4 ms·

" 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 you

by melling 10y ago

" 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 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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-“doctor-killer”-airplane-so-dangerous/ https://aviatorcollege.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/why-is-the-“...
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    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).
jonah 10y ago
Do you live adjacent to a GA airport? Where else could one expand the wings, accelerate, and take off with their flying car?
laksjd 10y ago
That's not really very fast at all. Most cars can easily go faster than that, the only limits are the human drivers and their pesky problems with reacting quickly enough at high speeds. Sure, no car could go that fast in a city but I'd be surprised if people were going to be happy with large amounts of people flying over residential areas so your flying car might be grounded by regulations/etc inside cities anyway. If you want to make the world smaller than the most cost effective solution might be to enforce a common standard for networked cars and ban human drivers from motorways. Cars regularly go >125mph (at least on the few bits of German Autobahn that have no speed limits) and while that is an insanely stupid thing to do with human drivers and their awful reaction speeds + their inability to know the intention of other drivers, a 125mph highway could be achieved via networked computer driven cars (and excluding human driving,of course) with significantly less effort than it would take to make flying cars available to anybody but a select few.
- vidarh 10y ago
  It's not very fast at all if forced to follow roads. It's a big deal if you can fly in a near straight line. And while, yes, you can drive fast on the autobahn and similar, most of us don't live right next to a freeway and go to/from places directly on a freeway, so the average speed will tend to be far lower. To take some extreme examples: average traffic speeds in London are below 20mph, with certain congested parts well below that. We will never get to 125mph+ everywhere on the ground, because car drivers is not the limiting factor, but other factors such as pedestrian safety in residential areas etc.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    in fully automated traffic, we can get 2x the current speed, even 3x in congested areas, and probably no traffic jams ever again. it's not a straight line performance, but considering how 'little' is needed (capable ai-drive) compared to complete overhaul of almost everything just that people can fly around and land somewhere... much more realistic goal
    - vidarh 10y ago

by melling 10y ago

sokoloff 10y ago

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 10y ago
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-“doctor-killer”-airplane-so-dangerous/ https://aviatorcollege.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/why-is-the-“...
- sokoloff 10y ago
  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).

jonah 10y ago

Do you live adjacent to a GA airport? Where else could one expand the wings, accelerate, and take off with their flying car?

laksjd 10y ago

That's not really very fast at all. Most cars can easily go faster than that, the only limits are the human drivers and their pesky problems with reacting quickly enough at high speeds. Sure, no car could go that fast in a city but I'd be surprised if people were going to be happy with large amounts of people flying over residential areas so your flying car might be grounded by regulations/etc inside cities anyway. If you want to make the world smaller than the most cost effective solution might be to enforce a common standard for networked cars and ban human drivers from motorways. Cars regularly go >125mph (at least on the few bits of German Autobahn that have no speed limits) and while that is an insanely stupid thing to do with human drivers and their awful reaction speeds + their inability to know the intention of other drivers, a 125mph highway could be achieved via networked computer driven cars (and excluding human driving,of course) with significantly less effort than it would take to make flying cars available to anybody but a select few.

vidarh 10y ago
It's not very fast at all if forced to follow roads. It's a big deal if you can fly in a near straight line. And while, yes, you can drive fast on the autobahn and similar, most of us don't live right next to a freeway and go to/from places directly on a freeway, so the average speed will tend to be far lower. To take some extreme examples: average traffic speeds in London are below 20mph, with certain congested parts well below that. We will never get to 125mph+ everywhere on the ground, because car drivers is not the limiting factor, but other factors such as pedestrian safety in residential areas etc.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  in fully automated traffic, we can get 2x the current speed, even 3x in congested areas, and probably no traffic jams ever again. it's not a straight line performance, but considering how 'little' is needed (capable ai-drive) compared to complete overhaul of almost everything just that people can fly around and land somewhere... much more realistic goal
  - vidarh 10y ago