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Uber Shows Its Flying Car Prototype (cnbc.com)
Uber has unveiled its "flying car" concept aircraft at its second annual Uber Elevate Summit, which showcases prototypes for its fleet of airborne taxis. From a report: The flying cars, which the company hopes to introduce to riders in two to five years, will conduct vertical takeoffs and landings from skyports, air stations on rooftops or the ground. Ultimately, company officials say these skyports will be equipped to handle 200 takeoffs and landings an hour, or one every 24 seconds. At first, the flying cars will be piloted, but the company aims for the aircraft to fly autonomously. The prototypes look more like drones than helicopters, with four rotors on wings. Company officials say that will make them safer than choppers, which operate on one rotor. They'll fly 1,000 to 2,000 feet above ground and will be quieter than a helicopter, producing half the noise of a truck driving past a house.
Apparently in 2018 a prototype is a 1:100 scale model and a badly rendered CGI video.
Cool! A flying car that will fly into people and other vehicles over because Uber’s software will think it’s an object to ignore.
I mean only half the noise of a truck every 24 seconds. That's more than tolerable.
Uber Shows Its Flying Car Prototype
Isn't it enough that I have to worry about people dinging my car in parking lots, some damn pikey stealing it or some dingus ramming my car in traffic because he was too busy texting to mind where he was driving? ... now there is also the distinct possibility that some bozo may actually crash his damn car into my living room through the roof of my house? I'm starting a new FOSS project, I'm calling it: "Open Source Surface to Air Missile".
...focused on finding news ways to cart rich people around.
As they where unable to make a self driving car that does not kill people, a flying car might be just what they want. And perhaps the FAA is a lot easier to deal with to bend the rules.
(That was a bit sarcastic. Sorry, not sorry.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Uber isn't fooling anyone.
Focus!!
I wonder what the insurance rates will be after the 50 crash into traffic or houses.
People keep shooting for complete automation when all that's needed really (in flight) is a system that will reliably get you off the ground, back on the ground and hold a course while staying in communication with ATC if necessary and avoid other aircraft and controlled airspace.
Make no mistake, a, "Flying car", is an aircraft first and car second. Putting someone with no flying experience in this kind of vehicle is a bad idea all the way around.
You can make it automated enough that learning it would be something like getting a different class driver's license, but expecting to get grandma one of these to take her to the picnic is a really bad idea.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
This is no flying car, it's a glorified helicopter with some bits of an aircraft tacked on. A flying car this is not.
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*As opposed to a European helicopter (brought to you by hooked on phonics)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
If it doesn't have wheels and drive on a road, it's not a car, flying or otherwise.
Uber has unveiled its "flying car" concept aircraft at its second annual Uber Elevate Summit, which showcases prototypes for its fleet of airborne taxis.
A flying car is not the same thing as an air taxi. A flying car is a road going car that can also get airborne. An air taxi is an aircraft which is used to taxi people between airports/heliports. This is the later. It has no ability to traverse roads and therefore is not a car. You could in principle use a flying car as a taxi but since flying cars are not practical because... physics, it's a moot issue.
Can we please drop the idiotic notion of a flying car? Unless someone invents something equivalent to Tony Stark's arc reactor it will not be possible to have a flying car that is anything more than a fragile toy. No power source we possess or are in any danger of developing has sufficient power to weight ratio to change this fact. Flying cars are a stupid idea for a lot of reasons but this one fact alone is sufficient to demonstrate that fact.
Frankly if I was an Uber investor (I'm not) I'd be pissed they are wasting money on this sort of stupid stuff when they are losing money at a breathtaking clip with no signs of stopping or obvious path to profiability.
Why limit themselves to running people down on a plane?
It's not a car; it doesn't (and can't) meet national or state highway safety requirements. It's not an airplane; it doesn't meet FAA airworthiness specifications. Basically, it's a tool to bilk investors of cash. The flying car is a beautiful dream of Moeller's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Moller, but physics is a bitch, and she wins.
What a bigly future for all the USAamericans!
autopilot == death from above.... ?
we don't need any faa certification or software testing.
I find this very frustrating as well, but the genie is out of the bottle. People will carry on calling these ridiculous contraptions flying cars regardless. And, yes, short of a breakthrough in power generation technology, probably preceded by a bigger one in fundamental physics, the flying cars that we have in mind will indefinitely and stubbornly remain in the realm of science-fiction.
Ever seen a quad-rotor drone have one of it's rotors fail? Gravity takes over pretty quickly. I'd feel a lot better taking a ride in one of these things if they were hexa or octa rotor systems, but maybe that's what they will morph into if they ever get to a production stage.
mv^2/2 + mgh > mv^2/2
Ultimately, company officials say these skyports will be equipped to handle 200 takeoffs and landings an hour, or one every 24 seconds.
I think I'll hold off on the celebration until Uber figures out basic math. That's kind of important for solid engineering.
No more need be said.
just wait for hackers to do 9/11 2.0 where they start all crashing in buildings and if an auto uber does damage to one they and all of there subcontractors will get sued big time.
There are sooo many reasons why Uber is out of their minds with this "pie in the sky" idea.
First off, as others pointed out, this isn't a car. No way it's going to take to the roads.
Second, if they thought the rules for driving where complex and exacting, the rules for flying are more so.
Third, automating a passenger carrying flying machine with sufficient fail safes to satisfy the FAA is going to be a seriously expensive project that's going to take YEARS of work just to document and get a whole bunch of laws and regulations changed to allow.
Fourth, you will need a horde of A&P certified mechanics to maintain these flying machines and do the required safety checks within the required time frames. These guys and gals don't come cheap and the local auto shop won't be good enough.
Finally, finding pilots who are qualified to fly passengers around for money in a helicopter is going to be very expensive. We have a grave pilot shortage in this country now, and given the costs and time frames required to move new pilots though the training, Uber doesn't have a snowballs chance of hiring enough pilots for even a small fleet of these things.
I conclude that Uber is dreaming. This is nothing more than pie in the sky pipe dreams by idiots who have no clue how they are going to do this. Dream on boys, let me know when you have a business plan I can laugh at.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This looks very similar to Tesla's renderings of a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle.
Now if they both control it autonomously AND power it wirelessly as he envisioned.
If you ever think you have a new invention, Tesla probably already invented it... who knows what stuff he had in his 80 trunks full of notebooks.
You only need that if it is a plane and this isn't. (Most likely to be Ubers defense). Also not flying actually, it is moving on a not-ground surface. So no need to follow the FAA.
And the people who are to work for us are not slaves, they are forced volunteers. (Oh wait, that is not yet publicly know as a business plan yet)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Innovation!
In my country we have 3600 seconds every hour. 3600 / 200 = 18 seconds, which will be impressive if they manage. Even 150 take-off and landings every hour, i.e. one every 24 seconds is impressive.
Taxis pick people up where they are, and drop them where they want to go.
Buses pick people up from bus stations and drop them off at bus stations.
So, not a taxi; but I guess "AirBus" is already taken, so...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Boring, Uber. I want a drone-style, that's been around since the 70s. Looks kind of like a Jetsons car but with 8 mini turbo props around it.
This folding-wing BS is stupid and requires runways everywhere. Best to just fly up and land.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"Half the noise of a truck driving past a house." In other words, godawful noisy.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Gravel + Powerful Fan = Fun Times.
One of the key reasons great business ideas die is due to research. Either prior art or market was never fully understood. There are reasons for baby steps.
I realize this is sarcasm (and well done at that), but the FAA has a clear definition of "flying". To be flying, one must rise out of ground effect. Generally, that will be at around one wingspan, or about 20 ft, for a vehicle of this size.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
It's not a flying car. It's not an air taxi.
It's a bilking machine, designed solely to separate investors from their money
Unless, perhaps, Hanlon's razor applies, and this is the product of starry-eyed app developers who think you can just scale up a Chinese quadcopter to a flight qualified passenger-carrying aircraft
Technically, if I were the programmer, I'd much rather write the software for controlling a flying car than one that drives on roads.
No you wouldn't. In the air is generally easier but have fun with the landing and taking off portion of the program. Especially if you plan on landing somewhere that is not an airport. Get this wrong and you destroy a building or kill some people.
Of course since flying cars are science fiction it's something of a moot point.
Will house insurance go up with these things?
Fewer pedestrians to hit in the sky. They might just succeed with this one.
Let's make sure that Uber doesn't identify Santa as a bearded homeless guy with a shopping cart.
The video appears to show macro shots of a drone-sized mock-up (I guess to make it look full-sized?), plus a bunch of renders. You can't just show footage from Avatar, then make a bunch of assertions about what your pricing for that is going to be! Maybe they hired the flat-earth steam-rocket guy onto their marketing team?
But I liked the render of flying 2,000 feet above traffic ... it's not like that traffic surrounding the launch facility will be at all relevant to getting to the launch facility...
https://patents.google.com/pat...
> Frankly if I was an Uber investor (I'm not) I'd be pissed they are wasting money on this sort of stupid stuff when they are losing money at a breathtaking clip with no signs of stopping or obvious path to profiability.
This is why I am not an Uber investor. That and they make Google look ethical.
Based on this, looks like they have a working prototype.
However, if I can humbly suggest a name: Kamikaze McKamikaze face
So, 2'000 feet high is barely sufficient for a parachute. Thanks.
Multiple rotors are safer than a single rotor? On which planet? Not this one. Multiple anything tends to be far less reliable than a single focus, especially with machines and even more-so with limited resources -- like weight and fuel. But also, I've yet to meet a drone with four rotors that can do anything but crash when one rotor fails. Thanks.
Trucks certainly drive past my house, but "rarely". Residential street, ~500 homes. How many big deliveries are there? Under a flight-path, I don't want half-a-truck every 24 seconds. Thanks.
A flying car is a road going car that can also get airborne
Whatever. "Flying Car" only sometimes means an automobile that can somehow fly. More often it's an appealing shorthand that describes a vehicle that can fly and is as easy to operate (in some sense) as a car. You get in, you turn the key, and fly to work. Maybe you can park it in your driveway or backyard. Yes, there have been attempts to make road-worthy automobiles that can somehow transform into airplanes, but that's not what always what people mean with they say "flying car".
A flying vehicle that can be stored in a small garage or parking structure.
The key being a flying vehicle that operates in urban areas and does not need an airport.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Given that it has taken some GA aircraft manufacturers a decade to go from "idea" to type certified aircraft, I don't see how Uber--who has absolutely zero track record in the airplane business--will manage to get something that is legal to fly in such a short period of time. Worse for them, the FAA is a fairly conservative bunch who are very safety focused, which means Uber may find themselves (as the new kid on the block) facing a whole bunch of questions about the new aircraft's safety, including safety in the event of a partial engine failure. And since they plan to use this vehicle almost exclusively for commercial transport, they may find themselves facing even more stringent requirements than you normally see with stuff flown by part 91 pilots.
And unmanned aircraft? You know, the first phone selfie video of someone in one of Uber's aircraft as it plummets to the ground (taking several minutes if Uber's self-flying aircraft is in the 8,000-9,000 altitude range) will pretty much destroy Uber in lawsuits.
Yeah... like I'm going to get into any transportation method that leaves the ground from a company whose business model depends on avoiding legal responsibility for anything that happens on the trip.
Ha! Its all about noise.
I don't want half a truck driving by, overhead, 200 times an hour.
If you go UP it is because a lot of air goes DOWN, noisily. Even with a perfect zero noise propeller, the sheer volume of air is going to mean a lot of noise, and good luck with that zero noise propeller.
Till they perfect anti-gravity() VTOL will be too noisy for common commuter use from even neighborhood Vports. Yea, every 24 seconds, sure. NIMBY
cars were originally called "horseless carriages"--so be patient, vocabulary will catch up.
And...I'm not aware of any physics that prevents making a flying car. What's the power-to-weight issue? Planes are pretty heavy and they manage to get off the ground. It's somewhat harder to make a plane that's also street-legal, but I don't think there's any new physics required.
It'll happen.
If the world listened to /. then all sorts of modern technology wouldn't exist. We wouldn't have rockets that could land upright or electric cars with 250+ mile range or [frankly] smartphones.
In many ways it is easier to make a pilot-less plane than it is to make a driver-less car, and there are plenty of smart people working on both. They are both going to happen.
A flying car is not the same thing as an air taxi. A flying car is a road going car that can also get airborne.
Can we please drop the idiotic notion of a flying car?
Good luck with that.
Well you're at it, can you get the word "drone" to stop being used for quad copters?
How about "robot" being used for rc cars?
And...I'm not aware of any physics that prevents making a flying car. What's the power-to-weight issue? Planes are pretty heavy and they manage to get off the ground.
More importantly, and relevant to this contraption, this isn't a flying car. It's a glorified quad copter.
AFAICT, they could swap it out with a real helicopter (or autogyro, since they're easier to control), add the autonomous control bits, and that would make a working proof of concept. The only thing about that which doesn't fit the hype is the price and red tape.
Their flying car not only has to work and be safe and autonomous and pass all the regulations and such, but it also has to be significantly more efficient than existing forms of air travel to come in within budget. The video of this thing uber is making seems to have a wing; maybe that'll help reach that goal? That said, I wish they'd try to retrofit the smarts into something that already works with people.
Wondering how that is going to work out for Uber.
"Ubuntu Shows Its Flying Car Prototype"
Which would be finalized and released exactly two years after it had a chance of being profitable or gain any appreciable Market Share.
You know, like Ubuntu Phone...
(sorry, a bit bitter about that. I actually wanted one).
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
We're going back to two thousand and fucking fifteen.
Now women can hail an Uber and join the Mile High Club. Whether they want to or not...
I'm excited to see R&D on flying cars, but I'm saddened that it's Uber doing it. I don't trust this company. They are far too willing to engage in unethical behavior to get the benefit of doubt.
And...I'm not aware of any physics that prevents making a flying car. What's the power-to-weight issue?
You need to go study some physics. That sounds ruder than I really mean it to be but if you don't understand that point and the physics involved then you can't really have a meaningful conversation about this topic. Anything that moves but especially anything that flies is all about thrust (power) to weight even to just get off the ground much less to do anything useful.
Planes are pretty heavy and they manage to get off the ground.
Actually planes are very light and compared to cars they are (comparatively) incredibly flimsy out of necessity. To get something off the ground it has to be engineered to be very light and to do something useful it has to be lighter still. Let's use an analogy. This is why birds have extremely light skeletons. Even a large bird like a Red Tailed Hawk only weighs something like 2kg fully grown. If they had a skeleton as dense as ours they couldn't get off the ground. The tradeoff is that birds are rather fragile and cannot handle stresses that land animals would find routine without breaking. Same deal with planes. Every extra bit of weight reduces the performance and utility of the plane.
For any given amount of thrust a plane can generate there is a weight budget. The more useful cargo and robust (heavy) hardware you want to put into a plane or the faster you want it to travel the lighter the power plant on that plane needs to be for a given amount of thrust. To make a useful flying car you (something with actual utility and reasonable safety) you would need a power source with a VASTLY greater power to weight ratio than any technology we have today. Look at any picture of existing flying cars and you'll note that they are terrible as aircraft and worse as cars. Too many tradeoffs required and virtually all of these have to do with the inflexible physics of thrust (power) to weight ratios.
It's somewhat harder to make a plane that's also street-legal, but I don't think there's any new physics required.
They've made flying cars already. But you can't use them for anything practical and you wouldn't want to be in one if it was in a collision with your family sedan. Even a small dent can render them unsafe to fly and you have to lug around large heavy wings that have zero utility on the ground and in the air you have to have over build suspensions and steering systems to make it road worthy. The reason for this state of affairs is because the power plant (typically a turbine or internal combustion engine) technology we have is so heavy that you have to make everything else very light (and by extension flimsy) to even get the vehicle off the ground. You sacrifice everything useful about the "flying car" to make it fly. We have no technology currently available to us to lighten the power source anywhere close to enough to make a flying car that is anything more than an impractical toy. This one bit of physics alone makes "flying cars" literally impossible as a practical reality.
Then there are issues with infrastructure, piloting, safety, economics, and a lot more that all team up to make flying cars go from being a dumb idea to being an insanely stupid one. The economics alone are enough to doom flying cars if you spend half a moment thinking about them.
Boom!
Honestly this is the stupidest thing ever. Clearly we have a case of someone who's recently watched Bladerunner 2049 and has too much time and money in their budget.
One of the most fuel efficient 4 seat helicopters existing today is the Robinson R-44, burning 15 gallons of fuel an hour. We all know Uber is made of magic pixie dust, so let's assume they use that technology to make their more inefficient quad rotor to burn only 10 gallons/hour. Aviation fuel is around $5 per gallon on average, let's assume they get an extreme discount for bulk purchase and get that down to $3 per gallon. That's $30/hour in fuel alone.
Aircraft in commercial use require an inspection every 100 hours of use. This is not going to be cheap, but lets assume the magic pixie dust again at $300 per inspection, or $3 per hour.
Also, let's also assume their magic engines don't need overhaul ever. Or any serious maintenance to the airframe. Let's also assume they cost $100,000 (4 times cheaper than a Cessna 172) and last 10,000 hours before needing replacement. That's another $10 per hour.
Let's go ahead and assume they also can get a desperate commercial helicopter pilot to work for minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Under these assumptions, it would cost just over $50 per hour to fly the proposed air taxi.
UberX, which they're claiming to be price equivalent to, charges about $0.15 per minute, or $9 per hour.
If you bend reality, count on desperation and invoke a lot of magic to get a best case scenario, they'd have losses 4.5 times their revenue.
Obviously power to weight ratio *matters*. The question is whether there's some unsolvable physics reason that someone can't make a street-legal airplane. You gave a lot of reasons of why it's a difficult engineering problem, but no reasons of why it's precluded by physics. The short answer is: "it isn't".
Obviously power to weight ratio *matters*. The question is whether there's some unsolvable physics reason that someone can't make a street-legal airplane
If your only goal is to make a vehicle that is both street legal and can fly, that has already been done. If your goal is have one that is actually useful for much of anything beyond driving on a road (carefully) and flying (poorly) you need a power source that is FAR more compact and light than any technology available to us today or even anything reasonably plausible in the near future. Until you understand this point this further discussion on this topic is pointless.
You gave a lot of reasons of why it's a difficult engineering problem, but no reasons of why it's precluded by physics.
That is argument from ignorance in the sense of Russell's teapot. You are claiming because we haven't proved it impossible that it therefore must be possible. Engineering is applied physics. We know of no physics that would allow us to engineer a power supply small enough yet powerful enough to make a useful flying car. Not even in theory unless you want to invoke science fiction level advances in our technology in the near future. Even the most compact nuclear power sources are FAR too large and heavy (not to mention dangerous) and we have no known way to make them sufficiently small and light for this application. That's not to say we will never have a breakthrough someday but it will take a game changing scientific/engineering breakthrough to make this possible and we have no realistic known path to such a state of affairs currently.