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Yours is a first world answer.. In other worlds where roads are not as available & geographical conditions are complex, a flying car would be wonderful. Imagine

Yours is a first world answer.. In other worlds where roads are not as available & geographical conditions are complex, a flying car would be wonderful. Imagine Amazon jungle or an Island hopper or areas of extensive land with poor/constantly interrupted roads.. (All found where I currently live)

manigandham 10y ago
And flying cars would be easier than just building a basic road? How many people are living in the jungle but want flying cars? Also you can already buy a cheap helicopter today if you just need to get around rural places.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  There's nothing cheap about a helicopter. An airplane wants to fly, a helicopter wants to crash. The expense for the latter comes from fighting that tendency.
  - harperlee 10y ago
    Autogyros (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro) are very safe and cheap, compared to planes and helicopters. Plus they are very simple mechanically, so for the third-world scenario seems a good fit. They require a takeoff and landing road, though.
  - manigandham 10y ago
    But flying cars are going to be cheap enough for the jungle people?
dredmorbius 10y ago
Jungle, outback, and tundra environments have flying cars. They're called bush planes. They land on rough, largely unimproved strips, or bare dirt, snow, or water. No, you don't drive them much, other than taxiing around the landing zone or airport, these are places with few or no roads, or far too many miles to go between spaces. Australia, Alaska, Brazil, and similar places. If you're interested in take-off and landing capabilities, there are truly impressive videos to be found on YouTube. With an unloaded plane and steep slope or high wind, a roll of 5-7 meters is possible. The cars that tend to drive in such areas are heavy and robust -- Land Rovers, Jeeps, and technicals. Those make poor planes. Any aircraft subject to road conditions would shake itself to pieces. Put landing strips where you need them and fly to them. It's far more effective. Given the terrain, it's also actually not all that more fuel-consumptive, see earlier comments about effective aircraft fuel efficiency.

manigandham 10y ago

And flying cars would be easier than just building a basic road? How many people are living in the jungle but want flying cars? Also you can already buy a cheap helicopter today if you just need to get around rural places.

WalterBright 10y ago
There's nothing cheap about a helicopter. An airplane wants to fly, a helicopter wants to crash. The expense for the latter comes from fighting that tendency.
- harperlee 10y ago
  Autogyros (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro) are very safe and cheap, compared to planes and helicopters. Plus they are very simple mechanically, so for the third-world scenario seems a good fit. They require a takeoff and landing road, though.
- manigandham 10y ago
  But flying cars are going to be cheap enough for the jungle people?

dredmorbius 10y ago

Jungle, outback, and tundra environments have flying cars. They're called bush planes. They land on rough, largely unimproved strips, or bare dirt, snow, or water. No, you don't drive them much, other than taxiing around the landing zone or airport, these are places with few or no roads, or far too many miles to go between spaces. Australia, Alaska, Brazil, and similar places. If you're interested in take-off and landing capabilities, there are truly impressive videos to be found on YouTube. With an unloaded plane and steep slope or high wind, a roll of 5-7 meters is possible. The cars that tend to drive in such areas are heavy and robust -- Land Rovers, Jeeps, and technicals. Those make poor planes. Any aircraft subject to road conditions would shake itself to pieces. Put landing strips where you need them and fly to them. It's far more effective. Given the terrain, it's also actually not all that more fuel-consumptive, see earlier comments about effective aircraft fuel efficiency.