'Flying Saucers' to Go On Sale Soon

gihan_ripper writes "Perhaps the ultimate nerd acquisition, the flying car, is to go on sale in a few months. Speaking to the BBC, the inventor Dr Paul Moller described his creation, dubbed the Flying Saucer, as a VTOL aircraft designed to hover at 10 ft. above the ground. The flying saucer has eight engines and is expected to sell for $90,000. Dr Moller expects to produce a successor within six years, a 'Skycar' capable of a climb rate of 6000 ft./min. and an airspeed of 400 mph."

hmm

[thatskinnyguy]

If the development of this vehicle is as rapid as that of the automobile or the aircraft, expect to see wide-spread use in another 20 years or so.

Re:Infrastructure? Safety? Economy?

[Vampyre_Dark]

Exactly. Who wants to think that at any second, some flying car could come falling out of the sky and landing directly on you? It would make a small crater.

Until we have flying buildings, we don't need flying cars to get where we are going.

Someone enlighten me please

[clarkkent09]

What good is hovering 10ft above the ground, except for fun. How do you get from home to work in this thing?

Surely you can't fly over people's backyards so you'll have to follow the roads. 10ft is too low to get you over trucks so you won't be able to fly over the traffic easily, so you'll just have to follow the traffic like in a car except for the temptation to skip over low cars and cut across corners etc. while avoiding the power lines, overpasses etc.

No way will this thing ever be legal unless the whole infrastructure and traffic laws are changed to accommodate which ain't gonna happen either. So, what good is it?

C'mon, cut the guy some slack...

[Franklin Brauner]

It's not the easiest business to pull together, and I don't see many more people even trying. What is it to any of us to wait a couple of years. Hell, I'll wait ten -- twenty years if I have to. But every journey begins with a single step.

Re:With Moller...

[edwardpickman]

I wondered back in the 80s if he was for real or a scam artist but I have no doubt he's for real. He has spent a fortune of his own money and there has been a lot of development. The car has two major problems. First it's nearly impossible to do what he's trying but it looks like he finally has a nearly functional one so scam is a mighty strong word. The second issue is the odds are near zero of the FAA approving them anytime in the near future. They can't even get the insurance company to allow them to test it without the tether. From what I gather he's 95% there having a working prototype but they are on the razor edge of loosing it all. Releasing the saucer version was a desperate act to keep the company a float and legitimate. I have serious doubts of the skycar ever being approved for the average citizen. That doesn't make Moller a scam artist it makes him a dreamer. Sadly he may be shooting himself in the foot. All it takes is one moron doing something stupid in one of the saucers and the lawyers will eat his company for lunch. "Gee you didn't specially tell me flying a surface effect vehicle off a clift was a bad idea, give me money." Really it's a hovercraft that can fly 10' instead of 6". Cool but the potential for disaster is high. My fear would be wind flipping one. 10' is still enough head first to kill you.

Be sure to look both ways...

[Anonymous Coward]

and up

Re:Yeah, it is a scam.

[tantaliz3]

How is it a scam? He isn't even selling it yet! If he chooses to develop something and release details to build anticipation, he's doing EXACTLY what every single individual/corporation does to build hype before they release their product/service. What is he doing wrong? How many super-successful new gizmos have been delayed years or even decades before they were released to world-wide acclaim?

Re:oil won't like this

[celle]

"Crow flies", dream on! I doubt anyone would prefer any of these low level flying bombs under the control of joe idiot over their property. Hi-ways aren't going away, just up higher as real highways. Like there's any room anyway, just ask the airlines. Eventually just another eyesore and noise polluter just like hi-voltage power lines and cars that you can hear a mile away with the doors closed. I can see the home insurance premiums now, just as high as the flight corridors. Especially after the first "accident" that obliterates a home and kills most of the family. Time to get you AA guns ready people.

The War on Terror

[hummassa]

and The War on Drugs are reasons why the MIT-folding-wings thing (and this flying-saucer thing) will NEVER be classified as a light aircraft. Not to mention the War on Free Trade Between Nations Without Abusive Protectionist Taxes. No government has the resources to avoid the flow of people and merchandise once instead of patrolling a two-dimentional line it has to patrol a 3d surface. Planes don't really count because as they can't park outside airstrips/airports -- in principle --you only have to police those. Choppers are becoming more and more of an issue...

Re:I had one

[couchslug]

The flying car is a terrible idea. Besides being extremely dangerous, it is wasteful of energy, has little cargo capacity, and still requires professional maintenance.

Joe Sixpack isn't an Aviation Maintenance Technician or a pilot. Joe Sixpack does not need to be making low-level flights over residential areas.

The appropriate response would be to restrict all air traffic to officially designated airports/heliports and kill this idiocy off (if someone ever builds a viable machine). Requiring flying cars to pass all standard vehicle crash tests would also work.

Re:Back to the future 2!!

[couchslug]

It won't be approved because the design is idiotic. It is unstable (hence the tethered demos!), cannot autorotate or glide, and even with adaptive flight controls would be hard put to withstand the loss of an engine due to their location.

Ever wonder why investors with aviation knowledge and money to burn DON'T fund him?

This fellow isn't another Igor Sikorsky.

Re:Back to the future 2!!

[YrWrstNtmr]

The MIT "folding wings" car would solve all these problems:

The operating regimes are too different to make a good, semi-efficient, cross vehicle. Take a standard Cessna 172. About 750kg. Thats about the same as the SmartCar. Now bolt on foldable wings and other control surfaces, the supporting structure needed to hold all that, extra instrumentation...and you've added 500kg to that SmartCar.
Or attack it the other way. How much would a 172 weigh if it needed 5mph bumpers, door beams, and a suspension/frame strong enough to handle a pothole at 60mph? Add in the drive mechanism to get power to the wheels. Oh, and the (strong/foolproof!)linkage needed for the foldable wings. It would end up a much larger aircraft. Where do you put those wings so they don't block the view when on the ground? Only place I can think of is on the roof.

The aircraft spends 99% of its operating life in the smooth, pothole-free, air. There is no need to haul around a useless heavy frame and suspension. A car spends ALL of its operating life on the very uneven ground. With all the bumps and dings that go with that. And no need to haul around unneeded flight control surfaces.

Can it be done? Sure. Can it be done as more than a toy? Not anytime soon.

Re:I had one

[CastrTroy]

This is my biggest fear about flying cars. Look at the mechanical state of the cars that the average person drives. It's terrible. But it doesn't bother us, because mostly when their car breaks down (engine dies, or whatever), they can make it to the side of the road, or if worse comes to worse, they stop in the middle of traffic, and we go around them. They could even put it in neutral and push it off the road. What happens when a flying vehicle breaks down. Well, it falls. Sure some planes have 2 engines, and can continue flying if one shuts off, but knowing Joe Sixpack, he'd drive it around for months with only 1 engine.

Re:I'm already dead

[GooberToo]

Dr Moller expects to produce a successor within six years, a 'Skycar' capable of a climb rate of 6000 ft./min. and an airspeed of 400 mph.

To put this in perspective, an Apache Longbow with 2400HP and empty except for fuel, at sea level, *might* see 4000 ft/min; and this thing is designed for operation in the vertical. From a power to weight ratio, Moller has nothin even close to what an Apache can produce. As usual, he's full of BS. Heck, most light GA, piston aircraft are lucky to see 1000ft/min, especially once you get a couple thousand feet above sea level. Granted, most light GA doesn't have vertical thrust but my point is, he is simply not working in reality unless he knows about some super secret advancements in engine technology.

from holding my breath

Agreed. Make room because you're about to have a room full of dead bodies from everyone else holding their breath.

Re:Back to the future 2!!

[JayClements]

Never happen. People can't maneuver in 2 dimensions now. Add a third dimension = chaos.

Re:Back to the future 2!!

[senatorpjt]

If you have to store all the shit at the airport anyway, you might as well just get a plane.