
The Pal-V flying car - pawelwentpawel
http://pal-v.com/
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vibrunazo
Self driving cars first. Flying cars second. In that order, cannot happen the
other way around. I agree with Erick Schmidt when he said "It's a bug that
cars were invented before computers, or else humans would have never driven
cars themselves". Hopefully we won't implement the same bug again.

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wavephorm
Self-flying air vehicles like this are probably easier to implement than cars.
For simple reasons, such as there being no obstacles like roads, street
lights, pedestrians, and because you have a 3rd dimension there is
significantly more space so the vehicles can be more spread out. The trip
itinerary is a lot easier because you're essentially going from point A to
point B in a straight line. Also, starting from day one, you could mandate
that no human is allowed to pilot these types of vehicles, so you wouldn't
have a mix of human and computer pilots that you have with cars.

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ericingram
The answer to safety issues should not be a matter of restricting people from
operating them. By that mentality, you'd ban a huge range of very useful
things.

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wavephorm
I disagree, restricting humans is exactly what needs to happen for personal
air travel to ever to be safe. The humans are the rogues, they're ones that
are going to cause problems, not follow standard procedures, drink and fly,
check their cellphones while flying etc. Imagine how much uncertainty and risk
could be eliminated if you know that 100% of the vehicles in the air are all
computer controlled, and use a common communication/navigation protocol. It
would simplify everything.

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mortenjorck
Exactly. A sufficiently advanced "flying car" should be able to simply take a
destination entered via smartphone, generate a flight plan, file the plan
electronically, ping a regional air traffic control server for takeoff
clearance, and run a preflight self-diagnostic, all in a matter of minutes.

~~~
omegant
Yep and then when the computer hangs up, or a lightning hits your plane and
burn all the electronics, or the turbulence is so hi that the autopilot simply
disconnects, or a sensor breaks in the middle of the flight and the flight
computer throws erroneous predictions, or a software update introduces a bug
that is active just in certain circumstances, etc... I think that eventually
it will be possible but ( and I am talking of 30 million $ planes) actually
there are simply to many failures too many times ( once a year is enough and I
assure you that potentially dangerous failures happen far more often than
that) to have a fully autonomous plane flying with people inside. Don't even
start thinking of consumer grade planes.

A robotic car could be made to Self stop whenever a failure happens, that is a
luxury that planes don't have.

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nickpinkston
This is very cool - though this type of vehicle should really be called a
"roadable-plane".

The real dream of the flying car is having the utility of a car (kids,
groceries, etc.) with the ability to fly from point-to-point - not drive it on
the road. The Jetsons had a flying car without wheels or roadability - that's
the ideal.

This means the city-friendly / VTOL aspect is waaaay more important than the
"fast taxi" approach being taken. The Moller M400 (I know vaporware) seemed A
LOT closer to this.

Of course, the design of this vehicle makes more sense for today: land on a
small runway on the outskirts of town, and then drive to your real location.
This saves a ton of energy and seemingly works okay with existing
infrastructure - assuming your city has a nearby airstrip.

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lotharbot
The _"real dream of the flying car"_ seems to differ from person to person.

Some people essentially want a flying machine that they can land in their
driveway and parking lots, that they can take to the air for all but the
shortest trips, with little need for "car" abilities. Others want something
that's a car the majority of the time, but can fly on those midrange (60-600
miles) city-to-city trips.

VTOL on city streets is unlikely to be popular any time soon, largely due to
safety concerns. But there's been a constant push for decades for something
that can take off and land at small airstrips, and with only a few minutes'
conversion work, can then drive over to grandma's house. Turning a 6 hour
drive into a 3 hour flight would be a big deal.

~~~
marvin
I'm convinced that what's eventually going to turn the tide for these kinds of
vehicles is if we can make a tiltrotor ducted fan thing with adjustable fan
geometry _and_ wings. Something like the V-22 Osprey, except with adjustable
ducts around the fans. This way, you can get both the high thrust required for
takeoff and the low drag required for cruise. Wings are a requirement if you
want to keep the fuel consumption low.

A vehicle like this wouldn't have comparable cruising speeds to airplanes
(something like 80mph cruise), but could take off and land anywhere, and would
have higher fuel efficiency than one of today's cars. There are actually
canarded airplames today which cruise at 160 knots and use less fuel per mile
than a car.

I'm actually surprised there isn't more research into these kinds of vehicles,
but I guess the Osprey fiasco has everyone running scared.

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DanielBMarkham
I love gyrocopters and it was a slick website, so easy upvote from me.

$300K is way too steep, though. For that price why not buy a new Cessna and
just drive a clunker to the airport?

And, for that matter, $300K is way too steep for a Cessna. The amount of money
added to planes to cover lawsuits is insane. You end up buying an amount of
gear that might sell retail for 30-50K for 10 times that much.

I'd love to fly this, but hell, I don't see why I'd paid that much. Even if I
were a gyrocopter fanatic, I'd just buy a kit and have it built. It's just way
too much money for way too little capability.

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bigiain
"For that price why not buy a new Cessna and just drive a clunker to the
airport?"

Because when you get to the other end, you're stuck with the "$100 burger" at
some out-of-the-way rural airstrip, instead of being able to drive into town
and go to the nice pub.

You'd have to be quite special for that to be worth $300k on a "toy" though…

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dreamdu5t
The Pal-V One has two seats and a 160 kW flight certified gasoline engine,
giving it a top speed of 180 km/h (112 mph) on land and in air, and a Maximum
Takeoff Weight of 910 kg. Estimated unit price is around $300,000.

Where do I buy one?

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ta12121
That sounds kind of slow, for air travel.

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bigiain
Rotor craft are limited by a combination of needing the advancing rotor blade
stay under mach1[1], and having the retreating blade still moving fast
enough[2] still be able to create lift.

Flying much faster then 200kmh usually needs tricks like going to more than 2
blades, and exceeding 500knh (where the advancing blade needs to exceed mach1
if the retreating blade isn't moving backwards through the air) required very
expensive blades (and becomes outrageously noisy)

[1] 'cause breaking the sound barrier along parts but not all of the advancing
blade makes things complicated and expensive. [2] and keep in mind this is
_backwards_ , relative to the body of the helicopter.autogyro

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gvb
Test flight: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgHSaNtAMjs>

Cool folding prop (but scary - if it doesn't unfold properly, it could make
quite a mess).

FWIIW, it is really a flying motorcycle, not a flying car. Three wheeled
vehicles (in the USA) are licensed as motorcycles and have _hugely_ lower
regulatory (especially safety) requirements.

~~~
dexen
_> Cool folding prop (but scary - if it doesn't unfold properly, it could make
quite a mess)._

Hard to tell from the video alone, but the rotor look just like my RC
helicopter's: blades attached to the hub by one gudgeon pin each. If that's
the case, centrifugal force alone is enough to align them perfectly †; no
solenoid nor manual action needed ever. If that's the case, there's virtually
no way those could fail, except for total disintegration. Pretty standard
construction for small, two-bladed helis.

Way cooler is that they can get away without flybar -- perhaps autogyros don't
ever need one?

† there's some forward-backward play of the blade as it changes attack angle
and relative airspeed during rotation, but that's another matter.

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qntmfred
As a kid In the early 90s I remember reading Scholastic Magazine at school and
reading that flying cars would be available by 1995. I was ecstatic. :-|

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ww520
Nice. I like how they design it to fit in a regular garage. Wonder what's the
range and what kind of fuel it uses. Regular unlead 87?

A proximity warning radar to warn things nearby would be nice.

~~~
spatten
From here: <http://pal-v.com/the-pal-v-one/specifications/>

Flight specs: Range 350 - 500 km Max speed: 180 km/h Fuel economy: 36 l/h

This is 20 l/100 km at max speed (11.76 MPG), so not amazing but not much
worse than an SUV (my car, which is average, gets 10 l/100km). Plus you're
flying in a straight line which is worth a lot.

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spatten
From the FAQ:

For more densely populated countries, in the future there will be a network of
small airstrips near recreational areas along the highway could lead to a much
denser infrastructure. The ministry of Traffic in the Netherlands has started
testing this concept in anticipation of the arrival of PAL-Vs in traffic. See
movie (Link to movie ministry tests PAL-V ports).

Wow, they really think that there will be enough people buying these to create
a need for large numbers of airstrips? Crazy :).

~~~
Someone
There is some spin in that FAQ. Government is, of course, involved; this thing
needs permission to become road- and airworthy. The (meanwhile ex; the video
must be from before October 2010) minister of transport also said it could be
an option in some markets, and he said that, if these things become used
widely, municipailites would have to decide on building such airstrips. He did
not say the government was researching that possibility, though. So, all it
was was a polite way to say "interesting; we will see whether it will fly
(sorry, could not think of a way to make this pun-free. 'will take off' was
the alternative I could think of)

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ishkur101
A brief history of flying cars.

[http://inventorspot.com/articles/experiments_flying_cars_683...](http://inventorspot.com/articles/experiments_flying_cars_6835)

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borski
Seems a lot like the TerraFugia, albeit with very different style:
<http://www.terrafugia.com/>

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10098
I know it was dumb, but I was half expecting to see something like cars from
the Fifth Element after clicking the link.

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bobobjorn
I wouldnt call that a flying car, I would call that a car that can turn into a
gyro/helicopter.

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dhughes
I've always thought a flying car should be simple not this thing and not the
screaming Moller four-engined.

My idea was a van-like vehicle that was neutrally buoyant with bladders to
control the buoyancy sort of a lifting-body dirigible with wheels

Then I see SkyCat it's huge but pretty much the idea I had.

I'm 0 for 2 this week for ideas, my subwoofer siren idea apparently has been
made too.

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Sniffnoy
Anyone have any idea how noisy it is?

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hoprocker
Watch out for fender benders!

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Yxven
Forget fender benders. Your house is now in danger of drunk drivers.

~~~
damian2000
Or high flyers.

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rorrr
I'd like to see a crash test of this "car". I'm not suicidal enough to drive
it on a regular road.

In fact, at the $300,000 price you might as well get a lightweight plane ($20K
would get you a decent one), and a really nice car for $280,000.

Since you can't legally take off and land on a road, there's no real
difference.

~~~
bigiain
While I understand your argument, that same logic would say riding a
motorcycle is "suicidal". A point of view I hear a fair bit being an avid
motorcycle rider, but one that indicates to me that the person holding it
_really_ hasn't understood the risks (or rewards).

~~~
rorrr
Riding a motorcycle is suicidal.

"Per vehicle mile traveled, motorcyclists' risk of a fatal crash is 35 times
greater than a passenger car."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety>

~~~
brianpan
If motorcycling is suicidal, then driving a car is murderous.

"...auto collisions are the leading cause of injury-related deaths, an
estimated total of 1.2 million in 2004, or 25% of the total from all causes.
Of those killed by autos, nearly two-thirds are pedestrians."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_safety>

~~~
rorrr
Yes, and people go to prison for vehicular homicides all the time. But keep in
mind that not every fatal accident is considered a homicide - there are
accidents, and there are many cases when the other side is responsible.

Which side of the accident would you rather be on?

~~~
emmelaich
> not every fatal accident is considered a homicide

Note that homicide merely means killing of a person (by another). It could be
accidental.

ref: <http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/homicide>

