15 ms·
NEC shows ‘flying car’ hovering steadily for minute
- tomcam 7y agoHas anyone effectively dealt with the noise problem? Vehicles this size would be unacceptable almost anywhere people are present for the noise alone.
- sambroner 7y agoWould this be a problem if these cars exclusively took off from the top of sky scrapers? If I remember from my time in Nyc, above the 20th floor it’s quite hard to hear even the loudest noises from the street. Presumably from the ground, it’d be hard to hear one of these taking off on the 30th floor.
- downtide 7y agoI live rurally near a busy trunk road. I can walk about 1/2 mile away and the road is still in my line of sight, and it is still 'loud' (as in irritating). However, I'm blighted by this road as I'm so close to its proximity. And it disturbs me. However, I did notice when visiting a busy part of town recently that it was a complete aural assualt, and as such, you might hear/perceive less under the cacaphony of much. I can hear drones that fly over, but it's not a horrible noise. Much car noise these days seems to come from friction on the road as engines have gotten much quieter. So with that in mind, perhaps in all they'd be quieter, but I can't see an easy way to environmentally muffle the sound, could you invert the sound?
- ses1984 7y agoI would like to know what the measurement of the loudness when you are 1/2 mile away from the road.
- downtide 7y agoThe quotes around 'loud' here, is an emphasis on relativeness. There is a flyover down the valley and sound flies off that. You only recognise silence in the event of road closure. Then momentary bliss is attained through someone elses misery.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoIt severely restricts the potential market if you do this (only travels from one skyscraper to another are supported). For instance you can just completely forget about Washington DC, London and Paris, and many more cities. And even in cities with skyscrapers, they tend to be clustered in one or two districts, so you can only travel within a very small part of the city. My feeling about the current push for flying cars and autonomous transport, is that when our grandchildren ask us about it, it will be in the same way as children today ask why they were still playing violins when the Titanic went down.
- pilsetnieks 7y agoWell, skyscraper to skyscraper (or helipad, or other permitted areas) would be a start. Eventually the tech could catch up - for example, with materials like these - https://phys.org/news/2019-03-acoustic-metamaterial-cancels.html https://phys.org/news/2019-03-acoustic-metamaterial-cancels.... - being developed.
- imhoguy 7y agoSkyscraper cable cars would be less expensive/noisy/power hungry and with more capacity. https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/envisioning-the-urban-skyscraper-of-2050/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/envisioning-the-urba...
- vidarh 7y agoSkyscraper cable cars require them to be near enough to each other, which would limit them to far fewer city centres. London for example has very few skyscrapers, but several parts of town have some and quite a few more have a bunch of 20+ story buildings, but only two areas (City and Docklands) have many buildings like that clustered close enough for cable cars to seem potentially viable by far enough for it to possibly be interesting.
- xvilka 7y agoIt reminds me of Canopy from the Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space book series.
- vkou 7y agoHelicopters are much louder than street noise. You may barely hear the street at the 30th floor, but a helicopter flying 300 feet above the ground is going to be incredibly loud.
- taneq 7y agoWe could solve the skyscraper-to-skyscraper problem much more effectively with a series of ziplines.
- benj111 7y agoI would guess that would be the pivot for Zipcar.
- nradov 7y agoMost skyscrapers don't have a safe space to land on the roof due to weight restrictions, antennas, HVAC equipment, etc. Modifications to allow flight operations would be expensive. Only a few existing skyscrapers have helipads.
- leoedin 7y agoThe Pan Am building in NYC used to have a helipad, but there was a crash [1] and it was removed. Today most western cities have helipads tucked out the way - on the river in London and NYC for instance - for safety. Every time a helicopter falls out the sky and lands on an unfortunate pedestrian, the rules tighten. That's not going to change with drones. [1]: https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/may-16-1977-helicopter-accident-on-top-of-pan-am-building-kills-five/ https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/may-16-1977-he...
- smacktoward 7y agoForget helicopters, the top of the Empire State Building has a Zeppelin dock: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/realestate/26scapes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/realestate/26scapes.html
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI think the major physics problem that is very hard to fiddle, if you want to achieve the popular sci-fi version of VTOL flying cars aerodynamically, is the requirement that the cross sectional area of downthrust air fits roughly inside something approaching a car's plan view while still having room for occupants and luggage. Purely to hover such a thing, never mind ascend at a reasonable rate, requires airjets that will blow pedestrians cheerfully across a street.
- JKCalhoun 7y agoNever mind the energy needed to consume to do so. I'm curmudgeony, I say the future is powered bicycles.
- hanniabu 7y agoHell yeah, bicycles with nice thrusters and wings that automatically extend out from drag at certain so that you can glide and coast a bit!
- benj111 7y agoMotorbikes? Or electric bikes? I must say I'm not that bullish (on bikes and electric bikes). Shopping, hills, rain, children all combine to mean they can't really do 100% of journeys. And human nature will ensure that that big expensive chunk of metal gets used as much as possible to make it worth the cost. Of course our car powered present doesn't involve 100% car transport so you could still be right, and it's still worth aiming for. Ps, if that counts as curmudgeonly I certainly have no hope, now get of my lawn.
- kerng 7y agoUber's concept showed car ports up on buildings, so flying cars wouldn't be on the ground I guess. In that sense not very different to helicopters and dedicated heliports.
- olivermarks 7y agohttps://youtu.be/vzm6pvHPSGo https://youtu.be/vzm6pvHPSGo IBM decided lotus software was more important than flying cars
- sircastor 7y agoThis commercial has stood out on my mind for nearly 2 decades. Probably a combination of Avery Brooks and flying cars, bit it had a lot of memorability to me for someone who used Lotus for 4 months at a job.
- cheez 7y agoWhere did Avery Brooks develop his speech technique...
- bitwize 7y ago(in Jon Lovitz Master Thespian voice) ACTING!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- CobrastanJorji 7y agoTheir ad attempting to explain the benefits of Linux being open source was spectacular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7dTjpvakmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7dTjpvakmA
- meddlepal 7y agoIt's a pretty good commercial honestly.
- olivermarks 7y agoSaatchi & Saatchi Montreal made the TV spot
- xgulfie 7y agoA flying car, aka "helicopter"
- satori99 7y ago> All of the flying car concepts, which are like drones big enough to hold humans, promise to be better than helicopters. Helicopters are expensive to maintain, noisy to fly and require trained pilots. They forgot to add helicopters can also auto-gyrate in the event of engine failure. Quad-copter drones probably just crash.
- JKCalhoun 7y agoAlmost certainly if the blades cannot vary pitch.
- prawn 7y agoMost drones can compensate to account for issues. My drone has hit a tree a few times, self-balanced and continued flight. It's flown fine through heavy wind/rain with cracked propellers (that I've replaced after noticing). There's a video out there of someone throwing cushions at, or suspending weights from, a consumer drone and it takes the hits and re-stabilises. High-end drones have battery redundancy, six props to account for failures, parachute systems, etc.
- sschueller 7y agoFrom what I have read and seen a drone with only 4 props has almost no chance of recovery if one prop fails. This is also why drones for high end expensive video have six or eight props to prevent a catastrophic failure resulting in loss of equipment.
- satori99 7y agoThere are algorithmic solutions to maintaining some semblance of flight with a damaged quad copter, even down to one remaining prop, however it involves spinning the entire air-frame to stay aloft -- which means it is probably not suitable for a human passenger drone https://newatlas.com/quadcopter-failure-algorithm/30031/ https://newatlas.com/quadcopter-failure-algorithm/30031/
- nosianu 7y ago
- ma2rten 7y agoI don't understand why this is called a flying car and not a quadcopter. Cars by definition have 4 wheels and drive around.
- omeid2 7y agoSame thing as AI vs Algorithm.
- adrianmonk 7y agoIt is supposed to cover many of the same use cases as a car. Also, "car" has many meanings already: passenger car, train (or subway or roller coaster) car, and elevator car. It doesn't seem unreasonable to add another.
- ummwhat 7y agoSame reason cars were once called horseless carriages
- fnord77 7y agoMoller's sham skycar managed this feat 15 or 20 years ago.
- adrianmonk 7y agoSame question as always applies: how much energy does it use compared to a car that drives on a road? The article does mention electric (or hybrid) power, but since electric cars are a thing now, when comparing alternatives it seems like this would not have the lowest energy usage.
- cyknus 7y agoHow much energy does a car use compared to a horse? I get your point and I agree with you, but that is probably not the right question.
- FabHK 7y agoThe Uber Elevate white paper answers many of these basic questions [1]. Bottom line: Conventional car about 1 mile / kWh Electric car about 3 miles / kWh Electric VTOL about 2 miles / kWh [1] https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf page 81ff
- belgianguy 7y agoI wouldn't call this a flying car, I would call this a quadcopter with wheels. While the prospect of having less traffic jams is desirable, the odds of being T-boned from above or below by a distracted pilot become greater than zero. I think we'll need Type 5-and-then-some AI pilots before any of this becomes a reality in day to day commutes.
- erklik 7y ago> I think we'll need Type 5-and-then-some AI pilots before any of this becomes a reality in day to day commutes. Wouldn't AI in flight become much easier to create compared to driving AI on the ground? I mean don't planes already have somewhat of an autopilot. I have no experience or knowledge on the matter, but common sense seems to indicate that air-flight has considerably less environmental variables and could be significantly easier in most cases.
- bobthepanda 7y ago> air-flight has considerably less environmental variables Does it? Instead of routing in two dimensions you now need to do it in three. You then also need to take into account other actors who are also routing in three dimensions. There are no road delineators in the sky. There's also the rather obvious safety concern that in the event of a malfunction, an accelerating, out of control thousands-of-pounds mass accelerating forwards becomes an accelerating, out of control thousands-of-pounds mass accelerating forwards and coming down due to gravity.
- enneff 7y agoRouting is much easier when you can basically go from point A to B directly. Coordination would be required to prevent collisions with other vehicles, but evasion in 3D just means changing to an uncontended altitude. I think the extra dimension actually makes it easier.
- benbristow 7y agoI think you're right. Planes have had autopilot systems for a while now where they basically fly themselves. The big tech firms have been struggling to make a fully autonomous no-human-needed driving car for a while now. So many variables to deal with. Watch Tesla videos on YouTube and you'll see them still struggling on certain types/conditions of roads etc.
- swatkat 7y agoReminds me of vaporware Moller Skycar[0] and Gyrocopters[1] from yesteryear. [0] https://moller.com/ https://moller.com/ [1] https://i.imgur.com/JisWKOR.jpg https://i.imgur.com/JisWKOR.jpg
- ansible 7y agoGyrocoptors have been, and still continue to be a thing, for like... 85 years. The design has not been ever marketed as a "flying car" (to my knowledge), though it does have a relatively short takeoff roll compared to conventional aircraft. Search for "autogyro".
- dfeojm-zlib 7y agoI hope people give up on this 1950's-era mythological obsession with trying to realize a cartoon's flying saucer pods because of the potential for energy waste/climate change, public hazards and property damage.
- Mathnerd314 7y agoVideo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmdilp9LM0E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmdilp9LM0E It rocked back and forth and bounced when it landed, clearly a lot of tuning left.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 7y agoThe wheels are too narrow. When it landed, it almost tipped over to the side. A little bit of cross-wind and it’s lying on its side.
- Animats 7y agoThe EHang 184 looks more promising.[1] That has four sets of contra-rotating props, so there's some redundancy. Flight time 23 minutes, so it's a demonstrator, not something useful. Like the others, it's a scaled up quadrotor drone. This concept needs a higher battery energy density to work. Someone recently flew a jet-powered "hoverboard" across the English channel.[2] That thing is powered by several large model aircraft jet engines. It's much like the Hiller Flying Platform of 1954.[3] If you like strange VTOL craft, many of them are in the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, CA. Also check out the famous AvroCar flying saucer.[4] The US National Archives has uploaded the declassified videos to YouTube. The first video, before the first flight, was classified SECRET. The second video, after the first flight, was only CONFIDENTIAL. The third and final video was UNCLASSIFIED, because it didn't work. The thing was sent to what is now NASA Ames to see if it was good for anything. The video shows it bumping around a meter or two off the ground, pretending to be a hovercraft. The original goal was a supersonic VTOL aircraft. Not even close. The U.S. Army canned the project in favor of the Huey helicopter, which actually worked. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Hm-rmLQcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7Hm-rmLQcU [2] https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/08/04/french-inventor-hoverboard-english-channel-intl-vpx.bfm https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/08/04/french-inventor-... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANBeuGcZHBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANBeuGcZHBA [4] https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/army_saucer/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/army_saucer/
- dTal 7y ago>That has four sets of contra-rotating props, so there's some redundancy That is no redundancy. With only four booms, it only takes a single boom failure (electrical or mechanical) to crash. And with co-axial counter-rotating props, a prop failure will almost certainly cascade to its partner - so again, you really only have four props. There is almost no survivable failure mode with that design.
- de_Selby 7y agoIf just one wheel fails on a car travelling at 100km/h on a road with oncoming traffic you're very unlikely to survive either.
- SubiculumCode 7y agoThe only way there will be mass adoption/acceptance of flying cars will be if flight is completely automated. The thought of my neighbor landing on my house is all too vivid.
- ht_th 7y agoYes, crash landing into people, building, trees, and other traffic is a concern. But automation is not enough, we also need standardization and synchronization, because I am not looking forward to a future where the whole sky above a city is filled with random flying objects everywhere. That would be a mess, particularly around/over low-rise buildings, such as in villages, suburbs, and similar neighborhoods. Flying everywhere you want to go might make sense in either densely populated high-rise cities where you could fly and park your car at height, freeing the ground floors for pedestrians, cyclists, nature, recreation, and so on, or for sparse populated areas where there is no-one to be bothered anyway.
- matthewfelgate 7y agoStop trying to make flying 'cars' happen.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y agoWhy exactly? Everyone knows they will have noise issues and thus cannot be used in tightly populated areas, but there are miriads of other places and usage cases for them.
- trollied 7y agoHas anyone thought about downdraught from these if they're ever sold en-masse? It'll be a complete nightmare for pedestrians.
- adrianN 7y agoAnd the noise, and the things falling from the sky when they crash.
- varjag 7y agolooks like a death wish
- RickJWagner 7y agoHovering steadily..... they've got rush-hour scenarios covered!
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoTethered. Just like the Moller car forever ago. And you now someone will stand underneath this thing as it's landing and get beheaded. Just saying. If it can happen, it will.
- popeye77 7y agoLooks like a cross between drone and rickshaw. I want!
- EL_Loco 7y agoI haven't read much into this, but the Blackfly looks at least as promisin as the competition: https://www.opener.aero/ https://www.opener.aero/ edit: Forgot to add that it has already flown over 20,000 miles with payload (in about 2k flights)
- corodra 7y agoFlying cars have been functional since the 90s. There are more problems to this concept. A. Imagine DUIs in widely available flying vehicles. B. Autopilot is still dogshit. That's the truth. C. If you're old enough, you'll remember when a commercial airline would be high in the sky and you'd still have to pause talking to someone on the ground. Now, even though they will be quieter, electric and all, but high speed rotors still make noise. Lots of it. Add lots of these in lower altitude. Good bye quiet spaces. D. Maintaince. Oh my shit, few people properly maintain their ground cars. Wtf do you think is going to happen to a flying car? Difference is, you don't roll to a stop on engine failure. You crash into a home with someone's family in their teaching their toddler to walk. E. You think those trucks through crowds were bad a while ago? This is borderline democratizing terrorism. F. Mile per watt is going to be way worse than a car. Itll take way too much energy in comparison. Those power conglomerates are going to want their pound of flesh.
- CobrastanJorji 7y agoI remember C. Why did that stop? Are planes required to fly higher now, or did they get quieter?
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y agoHigh-bypass turbofans, or just turbofans in general. In the early days of jet airliners, you had high-velocity exhaust providing all of the thrust. With turbofans, you have much more thrust coming from low-velocity bypass. This is quieter in itself, but also 'shrouds' the high-velocity exhaust. As bypass ratios get higher, engines generally get more efficient and quieter. The challenge in doing this is mostly engineering the large fans.
- corodra 7y agoOkay, then... am I crazy for noticing jet engines on airliners are significantly larger these days compared to 20 years ago? You did say larger fans. I always thought I was crazy when I noticed planes were quieter until Neil degrades Tyson mentioned it.
- 693471 7y agoNot interested unless they've defied physics and made it silent.
- Allower 7y agoWe are we still trying to execute on this terrible idea?
- holoduke 7y agoIn my vision the only challenge we need to overcome is to increase energy density/weight ratio by a factor of 100. Rest of the tech is already there. Letting a car hover for a minute isn't that special. Letting one hover for 3 hours is.