A Production-Ready Flying Car Is Coming This Month

cartechboy writes It's 2014. Where the heck are our flying cars? We were promised flying cars. We should be living like The Jetsons, right? Well, we aren't, but we are about to take one step closer: a production-ready flying car is debuting this month. Slovakia's Aeromobil is planning to unveil its "Flying Roadster" at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna, Austria on October 29. The latest iteration is called the Aeromobil 3.0, and work on it dates back to 1990. The Aeromobil 2.5 prototype made its first flight about a year ago. The Aeromobil transforms from plane to car by folding its wings behind the cockpit. Supposedly, the Aerobmoil will fit in a standard parking spot and run on pump gas. In less than a month, our dreams could become a reality.

Comments

You mean our nightmare could become a reality

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you don't drive much, its already too scary with cars on the ground. Can you imagine some of these idiots flying around? The horrendous crashes? Care to think about what it would be like when someone careens into the top floor of an office building and explodes into a fireball? Thankfully flying tech has not progressed to reality.

Re:You mean our nightmare could become a reality

[FreeRadicalX]

Actually it prevents a shit ton of crashes.

Seen this before.

[rmdingler]

It looks kind of like your average multipurpose tool.

Sure, it does both both things.

Just not as good as individual tools it replaces.

Perhaps misnamed

[MouseR]

This isn't so much of a flying car as it is a drivable plane.

Re:Perhaps misnamed

[wvmarle]

The linked video shows that while it looks more plane than car, it has much more car-properties than plane-properties.

It flies, but it doesn't look very stable when in the air, and it is only shown flying low above a runway. As this is a promo video, this means to me that this is the best they can do, and that they're not able to fly it above more interesting landscapes - be it due to licensing, or capabilities, or other reasons.

Still decades away from Hollywood "flying cars."

[Anonymous Coward]

This concept is just "roadable aircraft" - basically light planes you drive to and from an airport. And even if the FAA allowed you to takeoff and land on roads, that would be totally impractical since the roads aren't designed for it. Nor would it be safe for human pilots to land in and takeoff from other traffic. So we'll need (1)robocars, (2)redesign of the roads to allow takeoff and landing in some parts, (3)a radical overhaul of the regulatory and air traffic control system to accommodate a drastic expansion in low-altitude air travel directly over cities, and (4)changes to the licensing process for both aircraft and ground cars so that drivers/pilots can deal with the intersection of the two modes. I don't see much motivation for such a radical change, so it'll have to happen excruciatingly slowly.

Pipe Dreams

[Frosty Piss]

Bet you'll not see this in the US any time soon. I wonder what its crash test ratings would look like.

It could be licensed like an experimental aircraft.

But... "I'll believe it when I see it."

Folks, we have heard this before, and "flying cars" have been around since the 50's. It's not practical in any sense of the word. Blade Runner is a fantasy that will not be realized for many, many years. It this point in time, "flying cars" solve no problems and create man oth

No. Just no.

[Frosty Piss]

A Production-Ready Flying Car Is Coming This Month

No.

Slovakia's Aeromobil has planning to unveil its "Flying Roadster" at the Pioneers Festival in Vianna, Austria on October 29.

They will unvailed a prototype .

I think it's a power and propulsion issue

[swb]

Helicopter-like flight is the right idea, but I think it's a power and propulsion problem. Helicopters are hideously mechanical and have maintenance schedules that would scare even a Ferrari owner.

I think you do need helicopter-like flight -- vertical takeoff and landing, forward and backward flight, side-side flight, etc. No flying car concept would seem to work without these. If you could get this in some kind of package that would work on a car the size of a full-size sedan, you'd only need the advanced aviononics that let you program in a desintation it will fly you to, avoiding all hazards.

Maybe they could have some kind of guided manual mode where you could fly it wherever you wanted but a set of safety and guidance systems kept it from crashing into objects or other cars (probably with active coordination with other cars) as well as obeying specific flight rules (height, speed, etc). Something like the go carts at an amusement park where you can "drive" within a set of constraints but without the restriction of a fixed course.

But the guidance and safety seem trivial next to the propulsion system that gives you six degrees of freedom in the size of a sedan.

Re:What's wrong with helicopters?

[jcr]

if I could ride somewhere in this thing, get out of it and have it fly off and park itself elsewhere, then fine.

Exactly.

Flying cars need to be fully robotic to catch on. If they can be safely used by a child or a drunk, and they can navigate by themselves to pick people up, drop them off, and park somewhere, then their advantages over ground cars become compelling.

-jcr