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Photographer Glimpses Larry Page's Flying Car Hovering In California (Maybe) (siliconvalley.com)
From Hollister, California -- population 40,000 -- comes a good update from the Mercury News on Larry Page's efforts to fund a flying car:
Even from a few hundred yards away, the aircraft made a noise strikingly different from the roar of a typical plane. "It sounded like an electric motor running, just a high-pitched whine," said Steve Eggleston, assistant manager at an airplane-parts company with offices bordering the Hollister Municipal Airport tarmac. But it wasn't only the sound that caught the attention of Eggleston and his co-workers at DK Turbines. It was what the aircraft was doing. "What the heck's that?" saleswoman Brittany Rodriguez thought to herself. It's just hovering."
That, apparently, was a flying car, or perhaps a prototype of another sort of aircraft under development by a mysterious startup called Zee.Aero...one of two reportedly funded by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop revolutionary forms of transportation... A Zee.Aero spokeswoman said the firm is "currently not discussing (its) plans publicly." However, a Zee.Aero patent issued in 2013 describes in some detail an aircraft capable of the hovering seen by people working at the airport. And the drawings showcase a vision of the future in which flying cars park in lots just like their terrestrial, less-evolved cousins.
Page has invested $100 million in Zee.Aero, which appears to have hired more than 100 aerospace engineers. But the article reports that apparently, in the small town where it's headquartered, "the first rule about Zee.Aero is you don't talk about Zee.Aero."
That, apparently, was a flying car, or perhaps a prototype of another sort of aircraft under development by a mysterious startup called Zee.Aero...one of two reportedly funded by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop revolutionary forms of transportation... A Zee.Aero spokeswoman said the firm is "currently not discussing (its) plans publicly." However, a Zee.Aero patent issued in 2013 describes in some detail an aircraft capable of the hovering seen by people working at the airport. And the drawings showcase a vision of the future in which flying cars park in lots just like their terrestrial, less-evolved cousins.
Page has invested $100 million in Zee.Aero, which appears to have hired more than 100 aerospace engineers. But the article reports that apparently, in the small town where it's headquartered, "the first rule about Zee.Aero is you don't talk about Zee.Aero."
Why the fuck didn't this "photographer" take a picture of this "flying car"? Could it be the same reason cameras don't seem to work around UFOs and Bigfoot?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yep looks like a real flying plane to me... not a car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
So you do it with a local AI and sensors. Sorta like a self-driving car. Great. Let me know when it's bulletproof in a 2D environment and I'll consider the 3D version. Let's remember that a groundcar can reasonably be operated manually by most people. Letting untrained pilots fly higher than three feet off the ground will require the addition of a new category to the Darwin awards.
Too bad. I really wanted a flying car.
Just to view the video on that page?
What the fuck is wrong with modern web developers and their obsession on using tons cross-domain-unsecure-bloat just to render a simple page?
That was a waste of time, so I'm going to bitch about it. The modern web has become a really shitty browsing experience, so thanks for that all of you dorks that continue to produce these shitty websites; and thanks for also being responsible for mobile-sites that are 100x slower than the older desktop versions.
Avery Brooks is smiling.
#DeleteChrome
No, there's a lot more than providing an arcade experience involved. Thinking in three dimensions isn't quite as built-in to humans as you seem to think. Hell, half the drivers on the road can't handle thinking in flatland. What do you expect to happen in cubeland?
The simplest problem is also the hardest to solve: All it takes is one sudden cross breeze to make something in the air go splat against the nearest wall, wire, or other flying thing. A hovering, or slow moving, vehicle on a breezy day is a disaster looking for a place to happen.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
TFA says:
Americans collectively spending 8 billion hours a year stuck in traffic, (...) lifting off and cruising above snarled roadways has considerable appeal.
I suspect that Americans that have to drive to work during congested hours, will not be the ones that can afford a flying car.
It is a roadable aircraft. And it is not the first.
It is not the sci-fi type flying car since it can only take of and land on a suitable airstrip. So yes, it is a plane you can drive. I think it is mostly made for private pilots.
Legality is a problem because it has to be both street-legal and airworthy. The Terrafugia Transition did it by bending the rules a little. The airplane part is under the light sport aircraft rules but got an exemption because they couldn't meet the maximum weight criteria.