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Every x months since the early nineties there will be an article about someone developing a flying car, and the inventor/ceo painting a jetsons future where rid

by demarq 10y ago

Every x months since the early nineties there will be an article about someone developing a flying car, and the inventor/ceo painting a jetsons future where riding in a flying car is but a casual experience of the future. I'm not complaining, I just find it a truly fascinating phenomenon. In 20 years we'll be reading this same article written by someone else for the 16 thousand time.But hopefully that article will end end with "to go on sale this later this year"

ProblemFactory 10y ago
The thing is, we have had "flying cars" - helicopters - for almost 100 years. Helicopters match the core functionality of a flying car: can fly, can carry 2-6 people, can take off and land almost everywhere. So why are helicopters still relatively rare, and what is different in a "flying car" that people dream about? It's not 4 tiny wheels after all (and you can get a helicopter with tiny wheels). * Price: helicopters are expensive to buy, and very expensive to maintain. You need about 1 hour of maintenance for every 10 flight hours. * Fuel cost: vertical thrust for lift is very energy intensive. * Difficult to pilot: needs professional training. * Noise and airspace restrictions: many cities do not allow personal helicopters to fly low or land in urban areas due to noise and fear of accidents. "Difficult to pilot" is the only area where I see significant possible improvements in the near future, if autopilot gets good enough to remove the pilot altogether. But there is no obvious engineering breakthrough on the horizon that will improve the maintenance, energy use or noise issues. Maybe if there is a breakthrough in battery technology, then electric helicopters could improve on both the energy and maintenance costs, but that is not really up to people working on "flying cars".
Piskvorrr 10y ago
Since the 1950s, actually. This is one of the technologies that's always 5 years in the future. "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today."
- johan_larson 10y ago
  The big problems are safety and noise. If "flying cars" operated in large numbers in urban and suburban environments are going to become a thing, both need to be solved. Best guess, we can solve the safety issue. With enough on-board safety systems, pilot training, appropriate rules of the road, and mandatory transponders, we could make things safe enough. But that still leaves noise. What conceivable propeller or turbine system could lift a thousand pounds while being as quiet as a modern car? Probably none of them.
diggan 10y ago
> "to go on sale this later this year" Funny that you say so, since this article says this but I don't think it makes it more true > Kitty Hawk, the company backed by Mr. Page, is trying to be one of the first out of the gate and plans to start selling its vehicle by the end of the year.

by demarq 10y ago

ProblemFactory 10y ago

The thing is, we have had "flying cars" - helicopters - for almost 100 years. Helicopters match the core functionality of a flying car: can fly, can carry 2-6 people, can take off and land almost everywhere. So why are helicopters still relatively rare, and what is different in a "flying car" that people dream about? It's not 4 tiny wheels after all (and you can get a helicopter with tiny wheels). * Price: helicopters are expensive to buy, and very expensive to maintain. You need about 1 hour of maintenance for every 10 flight hours. * Fuel cost: vertical thrust for lift is very energy intensive. * Difficult to pilot: needs professional training. * Noise and airspace restrictions: many cities do not allow personal helicopters to fly low or land in urban areas due to noise and fear of accidents. "Difficult to pilot" is the only area where I see significant possible improvements in the near future, if autopilot gets good enough to remove the pilot altogether. But there is no obvious engineering breakthrough on the horizon that will improve the maintenance, energy use or noise issues. Maybe if there is a breakthrough in battery technology, then electric helicopters could improve on both the energy and maintenance costs, but that is not really up to people working on "flying cars".

Piskvorrr 10y ago

Since the 1950s, actually. This is one of the technologies that's always 5 years in the future. "Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today."

johan_larson 10y ago
The big problems are safety and noise. If "flying cars" operated in large numbers in urban and suburban environments are going to become a thing, both need to be solved. Best guess, we can solve the safety issue. With enough on-board safety systems, pilot training, appropriate rules of the road, and mandatory transponders, we could make things safe enough. But that still leaves noise. What conceivable propeller or turbine system could lift a thousand pounds while being as quiet as a modern car? Probably none of them.

diggan 10y ago

> "to go on sale this later this year" Funny that you say so, since this article says this but I don't think it makes it more true > Kitty Hawk, the company backed by Mr. Page, is trying to be one of the first out of the gate and plans to start selling its vehicle by the end of the year.