Do you want the same people you see tailgating, talking on their cell phones, and doing 45 in the fast lane, or drunk flying in the air?
Because of the various dangers, perhaps the cars should be pre-programmed to follow given paths. You select the path, and the car automatically goes there at the proper speed etc. This would reduce terrorism and safety problems. It may take some of the fun away, but not the practicality. Maybe there could be "you control" zones in the desert or boon-docks where one can go to steer as they please.
Table-ized A.I.
Regulation. Don't fly over densely populated areas below a certain altitude
Regulation. Follow these safety rules, or lose your license
It will become a luxury item, just like cars used to be. An expensive flying car is still a flying car. Price haven't stopped people from creating other planes, rockets, or helicopters
And your problem was? (Besides, if they would become more common, better regulation would be created)
Huh? Are you serious? I guess we should start by outlawing regular cars first. And certainly nylon stockings need to be outlawed. But you can't seriously be speaking of this car, which is probably terrible in traffic, and needs an airport for takeoff (at which point it would be easily tracked by radar anyway)
Huh? What was your reason again?
No. The greatest reason this will not become a success, is because it's not a practical VTOL flying car. It's a plane with foldable wings that would be legal to drive on roads, which is something different, and not what most people dream about. Besides, the company will go bankrupt soon anyway. Either that, or they will continue to take investor money and preorders infinitely, as certain other flying car companies do.
The same could be said of heavier-than-air vehicles. What helps is new ideas.
Here's how it works:
The "bladder" assumes a cylindrical upward shape during ascent (like a helium-filled condom) so no extra space is required for parking or "takeoff".
Once at sufficient altitude, the cylindrical bladder is rigidized along it's longest dimension and rotated 90 degrees to horizontal. The bladder is further rigidized to assume an airfoil cross-section to maintain a more aerodynamic cross-section during forward flight.
Descent reverses the order of operations.
This is achievable today, but the unit cost is high. Costs of operation are low; it is extremely energy-efficient; it is extremely safe.
>>Man those folded up wings make for some gigantic blind spots when you're driving on the road.
True, but that's not such a big deal -- you don't have to look out for anyone else if you're sure they're looking at you.
But considering this a bit further, why drive around town with wings and a tail assembly? It would be more useful if you could leave all that at the airport. Think of the way you rent a moving van, either round-trip (cheaper) or one-way, I imagine the same model could work here. Just rent the wings when you need them.
Drive in, pay your deposit, attach wings and tail structure -> fly to destination -> detach assembly (store it in a locker? drop it off permanently?)
Anyway, when you're ready to go home, just drive back to the airport, pick up your pieces, reassemble and fly.
Would the police get some too?
BM3
Moller's problem is Moller, not America.
He's had the skycar in development for 30 years, as you say, and in that time it's made one unmanned tethered flight. One. Fucking. Flight.
It's a failure, time to move on.
0 1 - just my two bits
The reasons are clear.
Something that's any good at flying is going to be a crap car, because it's not going to carry the weight of the bits and pieces you need to be a decent car, such as decent wheels, brakes, steering, silencer, gearbox, all the stuff planes normally manage without.
If you stick all that weight onto it to make a decent car it'll be a crap plane. Simple laws of physics.
Plus, there's enough people flying around up there already thanks very much. On a nice summer day it's already hard enough work making sure you don't fly into anybody else - please don't encourage more people to take to the skies!
I think it would be a great boon to the planet if we could eliminate roads. It would make the world prettier, safer, and more friendly to non-humans. I've heard the road system referred to as a "giant chainsaw" that chops up anything that gets in its path. So what about moving large parts of the the road system underground instead of into the air?
No one has the sack to throw their hat over the fence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsFfBB2W7IA
Also, who is the soccer mom calling on the phone, if it's her auto insurance company, that probably knocks her up a notch. If it's her elderly mother in the nursing home, it'd be a much lower threat, 'cause that conversation doesn't require much attention. OTOH, if she's calling her Al Qaeda superior to get driving directions, then that's probably bad news.
Hey, wow! Hobbyist actuarials are a load of fun!
Zeppelins are a feasible, safe, reliable alternative to planes of all kind. They take up some room, but if they spent most of their time IN THE AIR, which doesn't cost anything (you don't have to rent the air, yet, and they FLOAT so keeping them aloft could be free), then they would make plenty of economic sense.
I'll put in my order now for a solar powered carbon fiber zeppelin that is autopiloted by GPS and radar, and sleeps four. In fact, if it's posh enough, I'll skip the house, and just park in the air along the coast and have a better view than anybody alive. I'd also like a mini zeppelin for commuting back and forth to the ground, and for picking up groceries and the like. Thanks in Advance.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
There's no way I'd want to trust the average public with the task of flying their cars. If we went with manual controls and pilot's licenses, it'd still be a giant pain in the ass. Once we have the flying cars, we still need the automatic flight control systems to make it a reality. And we're pretty much there. We have the flight software to fully control airliners from taxi to take-off to landing. We're making huge strides with the UAV's. Tell the car where you want it to fly, the computer will do all the work. "Manual" control would simply take movement requests from the occupant and translate them into workable flight maneuvers. You want to fly over there? Fine, here you go. Turn around? Absolutely. But any input suggestion that would end poorly would be vetoed by the fight computers. Aircraft separation would be maintained by ground radar and car-mounted sensors.
The only real question is whether flying cars would be cost-effective.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I'm not against flying cars. I used to be an pilot in the Air Force so I think "personal flying vehicles" is a great thing. However it is not the flying cars I worry about since they are not the issue I'm want to bring up but the irresponsible behavior of bad people will abuse this device for. Like all devices of our creation (ie computers and the internet, etc.) bad people (ie kiddie porn, spammers, phisher, etc.) will abuse this. But since September 11, 2001 we have seen what a couple of idiots could do with several flying objects to something so I worry about the abuse factor. I know the FAA and NASA have created the "highway in the sky" network where computers and other navigational devices will guide people through the air and avoid collisions without input from the owner or operator. However like the people on the Darwin Award List, some "enterprising" people will attempt bypass this safety features on the flying cars do bad things with these flying cars. I worry about flying cars with enough bad people will make September 11, 2001 look like a day in the park. Again the flying car is a great thing but our current society is not "mature" enough to use these vehicles responsibly. I don't want to be a "party pooper" but we, as an human civilization, need to wake up and stop being assholes to each other so people could trust us with something so powerful.
Backstory here;
:)
the Pak built it, then died off. Later civilizations arose I was never clear who came up with the idea other then it was some sort of police force.
Anyhow, They would override your aircraft moving at excess speeds and reel you in to be ticketed or executed depending on who stupid you were being. In flight you would have to have something like Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems. Otherwise you would bring down teh wrath of the F.L.I.P.S (FLying hIghway Patrol Service) Evading them would be called Flipping the bird.
Still that sort of transponder would be very useful for downed air-motorists. So that the A.A.A.A. could find them (the Airborne Automotive Association of America.)
Side note, during the first Gulf war Israel was excluded from the list so they could not get involved in the air war and piss off the coalition's Muslim allies. You could imagine what a disaster if they had shot down a US or British, or French plane in the warzone so they stayed out of it even though they were being shelled by Saddam.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Well, I think flying cars haven't come about because the idea is terrible, but that's not the point I'm gonna make.
The point I'm gonna make: I would imagine these things take up quite a bit of fuel. Isn't this precisely the wrong time for that?
Property is theft.
She added that there are about 6,000 public airports in the U.S., and most people are, on average, within 20 miles of one. The idea, she said, is to take advantage of this under-utilized infrastructure.
The major airport in my area (Minneapolis-Saint Paul) is not under-utilized. Quite the opposite. Air traffic has been rising for years, causing increasing strain on capacity.
And it's not just the runway capacity -- getting cars to and from the airport is a bigger hassle than ever.
At this rate, we're going to need a second major regional airport within twenty years, and the roadways to support it.
I'm no expert, but I believe (read this somewhere, don't have the reference at hand) that other metropolitan areas are facing the same problem. Maybe a lot of smaller airports are under-utilized, but not the big-city airports.
-kgj
-kgj
Also, despite the common misconception that soccer moms are somehow dangerous drivers, the majority of accidents - especially fatal accidents - are caused by childless male assholes who drive too fast.
I've said this before, and I'm sure you've thought of it. Remember anything common in all those cartoons with flying cars? They usually had humans living in space. Or at least in high-orbit. The jetsons lived in a floating city, Bespin-style. As long as we mostly live in 2d suburbs/cities, the best way of getting to work or the grocery store is going to be 2d motion, like on the ground or just above it. If we ever start living in cities with actual seperate layers, we'll probably alrighty be somewhere where that makes sense, with low gravity. In which case flying cars will be easy. Until then, flying cars will never work in common daily life for the same reason moving walkways aren't in our homes. Because there's no good reason for anyone to pay enough money to have them.
Do we really want Lindsay Lohan in the skies above us?
>received advanced orders for 30 to 50 Transitions. Shouldn't that be "advance?" orders? I've seen a lot of descriptions of upcoming movie screenings as "advanced" screenings lately, too. How did that "d" get added on magically?
Here's how I'd do the "Osjedi flying car" right now:
(2) low mileage E36 BMW M3 (voted Best handling car anywhere at any price by Motortrend Magazine) - $10,000-$12,000 each.
(1) 1970-something Cessna 172 (reasonably well equipped) - $30,000
Drive your excellent BMW M3 #1 to the airport. Park it and fly your Cessna to your destination airport. Tie down the plane and drive BMW #2 to the office. At the end of the day reverse the steps. You get a BETTER car(s), and a BETTER aircraft, and have almost $100,000 left over. Put the $100k in a 5% CD and you get a $417 per month stream of income to pay for gas and parking.
Imagine how much lower the cost would be if I'd used old Geo Metros in the example instead of M-series BMWs. My point is even doing this in luxury is orders of magnitude cheaper and more practical than a dual-purpose flying bumpercar with 10" wheels.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
Here, educate yourselves... And a sky filled with people who don't have pilot's licenses could be problematic. I usually pick on Slashdot for this, but it really is The New York Times' fault. The author is a moron.
The reason we don't see flying cars isn't because there is no infrastructure. It is because there is no need for flying cars. I fail to understand the benefit of a flying car and please do not compare it with an airplane. Airplane are mass transport system. Imagine if everyone owned a plane...
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
It cracks me up how people don't get the idea of what was really "lost" in the lost future, and other modern technology in general - if they had the vision to begin with, they would recognize that a thing like a flying car, while desirable in their own right, are actually hyperbole from a practical standpoint. Flying cars are examples of a futuristic way of life, a way of living, a way of integrating technology with Jetson-esqe ease, not a single product no matter how tranformational it would be. Practical flying cars for evryday use would just clog, darken the skies, and be noisy.
Oh man, I totally just tried this "walking!" WOW! What a grade-A fucking RUSH. This was so awesome, I'm glad you told me about it. Before I was parking my car in my living room to and driving to it get a snack from the kitchen. Then I read your post and was totally like "Hey, man, that's a good idea! I should try that!" So I did, and it was FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. I can not have been more pleased with my walking experience. From here on out, whether its a trip to the grocery store or a drive around the park, you're going to find yours truly walking!
Heh, lighter then air materials... with density electro-magnetically controlled. (me thinks it was somebody elses' recipe).
You're correct- I should have said "powered".
Robotics and artificial intelligence are starting to create unmanned aircraft and cars. As many people
have pointed out, there are a lot of incompetent drivers of regular cars, putting them up in the air
is asking for trouble at a whole new level of magnitude. So the vehicles have to be able to fly themselves
safely and reliably, and take off and land on a dime. That's a without which not condition.
The second condition would be efficiency. A dirigible like device might be efficient, though some aircraft
can be pretty efficient it seems. Airplanes have flown around the world without refueling after all, and
a human powered airplane has flown across the English Channel. A plane, particularly one with a lot of
smarts about using updrafts and the like, could probably be designed that could be efficient. It would still
have to be pretty much VTOL though.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
When I was 9 years old, in third grade, I saw a flying car from Georgia. Now, it didn't fly very far, and the landings were a little rough, but it was quite entertaining. Especially when a certain female wearing cut-off blue jeans was bending over the fender.
If your seriously under the delusion that people will be traveling around in flying cars within the next 50 years, you should consider this:
1) take a look at the cars the are driving around you. How many of them look almost un-road-worthy?
2) how many times have you seen someone on the side of the road broken down? (sure it may just be a flat tyre, but thats still relavent).
3) how many times have you looked at a car driving along the road and thought "my god, that thing still goes?"
The point im trying to make is that until "flying cars" can stay floating in the air without any power being applied to them at all, we aren't going to be seeing "personal flying cars". The requirements for keeping a plane in the air (in terms of keeping it "air worthy") aren't for the poor, they are also very strict for a reason.
Now lets take your average break down. "oh no, my engine stalled". Suddenly what became an inconvenience that held up a few cars on a road is suddenly "oh my god, we're falling out of the sky in the middle of a residential area". Which would not end well. Now considering even minor neglect of a car can leave it stalled on the side of the road (and yeah, there are air-equivalents of flat tyres) and the same goes for a "flying car", do you really trust your neighbors to keep their "flying cars" air worthy? Do you really trust the easily-bought-off mechanic to properly inspect every "flying car" once a year?
If they ever do become a reality before said "power-less hovering" is a reality, i'm going to live in an underground bunker!
1. I looks like the prop could be a huge hazard for anyone that was unfortunate enough to rear end this thing.
2. It seems likely that this thing would have to be made a light as possible how is it going to stand up (or not) when a Suburban crashes into it
3. assuming you had a only minor traffic accident... what would teh procedure(s) be to certify it was airworthy after a accident?
it is also kinda fugly... but that is subjective i suppose.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
The combined an unsafe plane with an unsafe car.
Hilarity will no doubt ensue.
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!
I had the pleasure of working with several of the core Terrafugia team, particularly Anna and Carl Dietrich, when they were getting their Ph.D.'s at MIT. This group grew out of the MIT Rocket Team, which was working heavily on liquid-fueled engines (ethanol/kerosene and liquid oxygen). They're an experienced bunch, with particular experience exploring the rocket scientist's perpetual tradeoff between the need for power and the need for low weight.
I can tell you that this is a group of bright engineers who really are in love with flying -- just as are thousands of other private pilots around the world. I think many Slashdotters misunderstand their target market. The Transition requires both a pilot's license and a driver's license, so it's aimed at people who are already private pilots but want the convenience of not having to find a ground vehicle once they've landed at their destination airport. The listed price of their vehicle is comparable to other small planes like those from Cessna, and the extra convenience they're able to provide private pilots may be game-changing.
--
Educational microcontroller kits for a digital generation.
Personally, I wouldn't want anyone incompetent driving a car that can move in full 3D in the air, we have enough problems with drivers on the ground. I'd want to see data and EXTREMELY stringent tests on people who get flying cars, you can hit anyone and anything at a moments notice. Not to mention turbelence and then the joy riding stupid people will do.
I imagine during the early years there will be many accidents. Even our airplanes while mostly safe because of the years of experience, still suffer from difficulty of control. I've flown to and from places and when the plane swerves this way and that, it makes me shudder at the idiots being able to drive in the air. I really hope the technology develops to the point where we either
1) Make it idiot proof or
2) It's all automatically for the most part controlled, with a user-failsafe, or you can go manual, but you have "levels" of liscence that you can go unautomated.
A malfunction flying car can hit 10 cars below him and cause 10 times the death toll.
With the barrel of oil at US$100, a flying car that requires conservatively 10x more energy per mile per traveler than a normal car is simply not going to happen. Even with cheap oil it would make no sense environmentally, plus it would be, with current technology, dangerous and stupid.
Instead I think it is vastly more likely that people will be traveling with a combination of public transport and bicycle in a few years from now. Much healthier for everyone.
Cheers.
The founder of the company spoke at my RC aircraft club. This is a roadable aircraft, not a flying car. The reasoning behind it is that private flight sometimes leaves you with bad choices such as "I'm flying towards a storm that could cause me to crash and die. Do I 1) turn around and fly to the nearest airport and wait it out, possibly for a day or more 2) fly through it and see if I survive"
This gives you a different choice. You can 3) Land at the nearest airport and drive through the storm.
In addition, because you can drive it home and park it in a garage, you can avoid expensive hanger fees. And it can run on cheaper regular gas instead of the special stuff you have to buy at airports.
It won't be rated for federal crash safety and will have a sticker in the window stating as much.
Can I get a lift kit on that thing?
Seriously. The technology is not the problem. Maybe cost -- sure. But getting something to takeoff, land and fly from A to B automatically and safely is easily within the means of even the smallest nuclear power. It requires only the will to do so! You are talking about basically a cruise missle, but slower and with those nice little tree air fresheners 'cuz you're classy. The key is taking people out of the loop except to do what they do better then computers. Computers fly the car, people just help out with identifying clear spots to land, and slamming on the "emergency stop!" button if somthing unexpected happens. Take-off is no problam -- just a matter of traffic and terrain avoidance. Not a technology that specifically exists, but one that could be cobbled together from existing technologies. (Each flying car squaks GPS [maybe enhanced by INS] and altitude. The flying car that is taking off uses millimetric radar [or whatever you geekey sods] for obstacle avoidance and the other cars' squaks for traffic avoidance. The cars co-operatively network and de-conflict airspace as the car flies into one of thousands of virtual lanes and then flies to its destination. Landing is take-off in reverse with puny humans telling the cars exactly where to land -- maybe in flying car landing zones within an crowded urban or suburban area. In crowded airspace cars automatically swarm, and dynamically de-swarm and re-swam as they navigate. Carefully designed rules will be necessary, but easy to enforce, since the computers flying the car will be programmed to follow the rules. And since law enforcement computers will know the rules, it will be easy to spot the /dotters who immediately install linux in their new car and wire in an xbox controller to go for a "manual" joyride.
A roadable gyroplane...gyroplanes can land practically anywhere, and need only about 300 feet to safely takeoff. Plus, they can fly very slow (like 15-25 mph) and probably as fast as the Terrafugia.
And the technology already exists. This guy has already built a flying "motorcycle", the "car" version is looking promising:
http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/ssc/gallery.htm/
Wow, this guy must really hate rental cars...
That's what she said!
(Arguing with imaginary self)Me: No, no, no! That just proves you don't understand how the joke works.
Myself: Which one, the one about women drivers with flying cars or the one about women always making disparaging comments?
Me: The part where the parent poster pretends to be a chick, everybody knows that the angry feminists on slashdot don't post AC! (Ask either of them.)
Myself: I thought that part was serious, I mean who but an angry feminist would ignore any need to back up their arguments with the assumption that whatever they said must be true because it was obviously evil mens' fault?
Me: No, remember, this is a discussion about flying cars, or driving airplanes, how would an angry feminist ever get past the first three posts?
Mysef: You have a point there, or should I say we have a point there. Your insight is nearly as significant as your ego.
Me: Thanks!
Myself: Oh, and Me? Make a note, this conversation can be recycled for practically any angry feminist comment with only one or two subject matter substitutions.
Back in my day when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
Everyone keeps talking about flying cars not being practical because of crashing and stupid teenagers and such. They are totally right but THIS commercial actually makes a better point just in the tag line. Right now flying a plane is like using a computer with command line and no protected memory. You have barely any advanced warning systems. No redundant engines for failure. And if something does happen you have to decide in a matter of seconds where you're going to land and how many trees you're going to take out when you do. Or houses but really that's never going to happen.
The idea of a flying car is great and could work but THEY NEED BETTER SOFTWARE. Constant engine diagnostics in the back ground. Multiple emergency landing engines. Maybe lower powered but able to keep a vertically stable position until lowering is able to be done safely. The steering wheel should not be a yolk but a dumbed steering wheel so as not to let you make radical changes in velocity and direction. The software would have to make the car as smart as a horses so that it doesn't want to die anymore than the people on it's back. If it doesn't feel well then it doesn't go anywhere.
Then you move on to swarming communication between a certain radius so that if bubba joe starts to have issues the vehicles themselves start to move out of the way and reduce speed to allow the broken vehicle to land. MIT kids have this stuff running to win robot soccer games. Why not install it in some cars and see what happens. Then move it into X,Y,Z environment. Let the car make most of the decisions so that the teenage/old blind people don't have to be "Iceman" Kilmer to drive it. Take a Google map like layout and have to plot your course maybe ahead of time to allow vehicle load buffering.
This all may not be a free flying as just getting in your car and hitting the peddal but it would make flying cars a heck of a lot more sane for two screaming kids, a cell phone, and soccer.
This story has popped up in different forms every ten years since the 30s. No one has been able to combine air and highway efficencies in a heavier-than-air craft.
Now a hydrogen powered car that could carry enough hydrogen to inflate its own balloon...now that's a pipe dream we could live with.
Still safer a helium fusion engine with enough helium for balloon....
IMHO airplanes are obsolete technology and I mean the way they manage to fly. We already squeezed as much as we can from them and now we are at the point flying 200 miles takes longer than just driving. We need inventions that would make flying as easy as we drive automatic cars now. Two things that come to mind are:
1. A sort of force field to protect the vehicle in accidents: One of the reasons flying is so difficult is because of regulations based on the fact there is barely any chance of survival in case something goes wrong.
2. A gravity cancellation device: We should find a way of flying that doesn't use air lift, there is a reason to birds' limitations on flying.
Now, who is gonna come with these?
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
"Do you realize how much money spent on infrastructure (highways) would be saved if we could get cars EVEN A FEW INCHES above the surface?"
Do you realize how much MORE money spent on infrastructure can be saved by switching to the even smaller "Microsoft Flying Chair"?
Its not like it even costs anything - just say the magic word (Google) and they'll throw one your way.
I hear it gets 40fpbt (feet per balmer-toss).
Kevin Smith on Prince
Please see the Wolff AeroCycle regarding a roadable.
-Adam
http://wolffaerocycle.com/
I love this...
"The government should have a hand so I can stay stupid, ignorant, and clueless, and may I never learn what my goods are worth."
Do you listen to yourselves when you ask this stuff? Just because idiots ask appraisers what homes are worth, doesn't mean truly wise and intelligent people cannot do their own research. I did mine, on everything I buy and sell. From computers to cars to a piece of jewelry or a piece of software I download.
And often, the best reviews are from my fellow men and women, not from "licensed experts".
Expert and government worship and doomsday cults (such as christian, muslim and jewish and global warming/cooling apocalypse cults) have a lot more in common than people give them credit for.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
http://wolffaerocycle.com/ Please look at the Wolff AeroCycle regarding roadable vehicles. -Adam