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Flying cars are a wrong way of thinking. They will disrupt nothing. What would "disrupt" personal flying transportation would be some kind of 95% automated flyi
by geff82 10y ago
Flying cars are a wrong way of thinking. They will disrupt nothing. What would "disrupt" personal flying transportation would be some kind of 95% automated flying device, that takes off and lands vertically without large propellers (some kind of contained impeller maybe) and that does not need more space than a car on takeoff and landing, so that our current road infrastructure in cities can be used. And of course it should not run on fossile fuel... If someone designes something like this and finds a way for it to be <100.000$, that might be something to write about.
- mahyarm 10y agoI agree. Automated on demand electric drones for metropolitan areas with bridge choke points (seattle, new york, sf) and island-mainland (vancouver island) or island cluster (hawaii) transportation is where they will really shine.
- geff82 10y agoImagine a world with no roads except the ones to walk around neighbourhoods, yet a perfect infrastructure made possible by personal drones that are fed by renewable energy. There is still some place for science fiction to come real...
- elmar 10y agoCounter intuitively is very hard to design a small VTOL that works on fossile fuel, it's much simpler to do it electric. Moller is the best example after forty years and $100M and several marriages it still doesn't work. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycarhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_M400_Skycarhttps://en... VoloCopter is a good example of what is possible today with electric powering, the big bottleneck is autonomy with current battery technology with only the pilot you get around 15-20 flight time.
- dredmorbius 10y agoIsn't this because electric drive has high power output, but that this comes at a severe cost in range? Moller is probably most effective at having developed very high power-weight rotary engine technology. Fuel consumption is high, and the things are noisy as hell. I've watched development for over 25 years, and he's no closer to commercialisation than he was in 1989, for much the same reasons. It's nostalgic to see the occasional press mention though.
- elmar 10y agoyou normally need several motors or to distribute the power of the motors in several rotors that is very dificult for small vehicles this guy did it with using several two stroke engines http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/garden/in-a-remote-part-of-utah-life-alone-in-a-hangar.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/garden/in-a-remote-part...