Re:Blame the Government (Score 2, Insightful)

Sorry but I don't think the Government has anything to do with it. But, as a pilot, I can think of two very good reasons why there are no flying cars... 1) It's hard to do. The air moves with respect to the ground, roads don't. So, anything in the air has to deal with that. Any pilot will tell you that flying a plane, at altitude, straight and level, is pretty straight forward - in fact, not much harder than driving a car. But, landing involves a very complex transition from moving with respect to the air, whilst that parcel of air is itself moving with respect to the ground, to getting all the wheels on the tarmac. Which means, if you want Joe Public to fly cars, you'd have to rely on technology to do it, which brings me to my second point... 2) Litigation. The basic private aircraft itself has not advanced much since the 60's. Apart from the advent of GPS, all of the control systems, engine systems, instrumentation systems and so on are 1960's technology. There is not a light aircraft in the sky that even has fuel guages reliable enough that one doesn't need to physically look into the fuel tank and dip a stick before flight. The reason nothing has changed is because the risk of litigation against any manufacturer that introduces something new that malfunctions is too great. So, it's damn hard to do, and if you try to use technology to do it, you'll be in court as soon as it fails. Finally, it's awfully expensive to keep something in the air, and not particulary friendly to the environment.