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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 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
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.
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.
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.
Or even better, high speed chases in the air.
That is at least 170% too awesome to ever become real.
Flying -- with the notable exception of lighter-than-air such as gasbags -- is too energy intensive to be consumer-level practical at this point in time. Leaving out the technological, mass production, and licensing hurdles.
Until or unless we can come up with inexpensive energy, it's not going to happen other than as a rich person's option.
Most people are intimidated by the amount it costs to *drive* somewhere. The cost of flying is like the cost of boating... much, much higher than driving.
It may be bullshit, but it's damned effective. We've allowed various versions of the "...then the terrorists win" argument to be used as reasons to repeatedly deprive us of our rights and liberties. You're quite right, of course. Timothy McVeigh showed us that any dim-witted sociopath can put together a car-bomb that will destroy an entire building, and you don't even have to "martyr" yourself in the process. That 24' Ryder truck holds a LOT more ANFO than your average flying car. Alas, GP has swallowed the bullshit whole and now lives in fear of airplanes.