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> a car in the middle of the desert will just roll until it stops And an airplane will glide pretty far until it stops. Every single pilot has practical first
by knodi123 10y ago
> a car in the middle of the desert will just roll until it stops
And an airplane will glide pretty far until it stops.
Every single pilot has practical first-hand experience with unpowered landings- they're on the curriculum when you're getting your license. It's a remarkably survivable thing to do, especially in a desert with a road like your example.
- nacs 10y ago> Every single pilot has practical first-hand experience with unpowered landing Considering many people can barely handle driving normal cars correctly, the number of average flying-car consumers that will have airplane pilot-level training, knowledge, skill, and maintain sanity in emergency situations like unpowered landings is minuscule.
- CamperBob2 10y agoSurely nobody thinks this can happen without autonomous (or at least remotely centralized) control? Do they? Because if they do, they've obviously never driven a normal car in traffic, much less a flying one.
- knodi123 10y agoI thought we were speaking generally, about today's planes, with today's pilots. However, you might be interested to learn about gyrocopters, which have the interesting property that, if the engine dies, or the pilot is incapacitated and releases the throttles, it will land automatically, by pure aerodynamics.