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.
While the main link is apparently slashdotted, there is also this site, apparently the official Terrafugia site: http://www.terrafugia.com/vehicle.html
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.
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."
>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.
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.
Ah, but now you've seen a classic /. poster archetype, the grumpy old man/Luddite. See any article on phones with more functions than making phone calls ("I just want something simple that makes a phone call"), game consoles with HD graphics ("no one wants these fancy graphics, no thanks"), HD TVs/BluRay/etc ("No one owns an HD tv, no one wants this, DVD is just fine for me thank-ya-very-much"), or websites that resemble anything past 1996 ("Whats with all these flash ads and graphics, give me 3 fonts on a repeating background!") This poster enjoys racing other posters of the same type to the bottom of the heap to show how old-school/not-affording that latest crap they are. Frequently spotted in threads about the iPhone, Wii/PS3/Xb360, and programming languages that were invented after 1981.
That's all for now. Tune in later for "I know about topic X, topic X rhymes with article topic Y, let me tell you how smart I am" and everyone's favorite "This scientific breakthrough is no big deal unless I can buy some practical application of it tomorrow at Wal-Mart"
Yes, getting slashdotted creamed our server (and we have choice words today for both our blogging platform provider and our hosting provider) but the story is back up now, we think (http://www.xconomy.com/2008/05/08/from-the-runway-to-the-road-terrafugia-redefines-the-flying-car-make-that-drivable-airplane/). Our apologies for the inconvenience. -Wade Roush, Xconomy
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.