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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.
...focused on finding news ways to cart rich people around.
Focus!!
Technically, if I were the programmer, I'd much rather write the software for controlling a flying car than one that drives on roads. Drone software's pretty much a solved problem since it's up, over, down and you have far fewer things that you need to actually detect. Not that I'd want the liability either way.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
You may need to explain 'pikey' to the general audience, here you go: https://www.urbandictionary.co...
On y va, qui mal y pense!
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.
---
*As opposed to a European helicopter (brought to you by hooked on phonics)
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The issue is that micromanaging multiple rotors is, relatively speaking, a solved problem and that's generally the drone use case that is considered 'solved' (translating a high level maneuver to the appropriate rotor actions). Cars do not have this as a challenge, rolling the car forward and turning it left and right is not something that requires a 'drive by wire' sort of system, so there isn't really that much of an analogous challenge
Autonomous drone navigation without a remote pilot is not a solved problem, much as it is not a solved problem for driving.
Even assuming there were some examples of autonomous drone deliveries for small packages, the problem is the amount of damage a 10lb drone with payload can inflict accidentally is different than something weighing several hundred pounds. Additionally the speed is going to be different, drone deliveries are not generally looking to move at hundreds of miles an hour (can be patient, no human passenger, the benefit is mainly skipping circuitous road defined paths). So on top of being heavier, they would be wanting to move probably an order of magnitude faster, generally.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If it doesn't have wheels and drive on a road, it's not a car, flying or otherwise.
Easier to program for when your moving one per day, or no more than one per hour. An absolute nightmare when your margin of error is 24 seconds, and the vehicles are aged more than two years.
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.
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
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.
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.
However with drone programming, you are dealing with physics and weather, and often a relatively large room for error. Vs. a car where you need to deal with people, weather and a small room for error.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There is only one way to 'Urban Dictionary'. Drunk enough that one more shuts down your long term memory, with a five shot drink already poured.
So you can 'unread' via blackout.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
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...
Based on this, looks like they have a working prototype.
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.
10 years federal time.
Put two servos and some control surfaces in/on an Estes rocket, no warhead, only keeps it pointed straight up...ten years federal time for building a guided missile. Same charge as an unlicensed machine gun.
Put a tiny explosive on any RC plane, same charge. Possession, 10 years.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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
Put two servos and some control surfaces in/on an Estes rocket, no warhead, only keeps it pointed straight up...ten years federal time for building a guided missile.
Link to the court cases and subsequent sentencing under this law. I'll wait until then to be outraged.
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.
the amount of damage a 10lb drone with payload can inflict accidentally is different
Were you implying that a 10lb projectile traveling at ~50mph is not significant? FYI that'll kill anyone it comes into contact with, with plenty of leeway to smash through things like car windshields in the process.
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.
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.
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.
In wikipedia, as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Pikey" or "pikie" is a slang term, which is pejorative and considered by many to be a slur. It is used mainly in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales[1][2] to refer to people who are of the Traveller Community. In a pejorative sense it means "a lower-class person", perhaps 'coarse' or 'disreputable'. It is not well received among Irish Travellers or Romani, as it is considered an ethnic slur.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
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.
In recent cases, they haven't even let them finish. They got charged with 'conspiracy to commit terrorism' or some such (not a lawyer). You can do your own search.
I'm not even looking for outrage. It's common knowledge in the RC/amatuer rocketry community that you can become a felon with one stupid decision, they're watching the kids. Lots of 'drone people' seem to lack this knowledge.
Hold my beer and watch this. Ha ha funny...what...ATF is here?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You can do your own search.
Nope, that's not how it works. When you make outrageous claims the burden of proof is on you.
In recent cases, they haven't even let them finish. They got charged with 'conspiracy to commit terrorism'
And let's be clear. You are claiming that there are real cases where model rocket hobbyists were what, sent to Guantanamo without a trial, because they put a servo in their rocket for the purpose of stabilizing a directly vertical flight path.
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.