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Flying Car Crashes In British Columbia
First time accepted submitter vawarayer writes "An experimental car has crashed near a school in British Columbia, Canada. Only five cars like this have been produced. From the article: 'A release from the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) confirmed the flying car was "an American corporately registered I-Tech Maverick SP Powered Parachute" that had crashed.
The vehicle, known as "Maverick," uses a 100-metre runway to take off and flies under a parasail. But it also needs a 100-metre runway to make a safe landing.'"
Still waiting for my flying car..
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Compared with normal cars, you have 50% more directions you can crash into something and gravity weakly prefers one of them.
...is the Whomping Willow ok?
A quick google image search its just a motorized paraglider with a car body.. I've flew a friend's motorized paraglider about 15 years ago and it was pretty scary getting off the ground with the extra weight and higher than I was used to speeds.. Once in the air, it was still subject to gusts of wind deflating the wing.. There are many safer ways to fly for $94,000.. But... glad no one was seriously hurt...
What it mostly looks like is a car with a paragliding chute and a huge fan on the back.
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Naming your flying car "Parachute" suggests you expect it to fail and necessitate the use of a parachute. Kind of like Dodge Aries implies your 22 hp hunk of metal is intended to ram into things.
It is a streetable car, and it does fly. What was the specific complaint? That it doesn't look like you want one to look, and has more constraints on the flying cars you want? It's a powered paraglider contained within a car. You can drive the car to the runway and takeoff and fly. No, it's not the futuristic looking jet cars (like the Moller, 5 years away from approval/sale for 30 years now), but I fail to see how "flying car" doesn't apply.
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Yeah a flying car needs to be a functional replacement for the automobile. You need to be able to go to the groceries with it. Fly it to work. Fly the whole family on vacation. This is only useful for recreation.
If a meter is not equal to a metre, where are we going ? A liter not being equal to a litre ? A ton not being equal to a tonne ? A gallon not being equal to a gallon ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
The real solutions are better urban planning that pulls people out of the wasteful suburbs and public transportation.
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If a meter is not equal to a metre, where are we going ? A liter not being equal to a litre ? A ton not being equal to a tonne ? A gallon not being equal to a gallon ?
He demonstrated that an ass is the same as an arse.
It's a car that flies, so it's a flying car. Sorry if that doesn't satisfy your Jetsons dreams.
It's the 21st century!! Where is my flying car?
It's stuck in a tree, in British Columbia.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Actually, a ton is *not* equal to a tonne. A metric tonne, and an Imperial long ton are pretty close, by pure coincidence, but the long ton is about 1.5% larger. If you're talking short tons, which most Americans call simply, a "ton", then the metric tonne is over 10% bigger.
Then there's the mess with American vs. Imperial gallons. The gallon that the rest of the world uses (or at least, recognizes as a gallon) is over 20% larger than the American gallon. That's one of the reasons why people think American cars are so fuel hungry. It's not that they use more fuel, it's just that the measurement is screwed up, in a uniquely American way. It appears American cars use 20% more fuel than they actually do, simply because the American gallon is smaller than the rest-of-the-world gallon.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
What are the rules for found flying cars in trees? Same as model rockets/kites? Finders keepers, get it down in one piece and it's yours?
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Helicopters are
1. Hard to fly
2. Have a problematic requirement for a long tailboom with a torque countering thrust at the end of it
3. Or counter-rotating rotors with complex drive requirements
4. Have rotors that are long and ungainly and need to be stowed
5. Need large amounts of power to generate all required lift
Making one into a car means solving all those problems, AND adding all the safety equipment etc that is required for a modern car, AND still having it light enough to get off the ground safely.
Fixed wing, Gyrocopter, or Paraglider based machines are a much easier task than a helicopter based flying car, as evidenced by there being actual existing modern examples of all three (Terrafugia, PAL-V, Maverick), and no existing examples of a helicopter based one.
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If you're in Canada, Daily Planet carried this car earlier this month. They mentioned they were doing test flights.
OF course, you get to see a rather interesting takeoff int he clip. Alas, I think it's Canada only - not sure if the US Discovery channel has it on any of their channels (it's a Canadian production).
Guess we might see an update shortly.