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Could Flying Cars Actually Be On Their Way?
another random user writes "With ideas like the Taylor Aerocar, Terrafugia Transition, Terrafugia Transformer, the PAL-V, and myCopter, are we getting close to a point where flying cars could actually become practical? An article at the BBC discusses how adding automation to these craft is an important goal for the people currently working on them, something we see paralleled in the many projects to develop autonomous non-flying cars. 'The team intends to draw on drone technology to automate as much of the flying as possible. Current fly-by-wire technology, as well as some of the features being used in the development of autonomous or robotic vehicles could all help fleets of these vehicles fly along predefined highways – and crucially avoid each other. But perhaps the biggest problem the team aim to tackle are the regulatory and safety issues, as well as those of public opinion.' If that does happen, given a lot of drivers' inability to pay attention to what's going on around them on the roads as it is now, how safe would you feel in the air?"
I'd like to continue feeling safe on the ground, thankyouverymuch.
Adult Role Playing Forum
As a pilot, I really really really hope this never happens! Most people are BARELY able to keep in control of their vehicles in 2D, and are entirely unsuited for 3D. Keep them away from the skies, so that those of us who passed the difficult tests and demonstrated our ability to handle an aircraft safely can continue to be safe and remain not in danger of idiots cutting us off, not following rules, etc...
-------
1. Enjoy your job
2. Make lots of money
3. Work within the law
Choose any two.
It's bad enough that cars run into poles and each other on the ground. Worst that might happen is they crash into your local jiffy mart after jumping the concrete blocks that are trying to prevent that. What happens when bad driving start sending vehicles through the roof of your house?
Heck the insurance alone would be insane.. Oh sure a pilot in a small plane is one thing...
but when you have thousands... millions... of people in the air in their own little flying cars?
where maint and upkeep is their responsibility.... yeah. i don't want any of those near me.
People can barely maintain their cars for 5 years at a time. Having them maintain planes is just insane.
Unless you're going to spawn an entire new well regulated industry to keep it all safe... That's not cheap either.
Plus the failure modes...
God no. keep the flying cars away from the general public until they are well regulated and 110% automated idiotproof.
Then we can get to work making better idiots and start over. :)
OK, but could we at least have jet packs?
I thought the whole car thing was dying because we're running out of oil.
Can you build a UAV that carries a whole person AND a stack of lithium batteries?
Mass transit is still the way to go whether you're flying or not.
See, for instance, London's new Cable Car. I live in a hilly place and I can't for the life of me imagine why nobody thought it would be useful to simply go from hill to hill.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modalpages/23828.aspx
Once the FAA puts these designs through the wringer, it'll be much the same involved certification process as current aircraft. Time, money and commitment keep most people out of recreational aircraft now, I doubt any of that will change. These are just overpriced new designs.
http://www.faa.gov/pilots/become/
Then worry about safety features and regulation.
Don't stifle creativity. It makes for fewer hilarious prototype videos on YouTube.
No.
GENERATION 9882463: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig & add a random number to the generation.
Please lets skip the idea of a personal flying car until they are able to operate fully automated in below average conditions (whatever that is). This way we won't have all the difficulties integrating automation like we will/are having with automated land cars.
This might delay us a decade, but in the long run I think it'll be worth it (unless you die within that decade).
It's not a technical problem, it a legal program, like the self-driving-car. Both ain't gonna happen if zombies like the DMW is going to have a say in it (and for the forseeable future, they have a say in it)...
Aircraft are technically marginal devices - minor increases in weight and drag have a significant effect on their overall performance. The compromises required to allow an aircraft to be used on the road will make it a really poor aircraft. If you read the performance information carefully on the Terrafuga, you will find that it is slow, doesn't carry much weight and has a very limited range.
People have come to expect a very high level of performance from their cars. The compromises required to make a car operate as an aircraft will make it a poor road vehicle.
The use case just isn't that compelling. Most of these vehicles will only be able to fly from airport to airport - which are often located in areas with large amounts of traffic. Once at the airport, the usual The pre-flight checks, and taxi / departure clearances will be required. The airplane / cars that have so far been exhibited are also not designed to deal with significant weather, or to operate over high terrain.
The existing model where you drive your (optimized) car to the airport and then fly your (optimized) airplane to its destination seems better. Rental cars are available at the general aviation terminals at many US airports, generally set up to minimize the time it takes to pick up and drop off.
We might have to have a couple of breakthroughs first. Like exceeding the current 6-second flight time. Or the problem of burning off your legs occasionally. Also, my ideal transportation includes some sort of protection from the weather. I live in Colorado, where it can be 90 degrees and sunny and ten minutes later 50 degrees and hailing.
The only beneficiaries would be proctologists.
People can barely drive correctly on the ground what with people texting while driving, tailgating or simply being a-holes on the road. Imagine what it will be like in the air and imagine the insurance.
The FAA and commercial airlines still haven't gotten free flight working and they've been at it for over 20 years. Do you really expect companies designing flying cars to do any better? Even if they can get auto-pilot and auto-collision working in the air (already available in large commercial aircraft), the cars still have to take off and land and do so anywhere, not just at airports. We still don't have cars that drive themselves (at least not good enough to put into production). Once that becomes available, then we can start talking about when flying cars will be available.
So it works out to something like:
Airbus - 78 miles per passenger per gallon of gas (but that's a large craft with lots of people, so it's probably more comparable to a bus)
Ultralight aircraft - somewhere around 60 miles per passenger per gallon of gas (though a flying car would probably be heavier, since most people wouldn't want a flying car that resembled an ultralight - plus they might want to have some luggage).
I imagine these vehicles get pretty poor "mileage" in the air compared to a typical car. Plus, I'm sure they're very loud. I think most people would object to the noise of these things taking off and landing in their neighborhood.
i can't wait to piss out the window
They are fundamentally problematic in several respects:
1. Piloting. Ordinary people cannot pilot anything flying safely.
2. Energy consumption. They just consume far too much with energy sources available today.
3. Landing and takeoff. You cannot do that just anywhere.
4. Air traffic control. They are already overloaded.
5. Unsuitable for roads. All designs so far have only very limited suitability as actual cars.
Unless all of these issues are solved at some point in the future, there will be no flying cars except demonstration stunts. Incidentally, anybody thinking about the issue rationally can come up with the above list easily. There seems to be a mental blockade a lot of otherwise intelligent people have with regard to flying cars.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It will happen ... but only for pigs.
Imagine if you did have VTOL personal transports. You could eliminate roads. It would be like what is happening with cell phones eliminating land lines. You would save all of the money currently spent on maintaining infrastructure. Also sprawl would explode as people buy land without worrying about infrastructure. Land prices would plummet in most places.
If you think Amazon is fast now wait until you place an order and a VTOL drone drops off a package on your front door 10 minutes later.
It would be a VERY disruptive technology.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
It is 2012. I was promised flying cars by the year 2000. I WANT MY FLYING CAR NOW!
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
Ummm ... no
Source: 40 years of "Could Flying Cars Actually Be On Their Way?" experience
The "biggest problem" is power-to-weight ratio. You need a powerplant that can lift an un-aerodynamic, heavy airframe (which is what a "car" is. Because if it is an airframe with lots of lift and light weight, it has wings and is called an "airplane", a device which is hard to park in the lot at work).
And if you are thinking of putting a Harrier engine on it, remember that the Harrier carries a couple hundred gallons of water so that when it lands vertically, it doesn't melt the tarmac. This is important if you don't want a large pothole to form every time you park your aircar.
Basically, a flying car needs to have a super-powerful ducted fan powerplant, fueled by a very high-energy-density fuel source, that allows it to lift a standard 4 person airframe roughly the size of a small car, and put it down without damaging the asphalt.
Ain't happening anytime soon.
The cheap energy fantasies from the space age have to be buried. We are here on this planet. That's it.
Flying cars are not yet practicable because there are still too many people. Maybe once we are down to a population of
a 500 million as the Georgia Guidestones demand, maybe then the elites will use them and possibly permit them to
selected favored trustees. Flying cars in todays society would totally be out of the question, think of the freedom they
enable, the ability to fly over fences and explore off-limits area, make fast get-aways from law enforcement. This totally
flies in the face of where they are taking the world and that is austerity and reduction of travel.
NOT. HAPPENING.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones
Inscriptions
A message consisting of a set of ten guidelines or principles is engraved on the Georgia Guidestones in eight different languages, one language on each face of the four large upright stones. Moving clockwise around the structure from due north, these languages are: English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.
Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.
Explanatory tablet
and you thought you hated watching your neighbor's kid park in front of your car BEFORE!
6 second flying time?
The martin Jetpack can fly for at least half an hour.
Dear god no.
With the way I see people drive now, my family included, flying cars are not a good idea
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
No
It is certainly possible to create a flying car, but you would get a bad airplane and a horrible car. Planes need to be light, and there is little thought given to crash survival. There are no airbags or energy absorbing structures. In a crash you usually have little bits of aluminum and pieces of the occupants spread over the crash site. In a car, weight isn't critical so you can have the luxury of crumple zones, air bags, and lots of sound deadening materials. You have the luxury of building sturdy seats out of steel that will withstand a crash. Cars even have spare tires, but planes don't. A light two seater airplane might weigh in at 450 pounds. A light two seater car is close to 2000 pounds without any wings, instruments, propellers, or control surfaces. You can make a flying car, but it would not fly well, and it certainly wouldn't pass current US crash standards. It would be a very expensive, and nearly unusable novelty.
Basically the dream is to get where you're going as quickly as possible and not be bothered with traffic. Now if everyone has flying cars, you're probably still going to be bothered by traffic. I have a feeling autonomous cars will deliver on the flying car dream sooner and more efficiently than flying cars will. By the time a flying car is feasible and available to the general public, most people will probably not feel they need one anymore because autonomous cars will have streamlined traffic patterns and people will be able to attend to other things while commuting.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Going by the number of nose-to-tail incidents the current crop of drivers have a hard time dealing with single-dimension travel. It's a wonder there are not more accidents already. Adding a 3rd dimension in to the mix is only going to make it worse.
On that assumption, the only way it will work is if you enter your destination and the computer takes the best route to get you there, eliminating the driver.
Personally, I like driving. I find it enjoyable. I don't want to buy a car I can't drive. I might rent one, but if that's the case, wouldn't it make more sense to just have a bunch of automated taxis that anyone order from their phone?
Say goodbye to taxi drivers, independent automotive repair shops and the automotive aftermarket.
...they're called airplanes.
They'll be here in about three years. Along with Mr. Fusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines
The cheapest 2 place airplane of modern design start about $125,000. Want a 4 seat, you need at least a quarter million. This will never reach affordability for a middle income family in my lifetime.
Not only flying is too energy intensive, the concept of flying cars poses a HUGE RISK in this world we live in today, where there are people who are crazy enough to blow themselves up just so that people around them die with them
Imagine you have flying cars zipping around buildings - how are you to ensure that no one load up one (or more) flying car(s) with strong explosives and then slam it/them into an office building?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
In order to pilot a plane, you have to be certified pilot. Flight rage anyone?
Similar to the Mythbusters Jet Pack. Assuming it can carry enough fuel to get somewhere, it won't ever be allowed because there isn't enough of a safety margin.
It is entirely plausible that we'd be rocking like the Jetson's if all of you Sheldon's weren't building video games and writing code for smart phones.....it's a simple case of misappropiation of assets.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Shame on all of you for ruining the dream of flying cars, what with all your technical problems and common sense!
Again, the answer is ... No.
If anyone is going to bring flying cars to the main stream consumer his name will be Dr. Paul Moller. There is simply no one else that has invested so much into making it a reality than him. It's just sad that he gave up fighting the powers in the United States after ten years or more and has now moved on to China. From all resent indications China is really pushing for this to happen on a grand scale, civilly, commercially, and militarily.
Here is Dr. Moller giving a TED talk back in 2004
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_moller_on_the_skycar.html
Here is his website:
http://www.moller.com/
I can't find the direct link of Moller's statement about his decision to go to China, but here is a link to a blog giving the gist of it:
http://editinternational.com/read.php?id=47ddbb91a553f
Texting in a car is one thing. People figuring out how to file a flight plan, do all of the calculations necessary, communicate coherently on the radio, get in the air while doing their hair or chitchatting on the phone is a bit worrisome. Having them land safely seems even more implausible.
Betteridge's Law aside, can we please stop with the flying car shit?
If we ignore all the other hundreds of reasons why this won't work, I'll just point out that any serious proposal involving cars that fly around US cities would necessitate that we bury every single overhead wire in the continental United States to prevent destruction of the communications and electrical grids.
Uh, good luck with that.
VTOL drone delivery system? Don't worry; they're on it.
An excellent talk about it was given at Google's Solve for X.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Yeah, jetpacks have serious issues. What this world needs is a good $500 Balloonachute.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
That's a bullshit argument. Substitute the words car and drive for flying car and fly and you'll see why. A terrorist could just as easily and with as much success load up a pedophile van with explosives and drive at 90mph into a building tomorrow. What difference does flying make?
If its an "important" building the van may crash into a barrier and not get "close enough" to the building to do significant damage. There are no barriers to keep aircraft away.
Cars already exist with wings large enough to fly.
Damn shame they're usually packing an underpowered VTEC engine.
Speaking from a bit of experience... There's a big difference in flying something sitting in a cockpit and sitting in a lawn chair. It's much easier actually being in the vehicle you are controlling and having all your appendages instead of just two thumbs to control with.
True, but assuming good weather and good visibility. Under instrument flight conditions the physical sensations that you feel are no longer an asset, they are a liability. Most private pilots can not fly under such conditions. For the non-pilots reading along, "can not" as in the pilots would kill themselves not that the pilots are in violation of FAA regulations.
Flying cars will need to be heavily automated.
"flying cars" using conventional technology can't happen on the large scale. First, the mechanism to put and keep aloft a "car sized" object would be extremely loud. Take a helicopter for example. Now multiply that by millions. Noise pollution is bad already and cars are fairly quiet considering the controlled explosions in the engine. Second, there is a nasty problem of physics meets economics. There is a given cost to move an object from point A to point B on the ground. By adding a 3rd dimension to the equation you not only have to account for the added distance traveled but you also need to account for the work involved in countering gravity. Granted you have gravity issues with cars, but not nearly the effort required to keep a vehicle and payload hovering X feet above the ground. Conventional tech for "flying cars" is at best a niche market. When we have anti-gravity devices that are efficient on power consumption, then we may have something.
Who the hell wants the same morons witness daily trying to run over motor and by(cyclists) now empowered to crash out of the sky onto shit!?!?!?!?! No.Boody.Way.In.Hell enters directly into my conscious mind without contemplative thoughts.
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows
Those are the two big killers of the flying car concept for the masses. It's not a huge problem driving through a wind-blown downpour in a car. It's a much bigger problem when your vehicle is IN that wind. Even today's mostly-automated jetliners have problems with big storms. A flying car would be even less comfortable than a motorcycle when you have to get to work when the cold front is blowing through.
Furthermore, I have yet to see a flying car concept that doesn't have the same weight and balance issues every other plane has. One of the reasons pilots have far more rigorous certification requirements than drivers is because a lot more brain engagement is necessary in flying than driving. You can't just throw that big screen TV you got at Walmart in the trunk of a 2012 flying car and expect a good outcome. Until the Higgs boson makes anti-gravity pickup trucks possible the entire flying car concept is just too inconvenient for the typical use cases of Joe Sixpack.
A well-executed flying car concept could be a boon for pilots who are looking for more convenient transportation options once on the ground, however.
The problem with cars is, that they need too much space. This is a big concern in cities where most of the people live today. First, they are used only a fraction of the time a day. So you need all the time a 2 by 8 meter parking slot for them. When they move they need roads and on the road each car occupies even more space (depending on the velocity). They provide in most cases 4 or more seats, but only 1.3 seats are the average seat occupancy. Meaning in most cases only one seat is used. Trying to put that in the air would only move the problem not address it.
Second, a flying car requires even more energy to move around that a ground vehicle. And a malfunction could cause big trouble when we allow multi layer sky roads. If not, there is no benefit at all.
As we do not have that much energy left to spend on flying cars, we should consider other optimizations. A good solution are busses, trams and other devices of mass transit. They also allow more compact city development, which makes space for parks and still reduces land usage, which we can use for crops. While people in the mid west of the USA might not understand that argument, I hope people from New York or L.A. might understand it.
As a pilot and a driver... I wouldn't want anyone in my airspace who couldn't get through the process of earning a pilot certificate. That's not snobbery; something like 85% of people who start learning to fly never earn one, and it's not a large population segment who even try. And even some of those elite few are pretty awful pilots.
I mean, shit, half the people on the roads (generous estimate) can't fucking drive a car with an automatic, traction control, and GPS. I shudder to think what happens if they let my girlfriend fly her Ford Sky-Taurus in IFR and icing conditions.
This will probably get modded down by dim-witted Flight Sim gamers. Yeah, you. Until your mom's basement can replicate severe turbulence on an ILS approach in actual IMC, and the actual fiery death that could occur if you fuck it up, STFU.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
These are going to be designed to be very idiot proof. While you can only do so much to protect reckless idiots, onboard diagnostics can make sure it doesn't fly if things aren't running perfectly, and that it won't fly if it hasn't been serviced in a while. We can also make sure there's enough redundancy so that if one engine fails, the thing can still land safely.
Look around at the people driving near you. Then imagine them FLYING. End of argument.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
So you can protect vulnerable or vital buildings.
Good luck trying that with an aircraft when you have maybe 30 seconds notice. Or perhaps every building should have a huge net surrounding it?
Whether you like it or not terrorists attacks ARE still possible and any government that didn't take account of that would be remiss in its duties since one of the basic duties of government is to protect its citizens. Most governments don't get that balance right but that doesn't mean the issue should be ignored altogether just to keep a bunch of anarchist hippies happy who'd be quite happy with NO government.
There is never a barrier if the terrorist is determined enough. You are only putting up barriers for yourself if you want to try and prevent every conceivable form of terrorism. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Most people expect a flying car to have VTOL and to be able to drive out their house and take off. Why have a compromise between a car and a plane when you could have both for a similar price. A drivable plane is never going to be able to take you to the office and avoid traffic jams.
As many people have pointed out, a flying car is a bad amalgam of two vehicles that are designed to do very different things. There are a number of other alternatives for personal flight that keep popping up and just as quickly, being shut down. The Williams X-Jet, the Solotrek, the GEN H-4 personal helicopter and a handful of others that 5 minutes Googling would uncover. These are designed as point-to-point VTOL transport, suitable for short to medium range flights, and all run on standard engines, and standard fuel.
Personal flight is a game-changer. The powers that be don't really want it changed. It's not physics, engineering or fuel efficiency that's stopping it from happening - all those problems have already been solved. The only problem is people. Specifically, the people in charge. It doesn't matter how cheap this kit gets, or how safe and efficient, Joe Public will not be allowed to have one. Taxes and licences (and hardcore punishments for not having one...) will keep people earthbound, because no government on earth could cope with its people being given the freedom of the 3rd dimension. Borders and passports would become archaic reminders of a time when you used to have to ask permission from your government to be allowed to travel around. There would be diasporas from cities as people became able to live miles out of town, without the commute being an issue on narrow country roads.
Fully-functional personal flight devices - flying cars, if you like - already exist, and can cost no more than a luxury car (Gen H-4 for $60K), but the chances of you ever getting off the ground in one are slim. Red tape will keep them down much more effectively than gravity.
NO! Middle aged Asian drivers!
I was nearly killed last month when a little middle aged Asian woman tried to merge onto a road and cut across 4 lanes to take a left without looking. I avoided her, but she kept on going until she saw me spinning out in her mirror. Then she stopped, pulled over and started saying how sorry she was to me. I could only say 1 word over and over and over. It wasn't "FRACK!" but you get the idea.
Falling from the air, I would have died.
Flying cars will need the equivalent of a pilot license and must fly over existing roads, never residential areas. Liability insurance probably needs to be $50M since a car falling from the sky can kill a busload of people and detroy a building.
I was thinking that taxis would be a good use, professional drivers, right? Then I thought of how taxi drivers in every major city I've visited drive. Nope. Can't do that.
Flying cars are a very, very bad idea.
1) Too many people already can't control their cars in the mere 2D space of roads.
2) Many people are not sober which exasperated #1.
3) We don't need more people buzzing over our house. There is already too much air traffic.
4) It's a horrible waste of energy.
They have approximately three years to make it happen, or else a lot of people are going to feel robbed.
An advertisement for a GA airplane (Beech Bonanza I think) said, "economical as a Volkswagon, faster than a Ferrari, luxurious as a Cadillac, it's the perfect car for business travel and yet it isn't a car at all." This was back when single engine airplanes was still an industry (i.e. Mooneys, Pipers, Cessnas) and Aviation Week annual issue listing all aircraft had lists of GA planes with prices (while in college I look through those thinking of maybe one day I'll buy one).
The economical doesn't seem to make sense but back then what you spend on fuel is significantly less to go from point A to B compared to a car. Ad also mention there are no speed limits, you can go as fast as your equipment can do so. Remember back then 55 mph was still standard on many freeways.
Shortly after that, GA industry collapsed. Well not really but it is now domain of business jets and definitely out of reach for middle class. There may be flying cars (actually better described as roadable airplanes), and they can be safe and still NEED FAA pilot's license. Question is affordability. Decades ago they were for many, not so much nowadays. And may become more out of reach. Helicopters were cheap in 1950s (suggesting they will be in every garage), however, they took ***much*** flying skill and were quite dangerous when pilots not paying attention. These days helicopters are quite easy to handle (so I've been told per constant RPM, control algorithms for weight and balance, etc.) but only govts, corporations, and stinking rich can afford them.
mfwright@batnet.com
Personally I'd be fine with an inspector gadget style personal helicopter backpack. (http://www.distantcreations.com/blog/2009/03/10/tuesday-tech-real-versions-of-inspector-gadgets-gadgets/) Would easily suffice for daily commuting to the job and back, leaving the car off the road until needed for weekend trips with the family.
"But perhaps the biggest problem the team aim to tackle are the regulatory and safety issues"
Uhhh, no, the biggest problem is the gas milage.
It is trivially easy to demonstrate that the fuel used to move from A to B is much lower in a wheeled vehicle than a flying one, and in every apples-to-apples comparison the difference is often about an order of magnitude.
People will want to name their favourite counterexample now, but invariably these are highly tuned designs of limited or no practical use. When one compares this to similar wheeled vehicles, like solar cars, the same difference shows up again.
We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard than "whatever I want", and that means we need to say no to flying cars.
The best figure I could find for an SUV fully loaded is 5 people 65 passenger-miles per gallon and 4.5 tons of cargo. Rework the seating configuration to the maximum and the 787 wins handily.
You've lost me there. What sort of SUV is this that carries 4.5t of cargo? My Jeep Cherokee does 22 miles per UK gallon (17.6 per US gallon) so with 5 passengers it does 110 passenger miles per UK gallon (88 per US g). That is not in town (I live rural) but you don't get around town in a 787 either.
Even with your own figures, the SUV wins (ie more economical) with 65 vs 63.4 (even with far more luggage per person!)
When I had my flirtation with getting a pilot's license, weather proved to be far more significant than I imagined. Even a "safe" consumer plane like the Cessna 172 can only fly when the weather permits. Guess what? The weather does not permit on anything like a regular schedule. People commute in their cars through the traditional rain, sleet and snow. Wind is never a consideration. Wind is huge to something like a Cessna. Even on beautiful warm days, the updrafts from the heat can make flying bumpy beyond anything that's desirable. A small prop plane is utterly at the whims of mother nature. If you can be very, very flexible in your schedule or you just love to fly, it makes sense. If you need to be somewhere at a specific time, fly commercial or drive.
Obligatory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_Law_of_Headlines But really - Three reasons: 1) Flying is more complicated than driving. People don't want complicated. We also don't want people doing complicated things as they'll inevitably crash due to checking their facebook updates whilst flying. 2) Safety - This is kind of an extension of number one. People are already stupid enough when they're behind the wheel of a car. 3) Space - This one might just need a bit more engineering. But so far, we're still making the plane itself too large, with not enough room for people/luggage.
The current litigious nature and liability lawyer culture will never allow this to happen in the US. Even if all engineering and human factor elements are solved satifactorily the insurance cost will put it out of the range of anyone not already in the 1%, and the public relations nightmare that would result from just one flying car failing and falling on someone's house will do the rest of the damage.
Flying cars (with the exception of the moller Skycar) are nothing more than airplanes that fold up so they can be driven on the road. They have been around for 50 years and continue to this day to look really stupid.
Getting them to be common and legal is the easy part (although most people have trouble with that part). most people think they need to get the infrastructure in place first, like the hovering traffic lights, and laws, etc. etc. But that is not true.
I think it's obvious to say an accident between 2 flying cars would be much more dangerous than road cars, but does anybody think the introduction of the 3rd dimension might reduce accidents significantly by simply allowing cars to have more space? imagine a highway with 60 lanes, that's about how it would be except that the lanes would just be stacked. With proper road design (something that only exists on a HUD letting you know where you are in the "road") I would think the expansion of road space would significantly decrease the chances of 2 vehicles hitting eachother. That said, there would probably be a $#!+ton more parking accidents heh.
Not until they harness the graviton and make antigravity are flying cars likely to be a common item. And that presupposes we haven't singularitied past the need for cars by then.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Like the vehicles they have us driving daily now don't use enough energy? Flight is generally NOT CHEAP in terms of energy - would it not be better to turn those brilliant minds toward creating cheaper more effective ground solutions? And really, who is up for having a private vehicle fail and fall out of the sky onto you, your home or your loved ones? Do we really NEED this overly cliche notion at all?
next headline, "Chuck Norris will be retrofitting submarines for mass transit in NY"
People are complaining about the inability of people to operate a flying car when they can't operate one on the ground.
The whole point is that flying cars will be autopiloted.
Technoli
This is the text message that caused the flying car accident that changed my life forever and left 3,000 people dead when I plowed into that skyscraper.
Don't text while flying.
These guys have it just about there. ... but (a la Blade Runner) the military, police, fire & rescue, diplomats, etc, etc.
Won't be the vehicle for "everyman"
http://www.urbanaero.com
See you space cowboy
Most people avoid living next door to freeways because they're noise, dirty, ugly, disruptive in every way.
Now we're all being offered the great step forward. Filling the skys with large volumes of traffic.
The sky is one of the few areas that we haven't filled with unnecessary clutter. That we haven't packed with man-made objects.
What do you want to see when you look up?
When I look up I see birds, clouds, the sun, the stars, an occasional plane/contrail. But mostly I see wilderness.
Don't fill that wilderness with trash.
When people say Flying Cars they think about cars that can work in three dimensions. All of the current concepts for practical Flying Cars are cars that are able to transform into flying vehicles, being a hybrid design, rather then something that works like a car while flying. The training, licensing, regulatory, and energy requirements are way too high for any form of current flying car to be practical as a flying car.
At best, it will be convient for pilots to get around on their own.
I mean, your insurance that pays for *me* to have a radar-guided, computer-controlled anti-aircraft gun mounted on my roof, to shoot down drunks, out-of-control teens, and anyone flying while texting, before they crash into my second floor bedroom.
mark
A question you should always ask yourself when creating a new form of transportation of the masses.
Do you want your grandmother driving this thing? For her safety? For other's safety?
Nuff said.
A while back, a friend an I talked about this and we had a pretty neat solution for problem 4.
The problem is preventing collisions while still allowing freedom of navigation. We came up with a system where at a certain altitude you must travel in a certain direction and at a certain speed. (We assumed that take-off and landing would be done at something resembling an airport where a control system of some sort would manage transitioning down from a certain altitude.) As you increase altitude, your direction yaws right and your speed increases. (speed being a target speed you should be flying at) Basically, like cars travel on roads that are directional lines with assigned speeds, flying cars travel on roads that are directional layers with assigned altitudes and speeds.
GPS, transponders, and mapping software aid the drivers. GPS units can plan routes between destinations and coordinate the proper altitude and airspeed to the autopilot. Transponders transmit vin, altitude, airspeed, position, and heading to traffic around it to allow them to make adjustments to avoid collisions (all within the altitude-airspeed-direction framework). Mapping software can tell the GPS where there are Restricted Airspaces like airports, cities, or tall mountains so the GPS can route around it. The tricky part is anticipating possible collisions, but with transponder info it should be much easier to calculate.
As if there isn't enough carnage on the highways by people who can't seem to navigate 2 dimensional space. If they were being flown by computers that don't make errors then maybe but if it's by the ordinary fallible people then no.
Why would it require AI? The only possible reason for AI I can think of would be an emergency landing *if* GPS and similar services are down. And even then, the driver may be given more control instead of AI. AI would only be the backup to the backup.
Other fliers would require a transponder and registering with a database, which is updated fairly often. If an engine had problems, it would move out of the standard "sky lanes".
Table-ized A.I.
http://www.mavericklsa.com/ It's a car that converts to something like an ultralight.
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
No they're not about to happen because the laws of physics that say heavy machinery that falls out of the sky is subject to trajectories determined by Newton's Laws and not legislation concerning property damage, wrongful death and zoning ordinances.
The whole beauty of the terrestrial street grid is you CAN get directly there from here . With flying cars, you exactly CAN'T get directly there from here. You're confined to an air corridor. That air corridor has to be waaay away from stuff like buildings and streets etc etc by the above. You drive to the air corridor. You wait in line to take off. You fly to another air corridor . You wait to land. Then you drive to your destination. That's the best you're going to get, and you're not even going to get that because the logistics are so bad, no one will be interested.
How many people die in car accidents each year? How many more people would die and how much more chaos would there be if instead of veering into the ditch or a tree, you crashed into a city, town, road, sidewalk, playground, church, school , parking lot, chemical plant, farmer's field, whatever?
This hits me the same way Ray Kurzweil's obsession with not dying hits me- as the feverish activity of a small group of people funded by someone with a fetishistic obsession. Ray K is going to die like everyone else - an old man whose body has broken down in familiar ways. That's going to happen sometime relatively soon. Flying cars is just the opposite- it's going to happen exactly never.
Great post, trout007. But you're wrong about one thing: "Land prices would plummet in most places."
No; when roads become irrelevant, land prices would increase in places not serviced by roads. Those increases might be partly offset by reduced demand in places currently serviced by roads. But overall, there would be a net increase in land prices. (And that should please all the people who've been complaining about falling real estate prices... but I know better, it won't please them.)
And since most places aren't serviced by roads, land prices would increase in most places.
As an aside, there will be lots of environmental benefits when millions of acres of land that are currently paved revert to their natural state. No more wild animals or pets being turned into roadkill. And we'll probably want to "undo" the creation of those raised roadbeds that disrupt water flow in the Everglades.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
The largest problem of the flying car is not the automation although the automation is not trivial. The biggest problem would be an air traffic control system (ATC) that could handle such an unruly mess. People think of the simple sport pilot and no need for a license. Drivers kill well over 30,000 people per year down from over 50,000 just in the Us and maim many times that while moving in only two dimensions. Most of them have problems keeping track of what's going on there without the much greater complexity of a third dimension. I've flown planes that can be programmed for "almost" hands off from the time you push in the throttle, until the wheels touch the runway at your destination. The instrumentation is available now that you can put into a "home built" airplane. However the pilot has to continually monitor these systems and ATC for errors and/or mistakes throughout the entire flight. I've had ATC vector me right in front of an airliner on departure while on an instrument flight plan, I've also had them forget me as I'm moving several hundred MPH in the clouds close to an airport with lots of other planes. I've had them tell me to follow the plane ahead when I couldn't even see the wing tips on my own plane. As the landings must still be made manually, some where in there the pilot becomes responsible for putting it on the runway without making a big, smoking, mess. It takes a LOT of training to be able to catch ATC making a mistake and alerting them to it. Even among trained pilots, many are reluctant to do this. Avoiding Temporary Flight Restriction areas (TFRs adds another layer of complexity to the role of the pilot, aircraft automation, and ATC. Then there is weather. Rain, snow, hail, high wind, turbulence. It's really difficult to do all this monitoring and intervention "when you have your head in the bag" along with the smell and sound effects making any passengers sicker than you are. Vertigo is not just being dizzy, your thinking gets stuck in the mud. Think of being so dizzy you can't tell up from down while also trying to go for the distance record on hurling. As one soldier told me about crossing on the troop ship, "At first you are so sick you are afraid you are going to die, then as it gets worse you are afraid you won't!"
It is my opinion, being quite familiar with aviation, the technology, The fragile nature of airplanes, and the ATC system that the flying car is at least 3 decades, if not considerably more from becoming practical. Add to the technology and human factors the cost and only the upper part of the so called 1% could afford one. Now, Yes, I'd like to have one, but even being an instrument rated pilot capable of flying one in the system the practicality of the flying car appears to be severely limited. Do I want to be up there with them? Not a chance!