
No Longer a Dream: Silicon Valley Takes on the Flying Car - uladzislau
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/technology/flying-car-technology.html
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merricksb
Discussed yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14183447](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14183447)

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aphextron
Another nonsense marketing piece. The image in the article is not even
remotely close to a flying car. It is a ducted fan ground effect craft, no
different than what NASA and USAF have worked on since the 1950's. Sure you
could sort out the stability and flight automation problems with modern
software. But the underlying problem to solve is one of energy storage, not
aerospace engineering. This company will run into the exact same wall that
every other effort to do this has. Until battery power density is increased
10x, electric flying cars will never be a thing.

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robotresearcher
> It is a ducted fan ground effect craft, no different than what NASA and USAF
> have worked on since the 1950's.

No, it's not. It's a modern multi-rotor, which have only been possible
recently with computer control. No ducts, no (useful) ground effect. Ground
effect craft have wings:

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=ground+effect+craft](https://www.google.ca/search?q=ground+effect+craft)

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nradov
Ground effect isn't only a factor for fixed-wing aircraft, it also impacts
rotary-wing aircraft including helicopters and the Kitty Hawk Flyer. When you
fly a helicopter there is a sudden noticeable loss of lift as you climb out of
the ground effect. I'll bet the Kitty Hawk is staying close to the surface at
least partially to take advantage of ground effect lift, although the article
doesn't make that clear.

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robotresearcher
I stand corrected, thanks.

Easy to understand summary of helicopter ground effect, with pictures:

[http://www.copters.com/aero/ground_effect.html](http://www.copters.com/aero/ground_effect.html)

I note that the rotary wing ground effect works to a height of about the rotor
diameter, so it's not clear to me that this is a useful effect with these
small rotors.

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demarq
Every x months since the early nineties there will be an article about someone
developing a flying car, and the inventor/ceo painting a jetsons future where
riding in a flying car is but a casual experience of the future.

I'm not complaining, I just find it a truly fascinating phenomenon. In 20
years we'll be reading this same article written by someone else for the 16
thousand time.But hopefully that article will end end with "to go on sale this
later this year"

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Piskvorrr
Since the 1950s, actually. This is one of the technologies that's always 5
years in the future. "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today."

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johan_larson
The big problems are safety and noise. If "flying cars" operated in large
numbers in urban and suburban environments are going to become a thing, both
need to be solved.

Best guess, we can solve the safety issue. With enough on-board safety
systems, pilot training, appropriate rules of the road, and mandatory
transponders, we could make things safe enough. But that still leaves noise.
What conceivable propeller or turbine system could lift a thousand pounds
while being as quiet as a modern car? Probably none of them.

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Animats
Many of the 1950s small VTOL craft ended up in the Hiller Museum in San
Carlos, CA. Stop by there and see the Hiller Flying Platform, the Rotorcycle,
and the VXT-8 Coleopter. All flew successfully. None could fly very far.

Lilium's VTOL, which takes off vertically and then transitions to aircraft
mode, is a variation on an old idea, the convertiplane. It's a compelling
idea, because winged aircraft are far more efficient than VTOL craft. It's
hard to make it work well. The idea was tried twice in the 1950s, and
prototypes were flown, but never worked very well. The V-22 Osprey is the only
successful convertiplane, and it's not considered a big success.

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jvandonsel
No mention of Lilium, unfortunately, though they aren't in SV.
[https://lilium.com/](https://lilium.com/)

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FabHK
Here are a few players in this market (location:firm:product):

* Germany: E-volo: Volocopter

* Germany: Lilium Aviation: Lilium Jet

* Slovakia: AeroMobil 3.0

* EU/Silicon Valley: Airbus Urban Mobility: Vahana

* Israel: Urban Aeronautics: Cormorant

* China: eHang: eHang 184

* USA: zee.aero

* USA: Joby Aviation: S2

* USA: Kitty Hawk

* USA: Terrafugium (“legacy”): TF-X

* USA: Icon (“legacy”)

* USA: PAL-V (actual flying car)

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grenoire
PAL-V is not American if I looked it up correctly.

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FabHK
Thanks, looks like I was wrong there indeed.

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nradov
It feels like history is repeating itself just like the hype over Very Light
Jets about 10 years ago. A bunch of manufacturers lost a lot of money chasing
after a market that didn't really exist (at least not at a realistic price).

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Upvoter33
what's more fun is to read the nyt comments section - looks like a decided
lack of enthusiasm + a serious hatred of the rich and the silicon valley
mindset... given the usual commenters lean heavily liberal, it is somewhat
surprising to see so much vitriol aimed at this puff piece and its subject

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tomcam
Thanks for pointing it out. I read them all after encountering your comment.
Best entertainment of the day

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1024core
No mention of Ehang 184:
[http://www.ehang.com/ehang184](http://www.ehang.com/ehang184)

I don't know much about the company, but they seem to have got something
airborne in the last couple of years:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iyCgy1juHc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iyCgy1juHc)

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wanderingjew
There is a mention of Ehang in the article. However, I cannot put this more
succinctly: The Ehang is an abortion of aviation.

Instead of going into the idiocy of an autonomously piloted passenger aircraft
(which will never be legal under any sane civil aviation laws), I'm just going
to go over why the current Ehang 184 doesn't make any sense.

The Ehang 184 is an octocopter, with two rotors stacked on top of each other.
It looks like a quadcopter with single person pod in the middle. So far, so
good. However, on every aircraft _ever_ , there are red nav lights on the port
side, and green navigation lights on the starboard side. The Ehang places
green nav lights in the back, red in the front. This makes sense if it always
flies sideways. There are no anti-collision lights on the top or bottom, and
therefore there's no way to tell when it's safe to approach the aircraft. Keep
in mind, that's just the lights. There's far more wrong with this aircraft.

The battery life is 23 minutes, and the FAA requires 15 minute reserve under
VFR conditions. That leaves eight minutes of actual flying time _round trip_.
Since the Ehang needs to get back to a charging point, you're always four
minutes away from your destination. Since the speed is 100km/h, the maximum
possible distance the ehang can fly is about three miles, less if you account
for slowing down, speeding up, and landing. Just walk it at that point.

The mere mention of the Ehang 184 in the NYT piece deserves shame. It is not a
product, it has no basis in reality, and its place in history is alongside the
old-time stock footage of 18-winged planes collapsing in on themselves. It is
an idea so supremely idiotic the inventors and marketers of this device should
be shunned.

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golergka
From your description, it sounds like a solid prototype: fix the lights and
other typical prototype stuff, wait for battery technology to catch up, which
a LOT of companies around the globe are betting on, and here you have a flying
car.

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beaconstudios
> wait for battery technology to catch up

battery energy density improvements are very small and incremental. It'll take
decades to go from 23 minutes airtime to something even slightly practical.

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FabHK
From what I gather, battery specific energy has grown by 4% to 8% per annum,
so doubling every 18 to 9 years.

Applications in aviation (beyond tiny niche markets) would thus seem two to
three decades away.

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beaconstudios
batteries will likely see a similar drop-off to Moore's law as they approach
physical or practical limitations on energy density.

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FabHK
Furthermore, unfortunately, they never approached Moore's-law-speeds anyway!

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otheotheothe
Bad article, but meanwhile in Munich/Germany:
[http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15369850/lilium-jet-
flying...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/20/15369850/lilium-jet-flying-car-
first-flight-vtol-aviation-munich)

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ccozan
Is there any company that develops something similar to an ornithopter [0] ? I
skimmed over the list in the article, but couldn't find anything. The wiki
suggests a greater efficiency than other methods, which with a limited battery
pack would play a role in extending range.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter#Aerodynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornithopter#Aerodynamics)

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blurrywh
Compared to a car accident a flying car accident can create 100x damage for
participating and/or non-participating passengers/travellers. The factor
'100x' is just my guess, correct me if you think I am wrong. Could this be an
obstacle for the future success or do you see any solution to this problem?

(This is just what I am always wondering when reading about flying cars)

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usrusr
More damage for the occupants, but a box that falls out of the sky has a much
lower chance of hitting something meaty than a box that moves fast in the same
plane as all the others. The damage zone on the ground of a flying car would
be point-shaped, that of a rolling car is line-shaped. Shifting risk from
bystander to occupant, that's something I could get behind.

But that's all just theory given the prototype depicted: with open blade
horizontal rotors like that I could never think of those things as anything
but killing machines. Even if accidents never happen, the mental image is just
too powerful.

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nkkollaw
How is that a car?

I wish people actually wrote newsworthy stories to get visitors instead of
making up clickbait titles.

A flying car is a silent, flying vehicle that is allowed to drive on regular
streets, that anyone can purchase.

This certainly is not.

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SubiculumCode
You know what is scarier than teenagers driving on the freeway? When they fly
over your house.

and as others here have noted, and flying car solution would be very very
loud.

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bobsil1
Run many small fan motors out of phase.

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faragon
TL;DR: rich people with big ego.

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victornomad
damm, then we will get a subscription model flying car!

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libeclipse
I wonder how they plan on managing traffic in 3D.

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bertlequant
Multipass

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executesorder66
So there's a startup for helicopters now? /s

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MikeTheGreat
I really, really hope that flying cars never come to pass. Right now, when an
accident happens, we know where it will happen: on the road or right next to
the road (more-or-less). If flying cars were ever to become a thing you could
be killed by a drunk driver crashing into the roof of your house / top floor
bedroom, hundreds of feet from any road.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the article (It keeps asking me to pay money to
subscribe)(which is fair to do, but I'm just not doing that right now)

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shoefly
I'm 99.9% certain these vehicles would be forced to fly over existing roads.
And it's likely the final product would be autonomous to ensure no one could
do a random fly over of your house.

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nradov
The FAA would never require aircraft to fly over roads. These things (if they
can actually be made to work) will be subject to the same regulations as any
other general aviation. We are decades away from having autonomous flight
control systems which can be certified for carrying passengers and flying
through regular airspace.

