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It's Not a Flying Car - It's a Drivable Airplane
waderoush writes "Aviation enthusiasts have been dreaming of flying cars since the 1940s. But in an old machine shop in Woburn, MA, a team of MIT aero/astro grads is building what could be the first practical airplane that's also certified for highway driving. Angel-funded startup Terrafugia, headed by 2006 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize winner Carl Dietrich, hopes to have its first full-scale proof-of-concept vehicle ready to show off at July's AirVenture aviation festival in Oshkosh, Wisconsin."
I can see this catching on with ranchers out west. They can fly to town twice as fast as they can drive and still park in the garage. At least they won't have to worry about tailgaters with that open prop out back.
Invenio via vel creo
With its wings folded, it appears to have huge blind spots, so I can't see it as being considered fit for the road.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
As long as the weather isn't bad doing those things while flying would be easier than doing it in a car. Once you are in the air modern aircraft pretty much fly themselves.
I'm not a pilot but I had a job as a lineman at small county airport while in college. I used to fly all over the place with the pilots that worked for the company, either for fun or (no shit) so they could have someone to talk to and not fall asleep. (we did overflow for UPS, all the flights were in the middle of the night)
You take off, get clearance to fly a direct route to where you are going, enter in to the gps the code for airport you just left and which one you are going to, and wait until you get there.
Amusing story, The first time I ever flew in a plane was after I started working there. One of the pilots had just landed from a long flight, something came up and he had to immediately go on another flight. He knew I had never flown so he asked me if I wanted to go with him. We take off, he sets the gps up then leans back in the seat and says "wake me up if I fall asleep". Slightly disconcerting for your first time in the air.
In addition to lacking auto-driving tech, we in the US have a woefully inadequate licensing program. If you had to pass a test similar to a pilot's license test in order to drive a car, I bet accident rates would plummet to match that of airplanes.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7384788.stm
Battery powered airplane!
Because humor is mankind's way of dealing with failure and our own mortality? See if you can find a metacategory that contains all the things you laugh at. (I think it was Heinlein that first noticed this.)
In any case, the guy screwed the wing struts into the pinto's door panels with sheet-metal screws. It's not like the crash was, you know, surprising. His death is not one for which heaven will grant an appeal hearing.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Possibly, but I see this argument being as hollow as anti-gun arguments. With the proper training and safety rules, I think the general public can handle flying cars, especially if there are automated systems on board to help them. This is stuff that is going into cars now such as back up and tailgating warning systems using radar and cameras. The main barriers aren't can the public learn this but can we do this in a way that won't pollute the air 100 times worse than we are now and how can we manage coordinating take off and landing and "skyways".
I think we have the technology to solve all of these problems, though some of it is still in it's infancy. It is just a matter or 1-2 decades before they mature and someone manages to put them together in a user friendly way.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
I agree, but the only reason flying is easier is there is almost no one flying, if everyone were flying only a central computer would be able to coordinate flight plans, especially around cities. Driving is cake because if anything goes wrong, there is only one thing you need to know and remember to do, step on the brake, there is no analogy in flying, if something goes wrong in a plane you better have your shit together or you are dead. Also thinking in 3 dimensions rather than 2 is much harder for most people, probably not anyone on this site, but for most people it isn't easy.
You're right: it IS because the flying population is low. One part of that, though, is that you can fly just about anywhere: higher, lower, off to one side or the other. There aren't highways, so the traffic density is inherently vanishingly low: lots, and lots, and lots of space in the sky.
But at the same time, when you look at where the traffic density is high, at airports, that's where the majority of accidents happen, and if there were more people flying, that number would rise disproportionately, like pilots^1.3 or something.
The thing I often think about when driving on a big fast multilane highway is that it's like flying in *very* close formation with idiots playing with their radios and cellphones, while a bunch of other idiots are flying in very close formation practically head-on at me. That's really scary.
As Bruce Schneier often says: we underestimate the dangers of things we know well, and overestimate the dangers of things we don't know. Since I know flying, I'm probably underestimating the danger of airplanes, but *everyone* underestimates the danger of driving.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.