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Terrafugia Wants Their Flying Car To Be Autonomous
Lucas123 writes "Terrafugia, a company that has been working on flying car prototypes for years, said it is now leaning toward an autonomous vehicle for safety reasons. Carl Dietrich, co-founder, CEO and CTO at Terrafugia, said at MIT last weekend that the company wants to build something that is statistically safer than driving a car. 'It needs to be faster than driving a car. It needs to be simpler to operate than a plane. It needs to be more convenient than driving a car today. It needs to be sustainable in the long run,' he said. The company's flyable car is designed with foldable wings and falls into the light sport aircraft category. It's expected to take off and land at small, local airports and to drive on virtually any road. Dietrich said the next-generation flying car is a four-seat, plug-in hybrid that doesn't require the operator to be a full-fledged pilot. A spokeswoman said today that the company is probably two years away from production."
2 years from production and 10 years before the regulators first begin to think about permitting what will be essentially a drone with passengers.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Can we PLEASE not fill the sky with autonomous airplanes full of people who no clue how to fly airplanes when (not if) something goes wrong?
The only vehicle in which I trust is one that does not have freedom of movement like a train. I do not trust anything more complex than that without constant human supervision.
What are poor drivers, exactly?
Why, anyone who doesn't drive like you.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The future is upon us after all.
Flying Car implies it works like a car while it's flying.
Okay seriously... I've yet to see a few dozen of the _current_ Terrafugia flying cars roll off a production assembly line (or is it fly?) and here we go chatting about a four-seat plug-in hybrid that doesn't require the pilot to be a be a "full-fledged pilot"? Really? How about actually building and selling something more than a prototype before leaping on the "next-generation" bandwagon already?
Mr. Deitrich - we're not even close to having something with a power-to-weight ratio in battery storage to get anything but a giant carbon-fiber glider out of ground-effect for any length of time and you have a spokesperson saying something about being only two years away from production?
Okay, where is he? No really. Is Moller and his Skycar hiding in the weeds someplace behind this company?
Also, I would think that someone with the money to pull off buying even a low-rider existing Terrafugia prototype - won't have issues learning how to be a "full-fledged pilot". I say this only because I am considering what the monstrous price-tag would be for a semi-autonomous electric-hybrid aircraft capable of carrying four people and having a range of anything beyond running a touch-and-go pattern even once at the airport. That being on top of how long it would take the FAA to approve that kind of vehicle.
Tilt rotor hybrid for the public? LOL! Yep. I hear we've got a huge shipment of unobtainium coming from Pandora to help in its construction. And as soon as I finish my distillation of my current batch of impossibilium for powering its Infinite Improbability Drive - we're set! Only two years away!
What amazing times we live in!
(tongue planted firmly in my cheek while Terrafugia's head is planted firmly in their ass. Hopefully they have a clear acrylic stomach lining so they can see where they're going)
Apologies in advance for my dour attitude. I put Terrafugia, Moller and any production "flying car" right up there with next generation solar cells cheap enough for everyone and super carbon-nanotube batteries with enormous energy densities being available.
Oh wait! No... False alarm... No monkeys flying out of my ass yet... I guess I'll have breakfast and carry on with my day... :(
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
Howsabout FUCK NO!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They want their flying car to be completely autonomous. I want their flying car to be released to the public in a completed state, period. And the five dozen other "flying cars" while we're at it that are sitting in development hell because the FAA will not approve them for use. Ever.
I suspect we are both equally likely to get what we want!
It won't happen though.
I see they got their priorities right....
When designing a flying car, my top priority would be to make an actual flying car first, then make it autonomous.
But then again... I'm not designing a flying car.
It will ship with the latest copy of Duke Nukem on the console, when they are in production in "2" years.
I hate it when emerging technophiles try to take on too large of a problem... I hate it even more when they try to garner buzz by taking on two. Might as well 3d print it, give it high powers lazer beams and next gen batteries while you're at it.
> autonomous
I do believe that's been the plan for 70 uears now. Also, a hex or octo rotor thing so several engines can go out and it still make a safe landing.
Let's get a move on.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I remember an Arthur C. Clarke story which had in its background a late-era human society (Rescue Party, I think). They had become the ultimate commuter society because conventional automobiles had been replaced by medium-range, personal aircraft that could conveniently travel to any business, home, etc. without needing as much road infrastructure, and which let you build a house up a mountain or in a forest clearing that was as accessible as one on a razed plain. They weren't flying cars, though. They were helicopters.
I think the flying car's problem is that they're working on a particular solution (essentially a driveable plane), rather than working on meeting a particular need (personal aircraft).
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Flying cars will not happen when power-plants get powerful enough, or efficient enough, or reliable enough.
Flying cars will not happen when the FAA comes up with rules to regulate vehicles that are both airworthy and road-worthy.
Flying cars most emphatically will not happen when flying-car startups courting venture capital say they'll happen.
Nope. Flying cars will happen when drones have become ubiquitous enough, trusted enough, and large enough that people start to say, "Hey! If I can hire a drone to carry 250 pounds of cargo across the state for fifty bucks, knowing that it'll show up within 30 minutes, make the trip in an hour, and have less than a one-in-a-million chance of dropping it along the way -- why can't I hire it to carry ME?"
Announcement after take off on a commercial fight:
"Welcome aboard ladies and gentlemen for our flight to Chicago." (continues to discuss the flight altitude, weather in Chicago etc.)
"And one final announcement before you sit back and enjoy your flight. This airline believes in advanced technology and we are pleased to tell you that you are on the FIRST fully automated commercial flight to fly without pilots. We have thought of every eventuality and have programmed the autopilot to deal with each and every one. Please don't worry... Nothing Can go wrong....
(click) Go wrong.....
(click) Go Wrong...... "
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
*facepalm* This guy is saying the painfully obvious without talking about how to make it happen. It's like saying "What the world needs is a Star Trek transporter that's as easy to use as a phone booth."
Someone needs to watch these two videos to see why we need a human in the loop...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
That was a really insightful argument. I particularly like your cited evidence and well-thought out conclusion. Thanks for making slashdot great!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
If this is going to work in big cities, then machine control will probably be a necessity. Manual control would be too risky in crowded skies.
All that wasted sky above and cars are stuck in a 2D log-jam, why the hell not?
Table-ized A.I.
I'm moving to the outback. Or Antarctica.
Cars kill hundreds of thousands every year! Ten of thousands in developed countries alone! They injure millions!
And they usually don't plummet to the ground in the process...
I can easily assess whether I'm at risk of being injured in a car accident, because it involves being on or near a road.
So if your autonomous car isn't, AT THE VERY LEAST, 10x MORE reliable than AIRPLANES (already the safest way to travel horizontally), I don't want my government to allow them.
Did I mention you have to ground the thing automatically is maintenance hasn't been done? I see the junk cars driving around, no thanks!
Howsabout this.
I don't trust automobiles enough to give up control of them when they only have to deal with two dimensions of travel.
Adding a third dimension of travel is pretty much right outta there.
You could say it adds yet another "dimension" to my distrust.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I've lost count of the number of flying car designs I've seen over the years. It's always seemed a good idea on the surface, but almost no one buys them. Is there a reason to believe this will be different? Other than a "smoke and mirrors" or "whisling in the dark" answer.
That's two years from production on the current prototype, not the autonomous hybrid 4 seater. You have to read the base article, not the synopses.
How about F YES?
Autonomous is about the only sensible way we can implement "flying cars". And it's probably, realistically, the case that the only way we can implement autonomous cars is if they're flying (short of us building out a national grade separated tracked road network that joins every building in the country)
As someone who hates driving, and hates being forced to drive, and knows damned well the chances of us getting a decent zoning system in most of the US so people can actually live in places well served with transit are minimal, I see flying autonomous cars as the next best thing.
Of course, it's almost equally unlikely to happen.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I see dead and maimed people and lawyers making a good living off lawsuits for the 'autonomous flying car'
That third dimension adds extra layers of safety. In 2D, you have to veer left or right to dodge an obstacle. In 3D, you also have up and down, or any combination thereof, and you can start off flying at a level where there are very few obstacles to begin with.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Two points of clarification for the Slashdot community: 1) Terrafugia's first product, the Transition, is expected to hit the market in 2016 -- about two years from now. It is NOT autonomous. It is a single engine piston aircraft that can fold up its wings in less than 60 seconds, legally drive on roads and highways, and park in a single car garage. Our customers value the additional freedom and flexibility it provides them compared to "normal" aircraft, but you still must become at least a sport pilot in order to legally operate the Transition. 2) Terrafugia's TF-X is a product that is in the conceptual design stage (it is where the Transition was back in 2006). It is probably 8-12 years from market. The timeline will be significantly affected by how quickly the FAA adopts new ASTM standards for electric propulsion and fly-by-wire technologies for general aviation aircraft. TF-X will include a high level of human directed local autonomy (HDLA), but it is NOT totally autonomous. The operator is needed to make key high level decisions at critical phases of flight (e.g. is it safe to take-off? Is it safe to land here?). The operator is not cargo. They have the responsibility and authority for the safe operation of the vehicle. But TF-X allows it to be much easier to safely operate the vehicle by eliminating the need for traditional "pilot skills" like flight planning, memorizing cloud-clearance and visibility requirements in different classes of airspace, and traditional stick-and-rudder skills among other things. Our contention is that a system that relies on computers for nitty-gritty things that change very little, and the human to deal with things that could change dramatically (e.g. abort decisions and/or emergency scenarios) will result in a much safer, more robust overall system. Statistically speaking, Loss Of Control (LOC) is the leading cause of fatal accidents in general aviation -- not a failure of the aircraft, but a failure of the pilot to maintain sufficiently low angle of attack during normal operations -- often on approach to landing -- a problem that could be directly addressed with full envelope protection enabled by new fly-by-wire technologies that incorporate this high degree of human directed local autonomy. With this type of system, it is possible to make flying personal aircraft significantly easier and safer. That is what we are trying to do: make personal aviation useful for a much larger segment of the population. It's not an easy problem, but it's one with huge potential pay off (which is why there have been so many attempts in the past). It is unfortunate that the important subtleties of my talk at the MIT Tech Conference on Saturday did not get through to the original author of the story and that the critical difference between a fully autonomous aircraft and our TF-X concept is difficult to discern. For those who care about Terrafugia's efforts to make a practical flying car, I hope this comment is helpful. Check out www.terrafugia.com for more info. -Carl
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That makes more sense.
Nevertheless, the idea of a roadable airplane is not going to work. Driving any significant distance on the road, especially when the weather is bad, will be too risky. Because a simple 'fender bender' or parking lot door ding, or gravel hit would require air worthiness inspections and $$K repairs. I love flying, but I do not believe you can make a practical roadable car.
That third dimension also adds two NEW vectors that have to be constantly monitored.
Remember, it's not as if only you and a potential obstacle are going to be the only things in the sky.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is gag, right? Right??
That's a legitimate concern -- we turned it into a design challenge, and we think our design mitigates the concern sufficiently -- to the point where there is a large enough market to justify the investment. We also have confidence that our customers will be able to buy insurance for it.