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Flying Car Passes First Flight Test
waderoush writes "Terrafugia — the Massachusetts company building a 'roadable aircraft' (that's flying car to you and me) — revealed at a press conference Wednesday that the Transition vehicle has been taken aloft for its maiden flight. The craft, which can fly up to 460 miles at 115 mph and then fold up its wings for 65-mph highway driving, was the subject of two hotly debated Slashdot posts on May 8 and May 13 of last year. The company said the first flight took place in Plattsburgh, NY; retired Air Force Colonel Phil Meteer was at the controls."
I think it's a waste of time. The logistics involved with actually having a non-trivial number of these things up in the air over urban areas without mass casualties are just too difficult.
The answer to our traffic woes is probably not flying cars, but rather something like self-driving cars on defined tracks. Most of our traffic problems are caused by people following too closely and overreacting to developments ahead of them (braking harder than necessary, etc), not to mention the general scourge of distracted driving. If the whole process of freeway merging, maintaining safe distance, responding to stimuli outside the vehicle, etc, was handled by an unemotional computer (perhaps interfacing with a central traffic planning computer in more congested areas), things should smooth out.
Of course, we're still years away from that sort of computing power, but various aspects of the self-driving automobile have been under development for years, and we should eventually get there. At any rate, I find the prospect more realistic than the idea of thousands or millions of flying cars zipping around above New York City.
We needed a starting-point. This is it.
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To me, this is more of a drive-able airplane than it is a flying car. I know, maybe there isn't any difference but to me a flying car is something that flys which replaces my car. This is something that I can drive on regular roads that replaces my airplane.
It's a different market, a different use, and a very different price point. It might succeed, but personally I still wouldn't call it a successful flying car.
Nobody is interested in an airplane the super-rich can drive to their villas after their day trip to the Bahamas. Everyone is interested in flying cars. If you put up an article about something that looks like it could someday lead to flying cars, people are going to comment on flying cars and what they would mean and how plausible they are.
Without the flying car connection, this article is more suited for some magazine that sells over-priced crap that no one needs like SkyMall, not Slashdot.
The problem with self-driving cars is that they ALL have to be self-driving for it to work properly. I suppose you could designate certain roads as automated only, but how do you enforce it if you do?
I guess you could add sensors of some kind all around to keep the car from hitting other cars that don't report position data. But if even one of them is off calibration by a little bit.... crash. RADAR isn't great, as there just isn't enough space for independent transmitters. LIDAR might work, but has similar problems.
I honestly think we are pretty much there with regards to computing power. The problem is taking peoples freedom to drive recklessly away.
Managing auto-driving car positioning from a central location is a very bad idea. For this to work realistically the cars need to be able to position themselves independently.
how much crosswind can it take before you are upside down in the ditch?
Indeed, while I think flying cars like this one may find a niche. I don't think they will ever take off on a large scale.
You will still need a pilots license (albiet only a light sport pilot license asusming terrafugia meet thier weight goals). You will still need a registered airfield to take off and land legally so it will only be worth using for longer trips. Finally it is rather expensive ($200000 iirc).
So I don't see there being enough of them in they sky to have a significant impact.
Of course that doesn't mean terrafugia won't be successfull. A small buisness (Which afaict is what terrafugia are) can be perfectly successfull with a niche product.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
We're already willing to accept mass casualties for our roads. I'm perfectly willing to accept them for our skies.
This issue gets brought up every time this thing is mentioned.
It's NOT a replacement for garden-variety cars. It's a replacement for light aircraft that solves the last mile problem and allows for home storage without living on an airport.
Citation needed.
A horse, while not having human emotions, most certainly "feels" something when you aim it at another horse and try to make it gallop full speed.
I propose the exact opposite of what you suggest. I propose designing a "driver assist" AI that acts much like a horse.
For examples: if the road becomes slippery and wet; the AI will decide to take a potentially self preserving action of lowering the top speed. Or if you try to merge directly into that car in the next lane over while traveling at 75mph, the AI notices there is another "horse" in close proximity and stiffens up the steering to prevent the lateral impact. Maybe if you were too busy scolding obnoxious passengers or fiddling with the audio or climate controls to notice all the break lights up ahead; the AI detects that traffic has halted and begins a calculated deceleration.
$.02
Their target market is not the folks who take 45 mins to an hour to drive 5-10 miles to work in 45 rush hour traffic.
More like folks living 25-30 miles from an urban center who fly into the local airport and then take 45 mins to an hour to drive 5-10 miles in rush hour traffic.
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'roadable aircraft' (that's flying car to you and me)
Not quite.
The problem with conventional small aircraft is that once you've flown your Cesna 172 (or whatever) to your destination, you find that you're at an airfield way out of town somewhere, and you don't have a car.
Terrafugia is a solution that, once you land, you have a car. Which would be very handy sometimes!
But it's not really a "flying car" in the science-fiction sense.
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It IS an innovation in technology... and Slashdot is about Technology.
We have articles on Jetpacks and stuff that only the rich can afford... this is no different.
Those who don't use their radios are indeed taking unjustified risks...but it's quite common for airplanes not to have radios at all. (Some airplanes don't even have electrical systems.) You can't assume that the pattern is empty just because nobody's talking. You have to look. Depending on the radio is just as foolish as depending solely on your own abilities to see and avoid.
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actually i think he's saying that it's a driving plane
i read about it in a blog once
You're assuming that "your typical civilian" would be flying one. This is not the case: it requires at least a sport pilot license.
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The answer to our traffic woes is probably not flying cars, but rather something like self-driving cars on defined tracks. Most of our traffic problems are caused by people following too closely and overreacting to developments ahead of them (braking harder than necessary, etc), not to mention the general scourge of distracted driving. If the whole process of freeway merging, maintaining safe distance, responding to stimuli outside the vehicle, etc, was handled by an unemotional computer (perhaps interfacing with a central traffic planning computer in more congested areas), things should smooth out.
Congratulations. You have just handed the government the ability to monitor and control the movements of everyone, everywhere. Now aren't you proud of yourself?
"self-driving cars on defined tracks"
We have these. They are called "trains". And they are very efficient, too.
Machine vision wouldn't have to distinguish between an actual pedestrian and a bus stop ad. I don't want to run over either of them.
When you encounter a pedestrian, there's a finite risk of the pedestrian darting out in front of your car.
An unsophisticated autonomous ground vehicle would have to slow down every time it encounters something that might be a pedestrian. It will take a lot of sophistication for the control software to determine that the advertisement on the bus stop is not an actual pedestrian, and blow by it at full speed.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.