A Flying Leap for Cars? 795
pillageplunder writes "Businessweek has a story about flying cars and how they could be an actual viable thing in less than 10 years. First flying taxis, then, like the Jetsons, personal flying cars. Several are already on the board, with Honda and Toyota already having prototypes of small flying devices. Even General Electric is getting in on the deal, developing a small jet engine for Honda. So...would you buy one?"
but (Score:3, Funny)
Re:but (Score:3, Insightful)
That's one key flaw. If you notice, it usually requires a lot of noise keeping an powered aircraft aloft. Noise eminating from on high, because it meets fewer obstacles, carries much farther than noise eminating from vehicles on the ground. So if aircraft, such as these, become popular, I think our cities and suburbs are going to become too noisy for comfortable habitation.
BTM
Nothing New (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, when pigs fly. (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, I'll never get that date!
Re:Sure, when pigs fly. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sure, when pigs fly. (Score:4, Funny)
SUVs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SUVs (Score:3, Funny)
Re:SUVs (Score:5, Funny)
(Apologies to those who've never seen SpaceBalls.)
My apologies.... (Score:4, Funny)
"Spaceballs, the flame thrower. The kids love that one."
Re:SUVs (Score:5, Insightful)
The US Department of Homeland Security will never allow flying cars. Imagine trying to stop terrorists with cars full of diesel/fertilizer mix able to attack from all angles. Tinfoil hattish, sure, but that's how those brownshirts think.
Re:SUVs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SUVs (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SUVs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:SUVs (Score:5, Funny)
Taxis (Score:5, Funny)
No, the last thing we need are flying taxis.
Taxi drivers violate enough traffic laws already. Can you imagine what they will do given the ability to fly?
Re:Taxis (Score:3, Informative)
The "air taxis" are simply small, fuel-efficient planes that you can book to fly you to small municipal airports, maybe stopping on the way to drop off other passengers. Instead of having large planes that fly the same schedualed route, no matter if the plane is full or empty, the air taxi just flys when/where up to 8 people want to go, when they want to go
Gas mileage... (Score:5, Insightful)
Airplanes do alright, but they don't have the ability to hover which would be a necesity for any urban personal air transit. Until an energy efficient way of maintiaing a position in 3 dimensions is developed I really don't think personal flying vehicle will be adopted on an appriciable scale...
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
Levy a fee
Revoke the license
Impound the vehicle
Put it on an APB
Flag it and give it a ticket
Charge the owner with civil/criminal offenses
Re:Exactly (Score:4, Insightful)
(like people switching plates now)
How would you get them? you'd have to pull them over. And how do you pull them over at 900 feet? (assume the transponder/autopilot is off)
Do you shoot them down? (assume school or other meaty area below)
Can you fly 12 miles to international waters and thus escape jurisdiction?
I see a lot of obstacles...
Maintenance checks (Score:5, Insightful)
No way in hell would I use one (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Boston. Drivers here have more than enough trouble coping with travel in two dimensions. Adding a third is a recipe for disaster.
Re:No way in hell would I use one (Score:5, Funny)
You've obviously never lived with a cat. They live in full 3d space, as apposed to dogs who live only on the ground plane. Just because there is more room for the cat and you to coexist doesn't mean your paths cross less often and all your glassware will stay in one piece.
Re:No way in hell would I use one (Score:4, Insightful)
I learned that no matter how good a driver YOU are, and how few mistakes you make, that still makes it so you cant avoid getting hit by someone else.
I feel safer when I fly now, because I know there are hundreds of people keeping track of where planes are, and hundreds responsible for the re-fueling, tracking, air avoidance etc...
When you bring that responsibility down to a single individual, who has no stricutres on maintanence, gas, impaired level of thinking, i get shivers.
People that currently fly alone, they have to go through a pretty rigorous flight training program, and the quality can be high because their are so few.
Imagine trying to process 300 people a day to get licensure for a flying car?
I know when I went to get my drivers licence for the first time, they just had me drive around the block once and gave me a licence.
Imagine doing that for a flying car?
I think we should probably focus on HIGH SPEED mass transit. the time would be comparable, and less risk of individual user error causing a disaster.
We cannot even handle automated cars, i think it is a long way off to automated car planes.
Re:2-D? You lucky, lucky, lucky . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:dangerous (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:dangerous (Score:4, Insightful)
The automated parachute deploys (they have them for planes now) and the X foot fall is eliminated. ;-)
Re:dangerous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: So, would you buy one? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The real question... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The real question... (Score:3, Funny)
Do crows actually do that? I always figured they got some kind of "ignorance of the law" pass or something.
Re:The real question... (Score:5, Informative)
Current FAA regulations put VFR pilots (those flying visually) at headings from 0-179 magnetic at {3500,5500,7500,..} feet, and those from 180-359 at {4500,6500,8500,...} feet. The even thousands are used for ATC-controlled IFR (instrument) flight.
It's unlikely tighter tolerances than that would ever be safe even with the most advanced computer control, simply because you will not be able to outclimb microburts and such.
Re:The real question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Do we really want this? I imagine a huge number of people would respond to this situation by saying "Hey, that means I can live *anywhere* inside a 500-mile radius and still have a normal commute time!" Then they'd start looking for 5 or 10 unspoiled acres way out in the country to live on, knowing they're just a brief flight from civilization. I can imagine overwhelming economic pressure on every nature preserve anywhere near a major city to subdivide into ranchettes to meet the demand from yuppies who always wanted a country home and a city job and now find they have the means to have both.
After flying cars become a reality, the urban sprawl that would follow would be horrific, a major environmental disaster. Imagine no more forests, just miniature estates every mile, each with a flying car parked out front, over half the land area of the country. The thought makes me shudder.
We really need to find something like... (Score:5, Interesting)
All the effort, fuel and pollution required just to get a hunk of metal off the ground and keep it there with the current technology is wasteful and unsustenable.
Re:We really need to find something like... (Score:5, Informative)
Economy of scale plays a big part, by cramming lots of people in. But don't lump all air travel into the "automatically inefficient" category-- it was more efficient than I expected, too.
Way to go (Score:3, Insightful)
And ofcourse it uses kerosine for that (ever seen an electrical plane, man-sized ?).
This gives us a whole new excuse to soup up more oil and pollute even more..
What's next ? Real personal rockets ? [xprize.org]
Re:Way to go (Score:4, Interesting)
This doesn't say that you will disband fuel efficient tech. Rather a technology will become better efficient wise as a technology matures and mistakes are learnt from. Afterall, you wouldn't be saying China should be embargoed because of their recent spike in oil demand and expect them to be using a UN-specified percentage of fuel efficient cars within their boundary.
It's like the maglev train [howstuffworks.com] china decided [slashdot.org] to go and build [slashdot.org]. The only problem was who it was going to service [slashdot.org] with the price being a bit high for that middle class chinese citizen. Quoting myself from a post in an earlier article [slashdot.org], "one trip costing roughly 1/20th of one person's income for a month." That demonstrates the sociological implications of investing in a technology, but also environmental as in this post [slashdot.org] says Price conscious people takes the bus to major transportation hubs, and convenience / time consicous people takes the taxi (which is only like 15 dollars compared to 10 dollars that the maglev costs - besides the point that the other end station is nowhere near the city and you have to take a cab anyway so it's not that much faster).
Which basically says that as long as the tech is defined to profitable areas like the airport and downtown it can remain cheap and less the cost of other tech. But what happens when you need to get somewhere else and that issue of human convenience comes up?
I think it is a matter of trade-offs. That and allowing engineers to work on interesting problems.
Drunk Flyers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oil dependency... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oil dependency... (Score:3, Informative)
We have been fantisizing about flying cars... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to be the skeptic, because I would love to be able to fly to work, but I don't see it being practical in our lifetimes.
Re:We have been fantisizing about flying cars... (Score:3, Insightful)
a flying car isn't a dream about a flying device that's cheap, rather a dream about some way to control those things and quiet them down so that they could be used in city-limits without giving it much thought.
Precisely (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently, the only methods for making things fly involve high velocities (rotors, props, turbines) and the associated noise from those moving things.
People already move next to the airport, then sue the airport management for excessive noise. Nobody is going to tolerate a jet-powered car next door.
Finally, it's just not practical to use that much energy to commute downtown. And if you find a destination for which this makes sense, it would probably be better served by an airplane anyhow.
I can see certain applications for the technology (search and rescue, surveillance, etc); but even those are served well by current technology.
As the parent implied, until we find an anti-gravity technology, flying cars will always be a lark.
So in 10 years the world will look like... (Score:4, Interesting)
Errrr.. (Score:4, Insightful)
After that (Score:3, Funny)
OT: I bet spherical wheels will be here first (Score:4, Interesting)
You would be doing away with conventional steering hardware, probably for a bunch of electronics to "run" the wheel in any direction you like in conjunction with the other wheels. My question is, how would you do it? Would it be just like an AC motor wrapped in rubber, with the rest of the motor surrounding the sphere wheels?
That would make parallel parking a cinch.
Re:OT: I bet spherical wheels will be here first (Score:3, Insightful)
So would four wheel steering with a much greater steering angle such that the wheels can be positioned at a 90 degree angle to the side of the vehicle, and it would be a lot easier to carry off from an engineering standpoint.
People have enough trouble driving cars that can't strafe. I definitely don't want to see this technology on our roads ever, at least not for the general populace, unless the vehicles are entirely self-driving.
Re:OT: I bet spherical wheels will be here first (Score:3, Insightful)
Good news and bad news... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I will stay on the ground, after all.
Class of airplane and scams (Score:5, Interesting)
To date there are basically two classes of "flying cars" - light aircraft that look like cars and fold up to drive (similar to the Aquacar and other novelity cars), and scams like anything Moller puts out under his Skycar company.
Moller is actually "making" real commuter flight vehicles, 400 mph, mpg roughly equal to a car, park in a garage, take off from the driveway (or helipad if the FAA never allows driveway flight). The only problem is, his test flights have been happening for decades, commercial models for sale have always been a "year or two away", and all test flights (until a couple recent ones) have all been tethered and a dozen feet above the ground.
Unlike fusion, which is always a decade away because there needs to be a breakthough, Moller says he has it working and ready. But he's been saying that for a long, long time.
The "planes that convert to cars" (and their cousins, one of which is mentioned in the article, "helicopters that convert to cars") have been around commercially since the 1950s, and they generally work fairly well. They aren't very efficient, but they fly, drive and a new model comes out from somebody every five years or so (until the chilling effect from lawsuits slowed small aircraft production recently).
--
Evan
Never Happen (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I hop right into my mercedez and take off for work. If something does't feel right or sound right or if I am really low on gas, I figure "hey I'd better do something about that sometime soon", and drive off. I can always pull to the side of the road. I can't do that in my plane. If something goes wrong and I need to "pull to the side of the road" I'm in a bit of a pinch. I have a ballistic parachute installed but I'd really hate to have to use it.
I can't ever imagine what flying would be like if everyone just hopped into their flying cars and took off (after cocktails, in a hurry, low on gas, in a poorly maintained vehicle, without a license, in bad weather, etc). What a nightmare!
Don't get me wrong, I think flying is wonderfull and that everyone should be able to do it, after rigorous training and certification, in a well maintained vehicle, clearly understanding when conditions are right to fly!
Re:Never Happen (Score:4, Insightful)
(OT: Is your parachute after-market, or do you fly a Cirrus?)
Re:Never Happen (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, accidents back then were horrifically lethal.
Granted, your point is correct that there is an intrinsically higher danger taking a vehicle up in the air than on the ground.
However, I'm not entirely persuaded that much of the current pilot requirements/standards aren't legacy issues that could be engineered out for a lower proficiency u
Another hitch (Score:5, Interesting)
This brings new meaning to the phrase,,, (Score:3, Funny)
--
Blade Runner:Only The Police Will Have Flying Cars (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's another possibility:
When the flying cars first come out, they will probably be limited to law enforcement (and important government officials and their connected friends/donors, of course). After all, if only the police should have guns, why should anyone else be trusted with potential flying bombs?
After a while, a whole generation will grow up in a world where flying cars are exclusively limited to the government, and the "right" to own one will never trickle down to us peons.
Besides, how many civilian flying cars did you see in Blade Runner [imdb.com]? "You know the score; if you're not a cop, you're little people."
The replacement trap (Score:4, Insightful)
So much FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
It's attitudes like this that stifle progress.
Yes, there's a danger but that's the nature of progress. The danger will be curbed by technology and beaurocracy(sadly)...
I say, bring it on.
NOT a Car Replacement But Bridging the Gap (Score:5, Insightful)
The "flying car " (moller, honda et al) should not be seen as a replacement for a car. The driving/ piloting restrictions will (and should) be very stringent. Not as hard to get as a commercial flying license, but harder than a driving test.
This creates a new niche market for corporates to have a fleet of cars & pilots where it will be cheaper than flying its execs all over the country, where we can get flying taxis, or the well to do will have a chauffer who can both drive their limo, or fly their moller.
Car companies will not be the ones effected, but instead the short haul flights business will see a dramatic drop in sales; if anything these companies should invest in flying taxis, the planes will become flying coaches instead
Too many pessimists (Score:4, Informative)
Mr Moller had major problems with testing - nobody would insure him for an untethered flight!
Then there's the matter of airspace and where you can fly. Air Traffic Control would have to make sure nobody flew into populated areas, military airspace, each other etc. This means a massive overhaul and spending on ATC to handle the millions of vehicles in the air simultaneously.
Moller said in the article I read that the amount of airspace around our planet is so large, it was unlikely that you would come across another SkyCar on your journey, even if every family in the world had one.
I doubt if people will be allowed to land in the middle of populated areas, we're more likely to have skyscraper car parks.
I should think Moller has the patent on SkyCars and that he'll make a bundle from car manufacturers (if he's still alive by the time they're mass produced!). I'd say we're looking at 50 years minimum until they become commonplace. Then instead of paying road tax we'll be paying air tax :-(
My take... (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone above stated that flying vehicles wouldn't be any more of a problem then ground traffic. I'd have to disagree. Light aircraft have a small radar signiture, and can slip by relatively easily. You might recall the German kid who flew a small plane right into Red Square in Moscow, or how the private pilot crashed his plane into the front of the White House. Yes, transponders are supposed to help, but if the pilot turns it off, he's unlikely to be seen. And, even when it's on, I've been told by ATC that they couldn't see me because I was at 1800 ft. ASL...too low for them. Now pack that thing with 500lbs of C4, and tell me that it's not a risk!
Now, try multiplying the number of planes in the sky by an order of magnitude, and tell me how we're not going to have a bunch of mid-air collisions too?
Re:My take... (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world has lived with terrorism for years, you dont suddenly stop because some wankers give you a bloody nose.
Mid air collisions and drunk drivers are problems, but saying someone can change their plane into a missile is ludicrous. They can do that now perfectly well anyway.
It won't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
We have enough car accidents where only forward motion is involved. Let me put it this way. Would you want one of these things flying over your neighborhood, piloted (yes, piloted, not driven) by someone who could be a total moron, yakking on his cell phone, or maybe just drank a six pack?
Yeah, I'd sure like one of those things falling through the roof of my house, I can tell you right now. Not.
Roads aren't just to make wheels work. They also provide boundaries of where you can't go.
Re:It won't happen. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. I also wouldn't want to have a CAR driving through my neighbourhood, driven by someone who could be a total moron, yakking on his cell phone, or maybe just drank a six pack. But it's better than having no cars driving at all.
New technology happens whether it scares you or not. If these "take off" (pun intended), we'll just bring in some safety measures and laws to help mediate the risks.
Just like we did with cars in the first place. "They frighten the horses and can cause injury as a result!" was one of the oft-repeated arguments against mass adoption of cars. Didn't stop progress.
Flying cars = rural revival (Score:5, Interesting)
May not seem that profound, until you consider things like the last election map. An exodus from the city would no doubt have interesting social consequences.
Re:Flying cars = rural revival (Score:3, Insightful)
With over 30 years of experience as a pilot... (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of "an airplane in every garage" has been around at least since the 1940s judging by my recollections of Popular Mechanics articles alone. But it never got closer than the 1950s. I can remember airports with hundreds of private aircraft (Stinsons, Luscombes, Cessnas, Pipers, Beechcrafts, etc) tied down in lines. Those lines of airplanes are conspicuously absent at the few airports left which cater to private flyers. A testimony to the expense of building, maintaining and operating even the simplest flying machines.
The ubiquitous "air-car" could only work if there were strict control over both the air-car and the pathways it travels combined with fail-safe recovery techniques in the event of mechanical failure. In other words, give the "pilot" control only over what time he leaves and his destination. Everything else - altitude, speed, course - is controlled by a common system that can keep theat vehicle - and every other vehicle - on the path it's been assigned to.
The air-car would also have to be able to stop and maintain altitude and position in mid-air in order to reduce the chances of collisions.
This combination of control and mechanical reliability would be *very* expensive not even including the cost of fuel. It would take a society that was dedicated to the premise that some very rich people could free themselves of ground transportation while the rest of us paid for the infrastructure.
Which is basically what we do with helicopters and personal jets now.
what about personal dirigibles? (Score:5, Interesting)
All that and no mention of Moller? (Score:4, Insightful)
No mass consumer flying cars (Score:3, Insightful)
We worry about how much fossil fuel cars use. Flying cars would be far worse.
We complain about the noise of cars. Flying cars will be far worse.
But most of all, cars kill people at an appalling rate, through mechanical failure and driver error. Flying cars would be far worse. Do you really want carloads of drunken students in mechanically unsound vehicles to be hundreds of feet above our cities and houses?
Mass adoption is wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Moller Skycar = Cold Fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Anybody ever seen one of his things actually fly? Unmanned tethered hover [moller.com] doesn't count.
Won't take over if they're powered by petroleum (Score:3, Insightful)
Over the next 50 years, unless renewable, portable fuel (e.g. fuel cells together with solar or nuclear electrolysis plants) become insanely cheap, the name of the transportation game will be "efficiency". $40/barrel oil may seem expensive now, but in another few decades it'll seem insanely cheap.
3D travel? Pffffff, that's so yesterday. (Score:3, Funny)
I think a lot of these problems you've all been talking about will just go away if we just travel in *4D* instead. Imagine disappearing from your home at 10:00 and showing up at work at 08:00 on the same day. Of course, it might be confusing if you try to call home to check the messages before 10, but even that might have some uses...
You: "Hello, Dave speaking."
You: "Hi, it's you. Ummm, don't eat that two-week old yogurt in the fridge, or you'll regret it later. Oh god, I've gotta go..."
Hmmm, what a strange post, and I haven't even been drinking.
Kevin Smith and flying cars (Score:3, Funny)
"Driving" The Flying Car? Come On... (Score:4, Insightful)
We already have the technology to fully automate this mode of transport - you use the car as normal on the ground, but to fly you change to computer-controlled mode before the car leaves the ground. Navigation, maneuvring and landing are all accomplished by the computer. The manual overide will call home and involve a HUGE fine if you use without good reason (storm coming up, unknown obstruction in path etc.).
European auto manufacturers have auto car control systems running dozens of vehicles around tracks and across intersections without human drivers - if this technology was mandated in, say, 2008 we would suddenly have shorter journey times, fewer crashes, better fuel economy etc. But you would never steer your own car again except in emergency.
The technology to do this is HERE, it's just not commoditised yet - as soon as there is enough financial impetus behind it, you can bet your bottom dollar someone will do it.
No, not under my window (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, small blimps with eletric motors, that would be OK.
The jet engine problem (Score:4, Informative)
It's not that you can't build a small jet engine. It's that the price doesn't decline much with size. Engines sized for small aircraft aren't much cheaper than those built for business jets.
There was an effort at NASA to fix this problem [nasa.gov], but it failed and was cancelled in 2002.
Re:Moller (Score:4, Informative)
he's got it for sale now as well. Looks kinda cool.
Wish I had the cash to go out and buy one
Re:Moller (Score:5, Informative)
They're not quite for sale yet. They have built one prototype for testing but won't start extensive testing until a second one is near completion. They've been moving pretty slow over the past several years but have been making steady progress. They are taking preorders, but nothing will ship for several years at least.
Re:Moller (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking of which, that's a big problem I see with giving people flying cars. Flying (in the sense of using wings to generate lift) is VERY different from driving. For example, most people don't know that you have to nudge the stick, then move it back into a straight position to properly execute a bank. The bank will continue until you nudge the stick back the other way, and force the plane to level.
Even worse is the shear number of control surfaces that are completely unnatural to a driver. You can't just move the stick. That will cause the plane to slide. You have to give it some rudder. I'm not even going to go into how queasy bouncing on thermals is going to make most people.
To make an aircraft stable enough for the average driver, you're going to need something with a LOT of thrust. (i.e. Apply enough thrust to a brick, and it will fly.) Maneuvering would need to be handled by computer control to simplify the procedure.
Of course, we could just get everyone to obtain a pilot's license. But then I'd truly FEAR for the safety of the skyways.
Re:Moller (Score:5, Informative)
Bullocks. A modern 777 will keep itself in the air, with or without you. It's airframe is designed such that it WANTS to fly. Try executing a deadly maneuver in X-Plane sometime, using nothing to correct your flight except thrust. The 777 will right itself without much problem. It will probably even climb until it reaches equilibrium.
You don't worry about stabilization, the computer does.
Airframes are usually *designed* to be stable. Especially something like a CS-150 with the wing tips for stabilization. Your real problems with any flight are:
1. Preventing midair collisions.
2. Getting on and off the ground.
The first will become a BIG problem if everyone gets their "flying car". The second one is a big problem, period. Getting off the ground usually isn't so big of a problem as long as you give yourself as much room as possible. Getting on the ground IS a big problem.
When you're flying through the air, your path is determined by the gasses through which you're passing. This can cause your path to skew, and can even result in some roll. The problem is that the ground is NOT moving. Thus you have to attempt to compensate. If you see a plane coming that looks like it's crooked, the pilot is probably NOT drunk. He's compensating. Yet even the best pilots occasionally have a hard landing. Go shopping for a plane sometime, and you'll notice that quite a few of them talk about replacing or repairing the firewall after a hard landing.
Much better to have something where you tell it via some 3D joystic, "Go up, down, left, right, forward, backward", end of story.
You can't go left or right. This isn't a car. You have to roll and execute a banking maneuver. A computer can simplify this, but you can't change the physics of flight. (Again, with "flight" defined as "obtaining lift by passing through the atmosphere" A hovercraft can obviously thrust in any direction it damn well pleases.)
You don't worry about stabilization, the computer does.
Keep in mind that you can only stabilize the craft so much. If it's light, it WILL bounce on thermals and downdrafts. There's very little the computer can do about this other than to make course corrections. The last thing we need is some guy freaking out at a thermal, accidently rolling his plane, getting disoriented, and taking her into the ground.
Re:Moller (Score:3, Interesting)
Not in (some) modern aircraft, for 20 years or so now. In the F-16, centering the (side)stick applies the appropriate inputs to the control surfaces that the aircraft quits banking - no slight reverse stick is necessary. Pilots that transitioned from older aircraft were frequently seen stairstepping to get to a desired bank angl
Re:Great idea, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
So what is the essential difference between that and, oh, I don't know, say, a plane?
Anyone who wants to take a small light aircraft up (and has one/rents one and has a licence) can pretty much go for it.
Flying cars aren't going to raise your danger from terrorists (which is incredibly small anyway). Crap drivers crashing into your house - now that's a different matter.
Re:Great idea, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's still a lot harder to get a license for and rental of a small aircraft than a car.
To get a driver's license in the United States, the chief requirement seems to be a pulse. To rent a car, you need a credit card in addition to the pulse.
Pilot's licenses--for good reason--are more difficult to get.
It will be just fine folks (Score:5, Interesting)
Your post is a breath of fresh air, being at least thoughtful (if perhaps not fully informed). Your point that pilot's licenses are far more difficult and rigorous than drivers licenses is a good one.
It's still a lot harder to get a license for and rental of a small aircraft than a car.
To get a driver's license in the United States, the chief requirement seems to be a pulse. To rent a car, you need a credit card in addition to the pulse.
Pilot's licenses--for good reason--are more difficult to get.
However, while "they" may call these new aircraft "flying cars," and these aircraft may even become easier to fly than current cars are to drive, I suspect one will be required to have a pilot's license to fly these aircraft just as one must have to fly any other aircraft. And well one should
As a pilot I would love to have a flying car. Being able to get from driveway to driveway in one vehicle, rather than taking a car to the airport, flying the plane to my destination, and then renting/borrowing a car at the far end (many FBOs have courtesy cars, but many do not, and getting one is always a crapshoot), would be a tremendous boon.
Let those who want to pilot flying cars jump through the necessary hoops to become competent pilots (ideally with an instrument rating), while those who get regular drivers licenses remain restricted to the planet's surface.
All the benefits of flying vehicles, all the air safety of the current licensing system, and additional flexibility for those who do like to travel and are willing to acquire the skills to fly.
As for the post wondering what to do if one has a midair in one county and plumets to the earth in another, that one is easy. The NTSB investigates the crash irrespective of where it lands (in the US). WRT international borders, the current norms for investigative aeronautical crashes would apply.
Re:Great idea, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great idea, but... (Score:3, Informative)
A Suburban could -carry- the Cessna and still have room for five passengers and it's own 3 ton mass.
Re:Great idea, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless the cars run on autopilot and manage to pass FCC muster, I doubt it will work in an affordable manner such that anyone but those already flying with a pilot's licence and own their own aircraft will be able to afford to use them.
Re:We needn't be too sceptical. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:like this will become a reality (Score:3, Funny)
Terrorists crashing things into buildings? Car-sized things? WHO CARES!
Or do you not remember the kid who proclaimed "solidarity with Osama" and crashed his small plane into the skyscraper in Tampa? Result: 1 dead kid, 1 wrecked small plane, 1 building that needed to be hosed off (no damage, though).
As for people not being able to fly without crashing into your house, look on the bright side. Flying accidents are bound to have a much high
Re:Would I buy one? (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. As I see it not only are we going to need rules but some serious means of enforcement. A fender bender at 2000 feet would be a hell of a thing. I'd even guess it would have to come to the point where the machine would have to be built to the point that it can't break the rules even if it wanted to. A simple case of road rage could potentially leave scores dead.
Re:In the wake of 9/11... (Score:3, Funny)
For the rich, maybe. They're more important, so they should be allowed to operate flying cars. Especially members of the Saudi Royal family, and the bin Ladens.
Re:In the wake of 9/11... (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably not as bad as you think. Why is a truck-sized explosion 400 feet up any worse than a truck-sized explosion (from, say, a truck) at ground level? We already deal with the threat of ground-level trucks. Two US skyscrapers have been hit with truck bombs in the last fifteen years. They make a mess, and people die. Making trucks airborne won't change that much.
In fact, people have crashed small planes into buildings, both before and after September 11th, and it doesn't do that much damage.
September 11th (clearly implied, if not mentioned, in your post) was different in that the projectiles were jumbo jets carrying thousands of gallons of fuel. Flying cars won't have thousands of gallons of fuel, won't weigh 100 tons, and won't do any more damage than cessnas or land-bound Ryder trucks do now.