
Flying Car Dreams May Soon Be a Reality - prostoalex
https://www.pddnet.com/news/2016/08/soaring-above-traffic-flying-car-dreams-may-soon-be-reality
======
sokoloff
I'm a pilot and owner of general aviation aircraft. I simply don't understand
the appeal of a flying car. It's going to inevitably be a compromise design
and likely suck at both being a car and at being an aircraft.

Aircraft "want" to be lightweight and low-drag and crashworthiness (and
expense) is not a significant design parameter. Cars need to be crashworthy as
they are frequently bumping into each other.

I can fly into nearly any airport and have ground transportation easily
available. Certainly at any good-sized airport, of which there are hundreds
more than are served by airlines.

If that ground transportation suffers a minor collision, no matter, my
airplane ride home is unaffected. If my flying car is damaged in a ground
collision, I'm stuck finding another way home and coordinating repairs from a
distance. I don't want to maintain my car to the standards required of
aircraft. (Want an engine overhauled for my airplane? It's going to cost more
than the median new car. Not bragging; mostly just complaining. Want the
annual [invasive] inspection done? In most cases, that's going to be a $3-5K
bill, minimum.)

I welcome the interest and hope some of that rubs off on general aviation
interest, but I don't see flying cars as anything more practical than a
gimmick.

Prediction: the media will be the only ones to make significant money from
flying cars.

~~~
melling
" 110 mile per hour airspeed"

I guess there's something alluring about pulling out of your driveway and
being in the air within 10 minutes then arriving at your destination 150 miles
away within 90 minutes after leaving your house. The world just became a lot
smaller.

Now, what we actually get might be a lot different but who doesn't want that
flexibility? Personally, i think we need autonomous vehicles before we fill
the sky's with hundreds of thousands of "cars".

~~~
sokoloff
I get the "world got smaller" aspect; it's a big part of why I fly.
Interesting that that 110 mph is an appealing speed. I guess I'd just
forgotten as almost all airplanes bigger than a Piper Cub will outrun 110mph.
Ours does well over 200mph and the kids still complain about how long it takes
to get to grandma's house. :)

Put 110 mph airspeed into a 26 knot headwind and you'll see cars in the left
lane of the highway passing you. Winter winds are regularly 40 knots or more
at altitude. Into those winds, Priuses in the right-lane will be passing you.
;)

LSA rules limit the airplane to a maximum of 2 seats, further hampering the
utility. (I'm trying to stay engineer-neutral and not go full Debbie Downer,
but it's hard.)

~~~
melling
Most people travel at 65mph, traffic allowing. Why wouldn't almost doubling
that be desirable? Throw in the ability to fly in a direct path and it's even
faster than driving. NYC to Maine, for example, is a painful drive. I wouldn't
mind flying my car there for a long weekend.

I haven't looked in becoming a pilot in many years. It seemed expensive, not
so convenient, and a bit dangerous. You need to spend some money to get a fast
"Dr Killer"

[https://aviatorcollege.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/why-is-
the-“...](https://aviatorcollege.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/why-is-the-“doctor-
killer”-airplane-so-dangerous/)

~~~
sokoloff
Doctors have killed more Bonanzas than Bonanzas have killed Doctors.

For your NYC to Maine trip, you're going to need to have good weather to get
there and good weather to get back (although the option to drive back might be
handy). You're also most likely going to have to navigate out from under the
NYC airspace on the ground.

Private (personal) flying is expensive, not always convenient, and is a bit
dangerous. You're absolutely right, though you can mitigate the risk fairly
effectively (>75% of the crashes are pilot-caused or pilot-responsible at
least), the cost is variable (you can rent at least to start, though that adds
inconvenience), and the convenience is variable (there are ways to trade money
for convenience).

------
geff82
Flying cars are a wrong way of thinking. They will disrupt nothing. What would
"disrupt" personal flying transportation would be some kind of 95% automated
flying device, that takes off and lands vertically without large propellers
(some kind of contained impeller maybe) and that does not need more space than
a car on takeoff and landing, so that our current road infrastructure in
cities can be used. And of course it should not run on fossile fuel... If
someone designes something like this and finds a way for it to be <100.000$,
that might be something to write about.

~~~
elmar
Counter intuitively is very hard to design a small VTOL that works on fossile
fuel, it's much simpler to do it electric.

Moller is the best example after forty years and $100M and several marriages
it still doesn't work.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycarhttps://en...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycarhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycar)

VoloCopter is a good example of what is possible today with electric powering,
the big bottleneck is autonomy with current battery technology with only the
pilot you get around 15-20 flight time.

~~~
dredmorbius
Isn't this because electric drive has high power output, but that this comes
at a severe cost in range?

Moller is probably most effective at having developed very high power-weight
rotary engine technology. Fuel consumption is high, and the things are noisy
as hell. I've watched development for over 25 years, and he's no closer to
commercialisation than he was in 1989, for much the same reasons. It's
nostalgic to see the occasional press mention though.

~~~
elmar
you normally need several motors or to distribute the power of the motors in
several rotors that is very dificult for small vehicles

this guy did it with using several two stroke engines

[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/garden/in-a-remote-
part...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/garden/in-a-remote-part-of-utah-
life-alone-in-a-hangar.html)

------
rdtsc
I like the idea of a flying car as a great example of just-around-the-corner
technology.

I remember reading about flying cars in mid 80's from a Soviet technical
journal (Yuniy Tehnik or Tehnika Molodyioji, forgot which...). It was about
Paul Moller's cars and how in just 5 years we'd have flying cars around. And I
thought that would be so awesome.

30 years later it is still just around the corner.

My other favorite one is "new type of batteries". Every other month there is a
new type of battery that will revolutionalize the energy economy.

Not saying there haven't been improvements in these areas, or we'll never see
it happen, but it is just an interesting observation I noticed about those 2
things.

One reason I imagine is those two things are easy to sell as "popular
science". It is easy for anyone regardless of background, to imagine flying in
a car or to imagine never having to change batteries again. Nanobots or faster
integer factorization using quantum computers is maybe is not as captivating
or fun to dream about.

~~~
notahacker
Flying cars have been "just around the corner" since the very beginning of
powered flight, and ironically Santos Dumont floating his dirigibles up and
down Paris streets and parking them up when he wanted to stop at a cafe for
lunch in the early 1900s back when heavier-than-air transport was still
experimental is probably as close as we got to anybody actually living that
dream.

The appeal of flying cars is one of those things that _seems_ obvious and
we've had the technology to build them for decades, particularly after the
invention of the helicopter and VTOL jets: trouble is the use case for them
suddenly looks a lot smaller when you realise that (i) where the problem is
traffic congestion, local aviation authorities are _not_ going to let queues
of vehicles try to solve it by taking off and landing in crowded areas and
(ii) where the problem is few or no roads, helicopters make excellent off-road
transport without the extra weight of wheels.

------
Animats
Aw, a little autogyro. Those are cute.

Most people have probably seen the James Bond version.[1] That's a Wallis
WA-116 Agile, of which five were built. There was a later Wallis WA-120 with
an enclosed cockpit, very close to this new flying car.

Autogyros have been around for a long time, and thousands have been built and
flown. They're very short takeoff and landing aircraft, reasonably stable,
easier to fly than a helicopter, and not too expensive. They've never become
very popular, though.

Infrastructure is the problem. Autogyros don't need much runway, but they do
need some. While takeoff and landing from a road is physically possible, it's
not generally allowed and does not play well with ground traffic. So you need
a mini-airport. Suburban housing developments with a shared airstrip do exist;
there are about five of them in the US. "Park your plane in your garage" was
considered a cool futuristic idea in the 1920. But it wasn't the future that
happened.

Battery-powered human-carrying quadcopters are likely as local commuting
devices for the 1%. Probably coming to Beijing soon.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT8Lp1SO_YU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT8Lp1SO_YU)

~~~
dredmorbius
What autogyros (and other light aircraft) play even less well with are high-
tension wires and radio masts.

It's surprisingly difficult to find an area that's definitively clear of
these, if you're looking for an impromptu landing zone. Ground traffic doesn't
mind wires overhead, but if you're flying over land, they're a poor idea to
tangle with.

A very close call: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w-F-
cBF5ZbQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w-F-cBF5ZbQ)

Even when you know they're there, and have ground support:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v5aMT9MBfZI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v5aMT9MBfZI)

~~~
Animats
Right. You still need a mini-airport, a marked, hard surfaced area clear of
obstacles and potholes. This "flying car" needs 200m of runway for landing. It
can't hover, but it does have a slow landing speed.

There's a "SuperSTOL" aircraft that can operate from even less runway. It's a
fixed-wing craft for bush pilots.[1] Much bigger wheels and tough landing
gear, for hard landings on bad ground.

[1] [https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
news/2014/march/pilo...](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
news/2014/march/pilot/1403p_stol)

~~~
dredmorbius
Wow, that's quite the writup. I went hunting for the short roll video and
instead turned up a dead stick takeoff and landing -- no power, just glide.
Impressive.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jeQP-
H_31JQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jeQP-H_31JQ)

Plane I had in mind was a Super Cub.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7u1jzjFL8s](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7u1jzjFL8s)

Bush landings, land optional:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0fByofsZvo](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0fByofsZvo)

------
milesf
The flying car has been promised for decades. Even if this suddenly becomes a
reality, it's not something I want anymore.

I am looking forward to Google and others to provide self-driving cars so I
can focus on owning and flying my own aircraft. Being able to order up an
autonomous ride at whatever airport I land at is what I dream about now, not
being cramped in a flying car which would undoubtedly be a compromise in
design.

------
slr555
I have to agree with Sokoloff below. The problem with flying cars is,
well....they fly. Which means dealing with an object in 3 dimensions, pitch,
yaw, roll and all that in a product that's supposed to replace a Prius. Even
in highly sophisticated jets landing and take off requires a high degree of
skill. Rotary wings are easier in some regards but if they stop you sort of
drop like a stone. People can't handle driving on a three lane road. I have
little confidence they could navigate a 4 or 7 layer stack of lane sets.

Sadly, George Jetson is still a man of the future.

------
elmar
The Pal-V is on the forge for years like all projects for a flying car it will
cost almost around $400k making it one of the more expensive options and it's
not capable of Vertical Takeoff And Landing (VTOL)

VoloCopter is a more interresting design and almost half the price $260k,
electric only at the moment only flies for 15 minutes with 1 person.

[http://www.wired.com/2015/06/18-rotor-volocopter-like-
flying...](http://www.wired.com/2015/06/18-rotor-volocopter-like-flying-car-
better/)

Probably a less know alternative is the "roadable aircraft " PD-2 but still a
high price tag of around $260k.
[http://planedriven.com/specs/](http://planedriven.com/specs/)

I am working in a one seat self-Flying Flying Car afordable alternative for
around $50k and know really well the space and there is nothing with two
places for less than $250k

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gakada
Flying cars are really about having a _personal aircraft_ that can be operated
by non-pilots -- like a car can be. i.e. it has to be fully autonomous,
because the average person can't be trusted to perform the usual functions of
a pilot.

It has to get itself from A to B, communicate with ATC, land itself in an
emergency, and avoid intersecting the ground or other aircraft.

What it doesn't have to be, is car-shaped, or roadworthy. If I were designing
a "flying car" it would look more like a powered glider.

None of this is particularly beyond the reach of today's technology, and if
the vehicle isn't shaped like a brick, it's not beyond the laws of physics
either. We just need to figure out how to make reliable software...

------
T0T0R0
Unless they have plans to incorporate self-flying cars into the massive
campaign to roll out self-driving cars, there's no way 99% of ordinary people
can be trusted to safely negotiate flying a heavy piece of equipment over
populated areas.

Here in the United States, people don't like 1KG quadcopters buzzing their
neighborhoods, driveways and shopping centers.

So, now a one ton piloted helicopter? Uh, seems dubious.

------
sreya
I hate to be that guy, but the amount of havoc commercial flying cars could
create is concerning. If these things become commonplace, imagine the
destruction someone could wreak. I don't think fear should ever be a good
reason to deter progress, but it is something to think about if we want to go
this route

------
krazydad
Says headlines in 1950s Popular Mechanics, and annually since then...

~~~
dredmorbius
This trope is _stunningly_ older than I'd have thought.

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=flying+car&yea...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=flying+car&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cflying%20car%3B%2Cc0)

Starts in the 1750s, though some of that is simply justipostion of the words
"flying" and "car", often with intervening punctuation.

A 1923 article:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=BcIrAQAAMAAJ&q=%22flying+c...](https://books.google.com/books?id=BcIrAQAAMAAJ&q=%22flying+car%22&dq=%22flying+car%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4qKL5-ejOAhXDFx4KHfZ7BBQQ6AEIUjAJ)

"future flying car will weigh far less than our present-day cars. The entire
upper part of the body will be enclosed in an unbreakable, unburnable, glass-
like substance. This is quite necessary, particularly for the ..."

And from 1810:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=P_AOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR3&dq=%22...](https://books.google.com/books?id=P_AOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR3&dq=%22flying+car%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrq8r0-ejOAhVMmx4KHRKJDFoQ6AEIJjAA)

"likewise instructions and plans, for making a flying car with wings, in which
a man may sit, and, by working a small lever, cause himself to ascend and soar
through the air with the facility of a bird..."

------
rmi7
so that would require a separate driver's license I guess.

But awesome anyway!

