Slashdot Mirror
New Flying Car Design Unveiled
An anonymous reader writes "Terrafugia has unveiled plans to build a semi-autonomous, hybrid-electric, vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicle for personal aviation. The new design, called TF-X, is in the works even as the company's first product, Transition, is still awaiting production because of technical and regulatory hurdles. Terrafugia's founder says the goal of TF-X, if it can get past the safety issues in both aviation and automotive industries, is to 'open up personal aviation to all of humanity.' But it will have a lot of competition from companies including AgustaWestland, Pipistrel, and the stealthy Zee.Aero, all of which are working on vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles for consumers."
When I'm getting too old to safely drive one.
What happens when flying cars collide with buildings or other infrastructure?
Well--read the first few chapters of "Ethan of Athos".
when I fire up the gas turbine after using the undoubtedly noisy props to do a vertical take off. I'm sure I'd hate the noise too.
And therefore they cannot provide enough lift for it to FLY.
I would have thought that was obvious just by looking at it.
now we can have them navigate an additional dimension and f*ck up even more!
Expect slashdot to cover this vaporware ad nauseum.
Now in addition to incompetent drivers, you will have to dodge the falling debris created by incompetent "personal aviators"...
Enough with the "Fake" Flying Cars Already - I think everyone is getting tired of these 'flying car' stories, be they on /., Wired, PopSci or wherever.
A Flying Car uses some kind of anti-gravity device. It can float. Don't show me a hovercraft, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft.
For greater clarity but so as not to limit the generality of the foregoing, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhF4gu87rn0
+1
Look, I am part Italian, and I don't wish to insult my Mediterranean paisani, but, if I ever do own a flying car it will NOT be of Italian manufacture.., sorry.
Proverbs 21:19
I can see flying cars going along side with the self driving car. For a computer control flight it could actually be a lot easier. Just because of less obstacles. With normal cars we drive on narrow roads that makes sure we are close to each other that causes a lot of accented spreading the roads by allowed flight paths in thousand foot increments squared can reduce traffic greatly. With automated system we can assure safer flights.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Most drivers don't seem to be able to handle safely navigating on surface roads.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority have no hope in hell of operating a flying car when they have up and down available to them.
And I can't see the FAA wanting to suddenly let a bunch of people start taking to the skies in something like this without a proper pilots license.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I've lost count of the number of "flying car" projects I've seen over the years. Several have been built, and flew fine, but none have ever been a commercial success. It's a solution to a problem that doesn't appear to exist.
If you haven't noticed, there is a small but serious trend to remove the "idiot" from behind the wheel. I'm sure this won't be on the lots of your local dealer in 2020 or anything but make no mistake, human error is an element the industry is working to minimize to the point of removing the human.
Either flying cars will always require a traditional pilot's license. Or we will first need to master the art of self-driving cars and remove almost any possibility that a passenger or owner of a vehicle can control the fine traveling decisions of the craft; i.e. only decide the desitnation.
I actually prefer the latter.
We should learn what we need to know about issues, before we decide what we need to feel about them.
Part of the safety of aviation is that certain parts have a known lifetime and there are programs in place to make sure that those parts are replaced before they become a problem. Planes are not like cars. The stresses of take offs and landings are way more significant than that of just driving a car around on the road. Are people ready for the cost of servicing their cars not every X number of miles but every X number of hours? And im not talking oil change here, Im talking about service on the level of removing body panels and checking for cracks in the frame. If something breaks on the road you can coast over to the shoulder. If something breaks while you are flying, you literally drop out of the sky which is a one way trip to a great ball of fire.
If this even comes to light (which I doubt it will) - the way these things go is as follows, based off recent history and similar products. It will not be a "flying car", but rather a "roadable helicopter". This means it will require a helicopter pilot's license. This won't be something you buy at you local dealership, get your license at a local DMV, and you and all your neighbors will be commuting to work in your flying cars. They will probably take-off and land at places helicopters are now permitted (airports), and serve as an alternative means of transport and storage before/after doing so.
Sure, they can build a flying car, but it will never become mainstream. It doesn't matter how safe you can make them, the drivers are still going to be idiots. Think about all the morons you see causing or nearly causing accidents every day. Now imagine those same idiots trying to deal with three dimensions. "All of humanity" are too stupid to drive a flying car.
I think that two dimensions of movement is already too confusing for many drivers, so god knows they don't need three! I can think of some drivers that would be better off with one, kinda like a car on rails, or train car.
Nothing like a $279,000 flying car that can be taken out on the street by a kid in a $300 Duster.
The great thing about technology like this is it opens up the possibility for more remote commuter communities that do not rely on a large network of roads to connect to major work centers, and can be farther away as these craft can travel much faster than land vehicles.
There are already some housing developments today with small airfields where people live with planes. But a smaller craft that can take off vertically means you just need something like a "launch park", parks are things that communities would have anyway... and these being mare advanced could require substantially less skill to fly than a normal plane, it could in fact easily take you where you between take-off and landing zones without any pilot input (thanks as the article says to regulations requiring all aircraft to broadcast position).
It's pretty expensive so it would be out of reach for a lot of people, but if the concept works well it cold come down to $100k - and if you could live someplace where housing was far cheaper than near a major city it could easily make it a viable proposition for many people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm waiting for the time of the sensible people
The year they take office
all government position will be non-paid, volunteer only positions
lobbying will be obsolete, elections will be held entirely online
actually, better yet, government will be run by the 'Logic 3000' super computer, which will calculate all possible outcomes/scenarios/decisions and make the "best choices" for humankind,
drugs will be legalized, firearms will become illegal,
self driving flying cars will be legal and replacing most land vehicles.
Face it, most people have a hard enough time on a (relatively) 2 dimensional plane. Accidents all over the place. Now you have to worry about people coming from all 3 dimensions... forget about it.
Add to that, at least it is normally hard for someone to go through the side of a house unless the accident is really bad or they were driving really fast. Now anyone would be EASILY able to go through a roof.
Before anyone comments, I would absolutely love to fly one of these manually (instead of through computer automation), and the way we can address the safety issue is to have a repelling motion with any other flying vehicles (or indeed the ground or buildings). The force would inversely proportional to the square or cube of the distance, and it means we can fly around having fun and not worry about crashing into anything.
Just thought I'd put it out there, as I bet someone is itching to say an 'average Joe' won't be able to fly these things (which would be true otherwise).
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
At least this thing is jet turbine powered. Turbine-powered VTOL craft have been working since the 1950s. With enough power to weight, it can get off the ground even if the shape isn't very good aerodynamically.
The problem with aircraft jet turbine engines is cost. They can be made small, but below bizjet size, making them smaller doesn't bring the cost down much. That's why general aviation still runs on pistons. Many engine makers, most notably Williams International, have tried to crack the turbojet cost problem. So far, there are no jet aircraft below $1 million, and few below $2 million. There was much hope for "very light jets" a decade ago, but it didn't happen.
When?
So, instead of just the technical hurdle of a flying car, we need to design and build the entire infrastructure for this, along with developing the flight control software, routing, and everything else which comes with it.
This would be such a massive expenditure that it would never happen.
I just don't see this vast and expensive infrastructure coming into existence on its own -- so I'm forced to conclude your Jetson's vision of the future will stay in the realm of things which are cool, hypothetically possible, but so damned impratical to achieve as to make this purely a pipe dream.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In other news, farmers markets will need to start equipping anti air guns and flak cannons.
If you though there were a lot of elderly driving into these things before, just wait until they could decided to land in the middle of them.
And meantime, 50 years later, Moller is exactly NOWHERE.
The dude's concepts have been on the cover of Popular Mechanics since... what... 1972? And he has yet to even sell one flying car.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Do these flying cars sound like this when they go by: "(imaging your lips flapping rapidly when doing this) BIBIBIBIbibibibewwwww... Meet George Jetson... His boy Elroy...."
Awesome news!
Every 9 years a new flying car is invented only to discover that there is no market for them. In fact, most people in the world would fight to prevent them. We all know that cars fail and pull to the side of the road. When flying cars fail they fall on a house killing all inside, just like any other type of airplane. A flying car is a car that is flimsy, since it must be light, so it's a death-trap in a street accident, but it is heavy enough to come through the roof and explode. Anybody interested in this absurd technology should be committed IMHO.
Get grants and loan guarantees from government.
Blow the money on phat salaries.
Declare bankruptcy
Success!
Does that mean in the future I can just send my flying car to work with me, stay home and watch Robot Oprah?
The software already exists. Planes are virtually autonomous already. Routing is GPS routing, probably easier than existing turn-by-turn navigation. The car portion of the software is under active development. The fact that we've had autopiloted planes for decades and are only now developing a true autopilot for cars (not just cruise control) demonstrates how much harder ground navigation is than air navigation.
No, the problem with flying cars is not making them autonomous. The problem is energy - it takes a lot of energy to fight gravity. Rolling on wheels will always be cheaper.
Yep! That'll drive insurance premiums thru the roof!!
Hmm, shades of UniComp. Doesn't to lead self-driving flying cars.
...and shoot them behind the shed. The flying car was dreamed up in a far different world where energy independence was not an immediate matter of national security and suburbs still seemed like a good idea.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I can see flying cars going along side with the self driving car. For a computer control flight it could actually be a lot easier. Just because of less obstacles.
You mean besides all of those other flying cars...
Computer controlled (self driving) cars are easy by comparison. They deal with only X and Y. They can pull over and stop for any minor malfunction.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
And yet most people can throw and catch a ball - which involves complex 3 dimensional movement, but are not very good at playing pool - which only involves 'simple' 2 dimensional movement.
I've always heard that the part most likely to fail in a modern car is the nut that holds the steering wheel.
The principle (logic) of conservation of energy makes actual 'anti-gravity', as portrayed in science fiction and UFO media, impossible.
While it is certainly possible to balance one force against another, for example in gravity balanced against magnetism (or the electric field), or the forced created in a 'f=ma' action pointing in the opposing direction, it is NOT possible to oppose a force field (in this case the natual gravity well) with no energy whatsoever.
The question is, what is the 'cost' always associated with opposing a gravity well, to remain at a stable position, or to raise an object to the next lesser gravity potential? The cost is exactly equal to 'f=ma'. This creates a problem. To create a 'device' that opposes gravity freely, would allow the creation of a practically infinite amount of energy, using normal matter in a looping manner. Such a device, even if it created an artificial 'bubble' of space-time, would still allow inifinite energy.
Essentially, the same bad logic that allows us to assume 'anti-gravity' could exists, also drives people nuts that work on pupetual motion, and reactionless drives.
In the end, all such violations of 'force' (f=ma) are in vain.
But can catch a ball (3d), and yet not be able to pocket a ball in pool (2d). Huh, almost like the *removing* a dimension that we experience every day naturally is what is actually screwing with people.
+1.
This is the kind of dream that a child has before they grow up and realize it doesn't make any sense, doesn't solve any actual problem, and would be a disaster on pretty well every level (of course, given that even cars are marketed toward fantasies, it isn't all that surprising that we keep seeing this).
You didn't even mention what happens when a large percentage of the people in these flying cars are trying to text at the same time.
Flying cars are a really bad idea. As shown by the accident reports the vast majority of people can not handle driving in two dimensions. Add another dimension and the accident rate will skyrocket. Even with autopilots they will be dangerous. Add altitude and speed and the death rate will climb even more dramatically. Perhaps we should consider this evolution at work. Call the car "Darwin".
"Re:How much ANFO will this carry?" and "And will they sell to people that wear turbines (sic) on their heads?"
There will be delight when this poster loses many teeth to a sudden collision with a 500g classic single-edged white iron bangle.
It's one thing to get a driver/pilot to fly one of these well, it's another to get them to keep them in an air-worthy condition. Having worked at a service station and seen how people treat their cars, the thought of them flying overhead scares me. Flying cars do have a place; but it's with those who can afford the infrastructure to keep both them and the pilots in top condition- the military, emergency response, and professional car services.
Don't Panic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_of_Athos
If you visit the Terrafugia website, there are more details of the craft. To my untrained eye (aerospace buff, but not an engineer), it doesn't look feasible - not enough wing surface. Anyway, they are saying that when they begin accepting pre-orders, they will give precedence to owners of their current roadable aircraft, the Terrafugia Transition. So it might be legit or it might be vaporware concocted to help their sales department.
panic: attorney detected.
It's not the fall that kills you, it's that sudden stop!
Computer controlled (self driving) cars are easy by comparison
Not even close. Self-driving cars need to be a lot more intelligent than self driving "planes". Commercial airplanes have been self-driving for decades (as someone pointed out). A few things that self-driving "planes" will not have to deal with:
- Ad-hoc changes to roads due to, for example, a busted water main. Happens all the time. As a driver I know how to drive into the temporary "lane" on that field, a self-driving car will not have a clue.
- Pedestrians and others veering into the path of your car with a seconds notice.
- That creek that is over flowing and has taken the road with it.
Etc, and so forth. Once flying cars start taking off (pun intended) regulations will have them equipped with proximity sensors, pre-approved flight situations etc. It would, for example, be rather straightforward to divide air-space into sections (for example horizontally) in such a way that the vehicles are never on paths that are crossing. You turn the wheel north and the car automatically raises to a level where driving north is allowed.
Since the 3D space is rather more static and maneouverable than 2D space, this is a lot easier than self-driving cars (again, commercial jets have done this for decades, and when planes do collide it is "always" because of human error (wrong action taken at the wrong point in time) or a very old plane without modern electronics getting in the way of another.
Now you have to worry about people coming from all 3 dimensions
No you won't. RTFA. That's for the on-board computer to worry about, while you are finishing breakfast and updating your facebook status.
Natural selection at work.
I couldn't help but notice THE GIANT SPINNING BLADES on the front of that thing which pretty much guarantee I can't take it to walmart or any other public place. Let me know when you come up with something that doesn't have the relatively high risk of decapitating me if I get out of it too quickly.
This all sounds nice but will it be more fuel efficient than current land vehicles? Will it be less poluting than land vehicles? Will it be more convenient to use and cheaper to own than land vehicles? If the answer to those questions is "No," then why bother doing this? Sure it may be fun, but if it burns more oil, polutes more air, costs more to operate and is less convenienent, what is the point?
Hold on there....
Commercial airliners operate in essentially empty skies. Further, there are about 160,000 aircraft on the US register ... admittedly not all airworthy or operating, but a good percentage are, and of these on a busy busy day, Maybe 16,000 in the air...maybe!
There are 254.4 million registered passenger vehicles in the United States according to a 2007 DOT study.
Huge percentages of these vehicles all want to go to a relatively small list of destinations at the same time of day, and they all want to travel at different speeds and they all want to stop on a moment's notice and pick up some groceries on the way home, or change their destination on a moment's notice to get a bite to eat.
If you try to put 254 million vehicles in the air (or even half that to weed out the big trucks) you have to have a radar and control system that can handle that load (our current radar technology is confused by a few wind generators), and an on board computer that can handle 1000 nearby bogies from all directions). You have to handle the sudden, "oh gee, lets stop in and pick up some bacon for breakfast", or "step on it I gotta pee".
There is no radar technology that can sort out that many targets.
There is no on board computer system that can manage that many "obstacles" (which jellomizer said didn't exist).
There is no contingency plan for a area wide power failure taking down all the radar and ground computers.
There are not enough emergency crews to collecting all the body parts that would be the inevitable result thereof.
There is no way to handle even an auto-gyro unpowered decent due to an engine failure and the havoc that would cause to the traffic stream.
There is no way to control the noise of take off and landing in neighborhoods.
You dramatically underestimate the size and scope of the problem when you push a hundred million vehicles of various vintage and capability up in the air over a big city. You hand wave away massive problems and assume into existence technology that simply does not exist.
Like I said, 2D space is way easier to deal with than 250 million aircraft in 3D space over cities. You haven't thought this through.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I use Pixelmator. $29.95. Haven't looked back.
Yet another waste of money.
A "flying car" just isn't gonna happen, for so many reasons, technical, social, legal, practical, environmental, and economic. Not just a few technical glitches to polish, but a bushel of insurmountables.
It would be an interesting socilogical study to figure out HOW you manage to get a bunch of engineers and investors together that all will work on such a crazy idea.
Birds would tend to disagree with you on that one, most birds will walk a short distance rather then fly as the energy cost to get into the air is high.....but once up the energy to stay up is relativly low.
This is why you see the little sparrow hopping 2m to get a snack but flying 20m. But I totally agree for heavy transport, without some awesome gravity control it will never be energitically cheaper to lift truck or train quantity into the air. But relativly smally personal transport will come down to distance.
We've been down this road/runway time and again and while it is possible, it's not going to be practical for a long time. From a licensed private pilot who also holds a class B CDL and could actually LEGALLY drive/fly this thing, here are the reasons why this ain't going to happen....
1. The Car/Plane will need to be certified by TWO authorities, the NHTSA and the FAA (in the USA).
2. It will have to meet the minimum crash standards of the NHTSA, the Emission standards for other vehicles including the OBDII and Cafe mileage standards, yet meet the FAA's technical standard for a commercially produced aircraft (assume you don't build these yourself..)
3. Designing for both authorities will make it a horrible car and a worse airplane. It won't be comfortable and it will be hugely expensive.
4. The driver/pilot will need to be licensed to drive as well as have a suitable pilot's license, ratings, medical certificate, log book endorsements, and be current for the type of flying to be done in order to take passengers. Flying is an expensive hobby and you have to fly regularly to be proficient and safe.
5. ALL maintenance will need to be done by properly certified (by the FAA) mechanics using fully vetted and certified parts, and you thought a brake job was expensive for your car, trust me, you haven't seen anything, and you simply won't be able to do ANY work yourself or buy tires from your local tire store because they won't be able to legally even loosen the lug nuts on your car/airplane thing.
6. Large Cities Usually sit under large areas of restricted airspace where flying these things would require a minimum set of navigational equipment, communications equipment and procedural methods to be followed. This is more than just going through the toll booth or HOV lanes. You will need to have a scheduled transit time and an approved filed flight plan in some cases and be talking to ATC in most cases.
7. VSTOL capable aircraft are usually not fuel efficient being heavy and complicated devices. They have limited useful load for the fuel they burn and suffer from being low range because you simply cannot lift fuel AND people, suitcases, groceries and the like. (The Harrier and V22 don't fix this issue..) You won't be go very far or fly very long.
8. Alcohol in motor fuels is going to be an issue for aircraft operating conditions.
It's simply not a practical idea. Sounds like it would be great, but it's just got some serious problems even before you get to thinking about the physics of the whole it's a car, it's a plane engineering problem.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Appropriate FAA NOTAMs filed in advance yadda yadda yadda *handwave*
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It takes more energy/fuel to get somewhere with a flying vehicle, than it takes with one on the ground; these will never become practical.
a flying trike
Reasonably low cost, fuel efficient, and compact, 1-2 seater. These things actually exist.
excellent points. mod parent up.
expandfairuse.org
who needs a flying trike when you can have a flying 18 wheeler that has far higher fuel efficiency per pound of passenger and/or cargo than that wimpy trike
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/747family/pf/pf_facts.page
This smells like a civil version of the DARPA transformer project, which basically wants a VTOL hummer a grunt can fly. Though the turbine/wings are a little exposed for a military vehicle (maybe if they swung back in land mode?)
This is a terrible design. Do they not know that the V-22 Osprey is called the Widowmaker?
I'd buy that.
Ferret
From the High, Snowy Mountains of Colorado
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
it (...) is to 'open up personal aviation to all of humanity.'
all of humanity... that is wealthy enough to afford it.
The noise this kind of gizmo, a short rotor helicopter, makes is really pretty astounding.
The dreams of a tilt rotor commuter transport went on the rocks because of the noise, no community would tolerate it. Unfortunately there is no currently known technical fix. We limit airplane noise around airports, just like motorcycle and lawnmower noise in the community. This thing will be way louder than a motorcycle.
Public acceptance is going to be nil if the noise comes from next door.
Imho, Terrafugia has just shifted from barely possible start up venture to fantasy, for some unknown reason.
So, um, you want your government meat inspector to be an unpaid volunteer? What if no one wants to do that job as a volunteer?
Like Salmonella, e. coli, listeria much?
And do you want a "volunteer" from the banking industry regulating--the banking industry?
I for one want the Government to pay those in Government positions, because guess what, if the Government isn't paying them, well, SOMEONE ELSE will.
--PM
are you really this fucking retarded?
You have just invented a new smilie for flying car... ^H^ 20 years from now someone will publish an article on the first use of this smilie and it's YOU!
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
There is no radar technology that can sort out that many targets
Not neeed. No need for ground control.
There is no on board computer system that can manage that many "obstacles"
An iPhone is plenty sufficient.
There is no contingency plan for a area wide power failure taking down all the radar and ground computers.
They are not needed.
You hand wave away massive problems and assume into existence technology that simply does not exist
No, you assume we need to handle air-borne cars the same way we handle commercial jets. We don't.
Like I said, 2D space is way easier to deal with than 250 million aircraft in 3D space over cities
Nobody would ever have to handle any number of vehicles in that range. There is no need for ground control.
If you outlaw flying cars, only outlaws will have flying cars.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Not only do they have a long track record of reasonable, methodical engineering & development, Urban Aero has the *ONLY* design with promising practical characteristics, coupled with no showstopping requirements for "maybe in ten years" technologies.
THIS will be the first practical "flying car", if you must call it that.
Http://www.urbanaero.com
See you space cowboy
Don't worry, these guys are smokin' some good stuff! If they top the regs and safety issues it'll never be affordable to "the masses". A rich few? Maybe, But let's say they can make it affordable. The average driver is a danger to himself and others on the road. They want to turn these drivers loose in 3 dimensions with no roads? Then there is traffic. The movement would need to be automated and controlled by ATC or similar agency with the so called driver inputting the origin and destination. I'd love to have one, but until a miracle happens they will remain completely impracticable. The list of why not is endless, while the list of practicality is extremely short
Another pipe dream from Terrafugia. They said last year that their model the Transition was going to be in production by this year, but now they have pushed it out to 2016. They haven't mass produced the Transition yet, and now they come up with another fantasy concept? Unbelievable ...
Another pipe dream from Terrafugia. They said last year that their model the Transition was going to be in production by this year, but now they have pushed it out to 2016. They haven't mass produced the Transition yet, and now they come up with another fantasy concept? Unbelievable ...