Slashdot Mirror
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."
Look at the accident and fatality rates with the masses and regular cars. I can't imagine how many deaths this would cause worldwide. A flying car is great in cheesy novels and movies, but horrible in reality.
Does that mean it's actually certified to drive, or just fits within the lane and all that? I'd feel kinda scared if there was a plane next to me on the freeway.
for the flying car
And I thought I knew you man...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
How is this different from any other crazy flying car? It's still vaporware as long as there isn't a working prototype, and as far as the difference between a flying car and a 'roadable aircraft'--it seems like a marketing gimmick to me.
steampunk web design
Please God, tell me it's a hybrid!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That whole ability-to-fly thing will come in handy when the first gust of wind you encounter blows you off a bridge.
A very light car with a huge side profile = the ditch.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
hopes to have its first full-scale proof-of-concept vehicle ready to show off at July's AirVenture aviation festival in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
From the "endeavors best left unrushed" department...
Seriously, rushing to meet unrealistic deadlines is what causes spectacular failure- and this is really something best left to perfect.
You don't want to hear "AAAAAAAH!" from the crowd, you want to hear "oooooooo"...
Please help metamoderate.
The flying Pinto crashed and burned:
http://www.fordpinto.com/mitzar1.htm
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=84720&key=0
Code or be coded.
They are are not aero/astro grads, they are Course 16 grads.
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
Here's how it's done, ladies and gents...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcusjb/440970636/in/photostream/
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
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!
Every year while the Oshkosh air fair is going on, the rest of Wisconsin wears helmets. You never know what, or who, will be dropping by.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I am all for anything that speeds up natural selection.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Not a lot of shared attributes between these two subclasses of class "vehicle."
Car: heavy suspension built to handle potholes and such; real-world roads still apply various nasty twisting moments throughout the body, which must be stiff enough to cope. Can ignore the occasional shopping cart dimpling the sides as irrelevant to operational safety.
Plane: built very VERY lightly. Undercarriage takes one good "whomp" on landing but time spent taxiing is a very small part of the overall life of the vehicle. Even a minor ding may result in it being flagged non-airworthy.
Executive summary: Cars make lousy planes. Planes make lousy cars.
"Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing."
Wow, listen to you guys. A crowd that usually embraces and welcomes new technology is cutting this to ribbons. Whether or not the concept is actually practical or not remains to be seen - there is certainly more than enough interest out there to continue to fund and develop and research the idea, regardless if the masses don't like it. It'll happen anyway - just give it time.
This isn't the first Slashdot story about this exact vehicle. Try http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/10/1611216 for the exact same thing from last October. Deja Vu anyone? --The FNP
Or stay slashdotted from the last time this was posted. See http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/10/1611216 -- The FNP
>The skills needed to fly are a lot higher than those to drive.
As a regular driver and a semi-regular pilot, I'm not sure I agree with that. Driving takes continuous alertness and work because you're surrounded by dangerous stuff, much of it being driven in the opposite direction only a meter or so away by crazy idiots talking on cellphones. In a plane, somewhere between 70 and 95% of the time, you have nothing more than air molecules in all directions for better than 2 km. I know pilots who have set alarm clocks, gotten the plane in stable flight with their 3 axis autopilot, and then gone to sleep for an hour while the plane tooled through the sky: a damned bad idea, but perfectly viable in a plane.
Aircraft demand some skill in handling the plane in takeoff, and rather a lot in landing, and *enormous* amounts when there's an emergency and you have to do a bunch of intelligent things in the right order to survive. But overall, as regards routine flying, I don't think they require anywhere near as much consistent skill as driving.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
If you haven't seen it:
The Flying Car - A short by Kevin Smith
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
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.
There are hundreds of small/medium airports and airfields that are miles from the nearest car rental agency. There might be a few rental agencies that might be willing to ferry a car out, at great added cost, but that's a decidedly non-trivial exercise, and not always available.
-- Alastair
I think the idea is impractical for many other, technical reasons, but litigiousness and insurance are the deadly killers.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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.
This is not a flying car. This is not a flying car. This is not a flying car. THIS IS NOT A FLYING CAR.
THIS! IS! NOT! A! FLYING! CAR!
Let's go back to the Jetsons and think of what we saw in their cartoon. The concept of a flying car is a vehicle in which the general public can transport themselves in the air and start from and end at any point desired. It is currently unsafe, illegal, and HIGHLY not recommended for any such implementation to even happen. The general public would have to be trained on basic air traffic strategies. You'd be adding an entire new dimension to traffic control.
Directly from the creator's website:
Q: Can I take off from the highway?
A: No. In addition to power lines, billboards, overpasses, and other obstructions that make this idea unsafe, the Transition® will have to be parked with the engine off in order to deploy the wings and engage the propeller. It is also illegal in most states (emergency landings excluded).
This is a drivable airplane. This means it is able to be transported without additional equipment (i.e.: tow truck, etc) to a destination via public roads rather than be forced to stay at the airport due to its size, speed, fuel costs, etc.
HOWEVER to be honest, a majority of this is more dependent upon the law and intelligence/training requirements of the public rather than design limitations. BUT this doesn't mean the existing design can easily take off from anywhere you wish or land anywhere you wish easily. Still, it's CLOSER to a flying car than nothing.
tl;dr: IT'S NOT A FUCKING FLYING CAR! But it's CLOSER to one than nothing.
Pancakes. Oh I blew it.
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.
It's not a Drivable Airplane - It's a Transformer