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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.
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
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!
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."
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.
I wish people would quit complaining about not having their flying cars anyway. It's a stupid fantasy that might be possible, but it's just not that practical. Not only is there this issue of requiring a landing strip, which takes land and only one craft can use it at the same time, a dozen cars at highway speed can use the same length of the same strip.
Something optimized for good flying won't do very well on the land.
Not only that, there's ever increasing pressure on energy supplies and people are somehow duped into thinking that they can afford to fly? Airplane fuel costs a little more and you'll be using a lot more of it to stay in the air, maybe two or three times as much. If you don't like spending $50/mo to $100/mo on gas, I doubt you'd like to spend $200/mo or more to cover the same distance. The cost to rent a plane is at least $60/hr depending on your region and the plane. That will cover more distance than two hours in a car, but there's plenty of preflight prep that takes time too. The plane my dad rents wouldn't take four people and cargo, it's four people or you take away people to be able to take cargo. Balance is a big concern too.
It costs about $5000 in training and expenses to learn how to fly. That training expense is not going to go down that much, because there's a lot to learn about flying that's not needed in order to drive a car. Given how so many drivers seem pretty dumb about driving, I don't think I'd want them in the air at all. There's a lot more regulation, for good reason too, damage in crashing a car is trivial compared to the damage you can do in a small plane.
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...
> 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.
Amen, brother! Just like you, when I read the question "Where are the Flying Cars", the first thing that popped into my mind was "It's that stupid Bush and his refusal to clone body parts!". Great minds think alike, huh?
There are three huge problems that need to be solved
I imagine that we'll have flying cars in our garages some day. But not any time soon.
So I guess that basically I agree with you.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Uh, I'd assume that such an anti-gravity device would also need power, and that its power failing would still end up with a nice fall, but a very nasty stop at the bottom.
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
Flying cars aren't really impractical
:) But I'm guessing that the thought here is instead of these ground hugging vehicles, that putting them off the ground would add some value. Well, I guess you would not be bound to the existing roads, you could travel a straight line or a more scenic route, or something, but every day I hear about traffic accidents, traffic jams, road construction, and all of this.
I believe they are impractical. I've flown a plane, been in planes, and known people that own planes, and for almost all transportation needs, planes simply suck.
Planes are great for long distance travel (today). Going from say New York City, to London, I would take a plane over walking, swimming, boating, cycling, or anything. A plane is a no brainer for that travel with today's technology.
But traveling by plane 1/4 to 1/2 of the distance across the US, is not as clearly a winner as going from NY to London. Timewise, it takes at least 1/2 to one full day to fly. When you fly, you have to leave behind lots of materials that you might want to take with you. Flying costs go up basically linearly with each passenger (loading up a car actually goes down in cost). Flying is not really that fun. You spend lots of time in overpriced airports with silly things to occupy your time until your connecting flight arrives.
Flying cars? (Didn't read article
To me, a better way of expending ones efforts is in some kind of mass transit or people mover kind of thing. I'm American, so I have little experience with these things. Cabs, busses, trains, moving sidewalks, trollies, all of these things simply do not exist in much of the US. We drive cars. Many of us now drive unarmored tanks to get to work and to buy things at the store.
I believe that the answers for this is in the educated/research community along with government regulations and forethought. Left up to individuals, if the gas prices here would not keep going up, I would guess that people would be picking up their kids from school and driving to work in M1 tanks or something.
I do not have an answer, but I can speak the question. The question is: What is the best way in terms of cost, speed, and environmental factors to move people and goods from place to place that works well at high volume times (rush hour) AND for those occasional times (like moving, new construction, or whatnot)?
As it stands now, people suck at answering this question, probably because nobody has actually asked it.
I don't know about you but I'm investing in automated AA sentry guns.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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?
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
For a different tradeoff, roller blades and skateboards make fun, rapid, highly portable transportation that requires little cost and maintenance, but does require paved surfaces. Cycling is also good in this respect, though a bike isn't as easy to carry around and usually requires secure lockup facilities. Hitching lifts has gone out of style, but it is still something easy to arrange with friends and coworkers. Even frequent taxi usage can cost far less than car hire or ownership. Swimming is great exercise and large goods such as a king size bed can be floated on pontoons for easy shipping. Rappelling is a cheap and affordable method of descending cliffs. Hang gliding also works, as does transcendental levitation. Lastly, you could get a Segway but you're not quite that desperate to look like a fool.