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Flying Car (and 0-60 in less than 4 seconds!)
- jeffool 15y agoFor all his talk of "flying over traffic," that he realizes how super-rural areas (places without roads) could be a major benefit from this is great. And smart. (Assuming it costs less than a small plane, which I imagine it does, and can carry an extra person reasonably.)
- lucasjung 15y agoThe more I think about this scenario, the less sense this vehicle makes. He says it needs about 300 feet to take off and land--any decent bush pilot can do that with the right plane, and the best can do far better[1]. A used bush plane probably costs about the same as one of these things, and you can go several times faster than 40 mph. You could carry a lot more stuff, too. But what if the landing strip is any significant distance from the place you're trying to get to? Well, if all of the terrain in-between is unsuitable for landing (forest, jugle, or just plain rugged), it's probably too rough for a tiny little car like this, too. Even if you [i]could[/i] use the car mode to go that last mile or so, it would still probably be faster to fly the first several hundred miles of the trip in a bush plane and then go the last bit on foot (or mule, etc.) rather than fly the first part at 40 mph and drive the last bit. If you're talking about shorter trips (tens of miles instead of hundreds) without roads, it would be cheaper, faster, safer, and more effective to just get a jeep. Can anybody propose a (non-edge case) scenario where you wouldn't be better off with either a bush plane or a jeep? [1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbHSRrcxzq8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbHSRrcxzq8 (I should note that, while the plane in the first part only needs a few feet to get airborne, the part it doesn't show is where the pilot has to stay in ground effect to accelerate for another 200 feet or so before he can climb away.)
- jbum 15y agoIt's not a flying car, it's a driving plane.
- nkassis 15y agoActually he makes it clear in the video, it's a good car that can be driven in excess of 95 mph does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. So it is definitively a flying car ;p
- lucasjung 15y agoThe only logical use case is as a driving plane, because using it as a car more than the absolute minimum necessary would be prohibitively expensive. First: insurance. You would have to insure it as both a plane and as a car, and insurance companies aren't going to know how to handle that, which means they'll either refuse to touch it or charge a premium. Even if such vehicles became common enough for insurance companies to get comfortable with them, they're still probably on the expensive side for cars, and repairing collision damage on airplanes costs a lot more than repairing comparable damage on cars. That's not normally such a big deal because collisions are much less common for airplanes, but with this vehicle you would combine the high collision risk of a car with the high repair costs of an airplane. Second, and more importantly: maintenance. The FAA requires that periodic inspections and preventative maintenance be conducted at regular intervals, and those intervals are defined in terms of the number of hours the engine has been operating[1]. Airplane maintenance is way more expensive than car maintenance, but every hour you drive this thing on the road will count as an hour towards maintenance required at airplane rates. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tach_Timer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tach_Timer
- duck 15y agoI don't know for sure, but maybe it gets around both of these because it is not a fixed wing aircraft?
- jeromec 15y agoAirplane maintenance is way more expensive than car maintenance, but every hour you drive this thing on the road will count as an hour towards maintenance required at airplane rates. Yes, but this isn't an airplane. It's a flying car ;) Seriously, the maintenance comparison wouldn't appear to be the same. It looks like this thing has a propeller attached to a drag style engine. I would expect maintenance costs to be more akin to a souped up car than an airplane. Also, by law to drive (in California at least) you're only required to have liability insurance covering the party you hit. Covering your own vehicle is optional.
- aurora72 15y agoIt looks like a HOAX, the video doesn't show the vehicle in a test fly, or during a take off. 98% of the video either shows the vehicle going on the ground just like other non-flying cars or shows people discussing about a flying car.
- dools 15y agoIt shows the vehicle flying and landing. In order to be landing it must have had to take off at some point ...
- stretchwithme 15y agoAnd here it is taking off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN6IlPBNRMQ
- hasenj 15y agoWhy the downvote? it really does look like a hoax. Plus when people say "flaying car" I expect a sci-fi like flying care: that it can hover and fly vertically, not have a parachute-like thing attached to it. This one really almost looks like an april fools joke.
- gvb 15y ago"It looks like a hoax" is not a useful comment and has no research to back it up. The poster apparently did not even read the text under the linked video, which says "[T]he FAA has also issued the Maverick a S-LSA aircraft airworthiness certificate." It is highly unlikely the FAA would issue a S-LSA[1] aircraft airworthiness certificate to a hoax. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-sport_aircraft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-sport_aircraft http://www.sportpilot.org/learn/aircraft_index.html http://www.sportpilot.org/learn/aircraft_index.html
- stretchwithme 15y agoreally? Flying is hovering? How angry will the birds be when I tell them they are doing it wrong?
- dools 15y agoThis is the tribal adoption scenario he's referring to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincaye http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincaye
- jessedhillon 15y agoI was also more intrigued by that story than by the car/plane. This is his own account of the story, and his investigation years after the killing: http://www.atanycost.org/images/DidTheyHaveToDie.pdf http://www.atanycost.org/images/DidTheyHaveToDie.pdf
- jorangreef 15y agoThanks for the link.
- gaelian 15y agoFrom the PDF: "Soon they decided to try the bucket drop, a technique Dad had developed to deliver and retrieve items from missionaries who had no airstrip. He circled his plane overhead in tight circles while a long cord with the goods attached was reeled out behind the plane. Air friction on the basket at the end of the line would make the cord cut to the inside of the circle flown by the airplane, while the weight of the basket caused the cord to fall. When enough line was extended behind the plane, the end of the line would actually hang motionless in the air. Letting out more line at that point would make the line drop straight down where it could be made to hover just above the ground." I have never before heard of this technique. Sounds like it would take a lot of experience to make it work. Very cool.
- devenson 15y agoThe documentary "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337868/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337868/ is quite good. You can stream it from Netflix. Although I'm not religious, I must admit it demonstrates the value of the Christian ideal of forgiveness. The movie has lots of old footage, including his father's inventive method of delivering supplies from his airplane to the natives via a tethered bucket
- anateus 15y agoLooks like an extended version of the ultralight trike: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_trike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_trike
- SeoxyS 15y agoThe big problem with his "stuck in traffic" scenario is how do you find the space to take off. Not to mention the legality of the whole thing. Granted, it's a really cool demo, but he needs to admit that there is little real-world practicality.
- stretchwithme 15y agoHis focus is on serving the third world. It is clear in the video you need a runway and you don't have one when stuck in traffic. Or probably the room you need to deploy the wing. I think he should play up the fact that this takes off with half the speed Marty McFly would need to turn on his flux capacitor.
- Zak 15y agoIt is clear in the video you need a runway He said it could take off from a football field and clear the stanchions. It evidently needs a 300 foot unpaved field and a bit of space around it without anything exceedingly tall. That's pretty good performance, and you can get by with a lot less than a proper runway, but it can't take off from a traffic jam.
- graffitishark 15y agoExactly. I think the only 'practical' use would be in very rural areas (where laws may be very lax...or bendable).
- melvinram 15y agoWell you don't have to be stuck in traffic. Your Android or iPhone could tell you there is a major traffic jam up ahead or you might know that between x-y time, you'll hit the daily commute rush. That way you could just "take off" from your street where you know there is clear skys and low traffic.
- BoppreH 15y agoAwesome. My only concern is the time to set up the wings, which seems quite a work. He says the wings are under a zipper, and there's the big mast that needs to be raised, this can't be quick.
- ericmoritz 15y agoIt takes about 5 minutes, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8b0oR0-Pgo&feature=player_detailpage#t=50s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8b0oR0-Pgo&feature=playe...
- smallegan 15y agoIt seems like the takeoff distance could be greatly reduced if they were able to momentarily use both the wheels and prop. That or some type of mechanism that detects when the front wheels are leaving the ground and switches to the prop.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- pitdesi 15y agoFor those who are wondering about price - looks like it will be sold for $84,000... not bad! http://mavericklsa.com/FAQ.html http://mavericklsa.com/FAQ.html
- benhoyt 15y agoWow, that's great. Here's a video showing more taking off, flying, etc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8b0oR0-Pgo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8b0oR0-Pgo
- sunjain 15y agoThanks. This was very useful and complimentary to the main video; it gives a better picture of how they setup the mast, take-off and land.
- rkischuk 15y agoGoing from 0-60 quickly in a flying vehicle isn't difficult until you hit the ground.
- DEinspanjer 15y agowatch the video. learn something.
- zizee 15y agoA very similar design to these guys: http://www.skycarexpedition.com/about_skycar.php http://www.skycarexpedition.com/about_skycar.php I wonder who has been working on it the longest? http://www.gizmag.com/the-parajet-skycar-britains-flying-dune-buggy-aims-for-timbouctou/9633/ http://www.gizmag.com/the-parajet-skycar-britains-flying-dun...
- codex 15y agoYikes, what a death trap. This monstrosity combines the unreliability of a car with the dangers of a small aircraft. Cars are not as reliable as aircraft because they're not maintained as well, and the operators are far less disciplined. It is generally accepted that small aircraft aviation is generally 10x less safe than driving on both a passenger-mile and per-trip basis. And most small aircraft are flown for recreation, not transportation. When you fly for transportation there is a need to get from point A to point B on some reasonable schedule, which pressures the pilot to take all kinds of risks with weather, maintenance, etc. And that's for a rigorously licensed pilot. I doubt that the pilots that fly this thing will be up to the quality of even your average Cessna pilot. Combine these two factors, and you have a flying coffin. I would not be comfortable living within even a hundred miles of one of these.
- jaysonelliot 15y agoI'm amazed by the "It'll never work" attitudes of people sometimes. I suppose there's a good feeling that comes from pointing out perceived flaws and problems in things, or from treating emerging inventions as though they were fully commercialized products. I can only imagine what erstwhile tech forums would have read like if they'd been around when Edison was churning out ideas at Menlo Park, or if there had been internet commenters looking over Marconi's shoulder, or Bell's.
- codex 15y agoI think flying cars will eventually be commonplace, but when they are they will be piloted by AIs.
- godDLL 15y agoI still think voice communication is a great idea, and mobile phones are failing hard at it. It's not about the quality of the call even, it's about the way people handle reachability, distraction and personal space.
- tga 15y agoThink about it as a flying motorcycle. It trades safety for more mobility and lots of fun.
- yason 15y agoIf people had these, it wouldn't of course solve any of the classical 50's flying-car-in-a-traffic-jam problems. Instead, the jam would materialize mid-air with hundreds of these little flying cars looking for a strip of highway to land nearby a supermarket before they all run out of gas and start dropping like flies, unless they've already crashed into each other in the uncontrolled airspace in a very uncontrolled manner. Luckily the guy was apparently envisioning usecases for medical and rescue team, mostly.
- danparsonson 15y agoAnd then there's the unshielded people-blender mounted on the back.... Looks great for the emergency services market he's aiming at, but for the consumer market he wants to target to help get things moving - scary stuff.
- chrislomax 15y agoI thought exactly these two points when he said it's great for when you are stuck in a traffic jam and you can fly over everyone at 40mph. Well, not if everyone is already in there air! It would be funny in a weird twist of fate that if this was adopted an in 1000 years everyone started buying road cars again to avoid the airways congestion... I also thought about the props when he was just driving round, I don't know what laws are like in the USA but if you are caught with a lump of wood sticking out the back of the car in the UK then you get pulled over, never mind 6 x 3 foot knives!
- JoeAltmaier 15y agoThe air is a whole lot bigger than the ground. Roads are 33 ft wide. The air is - the air! Its miles wide and 3D. It would conceivably be had to collide with another air car if you tried. Takeoff and landing is the risky time, and that is mitigated by the timing - it takes seconds to land this thing (100 yd airstrip) so you'd have to attempt to land at the same moment as someone else which is in your favor.
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- VladRussian 15y agoany flying car discussion can't be complete without mentioning at least Hiller's, Piasecki's AirGeep and WASP : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgNlumaVPDw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgNlumaVPDw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SERvwWALOM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SERvwWALOM (modern attempt to repeat it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBUOCK3FZxg&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBUOCK3FZxg&feature=relat...) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAEi3SMVE60&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAEi3SMVE60&feature=relat... One of the Hiller's is here in Bay Area in San Carlos museum.
- jonsmock 15y agoMy favorite part is at 2:42 when they show the fairly plain dashboard, and you see a lone toggle switch marked "Fly".
- jasongullickson 15y agoTwo questions: 1. How much 2. How soon I love the EAA, if you're attending the fly-in this year ping me and I'll introduce you to my friend Chuck...
- yannickmahe 15y ago1.) 84000 US$ 2.) By Oshkosh 2011, which is end of july this year http://mavericklsa.com/FAQ.html http://mavericklsa.com/FAQ.html
- stephenhuey 15y agoInteresting to note: his father was Nate Saint, the Missionary Aviation Fellowship pilot who was killed with Jim Elliot in the jungles of Ecuador.
- Sukotto 15y agoWhat we want to do is develop a commercial market. Sell it to people up here for whatever they want to do with it. So we can get the quantity up so we can get the cost down so we can serve the humanitarian missions market which is our primary market. I wish the One Laptop Per Child people had taken this route instead of the "for a limited time each year, we'll force you to buy TWO of these (and donate one of them) for each ONE that you want" approach that they chose to do. The end result was noble in that you were contributing to charity. But the way they did it made me feel like they were gouging people.
- dhughes 15y agoTo me a flying car is something which you could just decide to go up when driving along on the freeway not spend half an hour assembling it before you could fly. I've always thought a lifting-body blimp/dirigible vehicle such as the size of a minivan would do well, the majority of the space inside would be filled with helium. Carbon fibre for the skin and other very light-weight materials would be used. It would be low speed and easy to control since it would fly fairly slow but probably highway speeds. The biggest problem would be crash protection that would require a lot of extra material such as bumpers, safety glass, strong seat backs.
- aphx 15y agohttp://motivationaltubing.com/ http://motivationaltubing.com/ are the folks that actually designed and built the Maverick.
- DougLeppard 15y agoI recently joined the ITEC team that makes the Maverick car. They desire to have a car that meets people's needs in remote areas. Often as you work in remote or even disaster areas, roads stop or are blocked. With the Maverick you pop up the sail and fly over the problem or take the shorter straight route. It does take about 10 minutes or less to get ready to fly. Can take off in 150 feet but 300 is advised for takeoff and landing, which is significantly less normal small planes. It is designed so that "everyday" people can fly it, because the sail it is inherently more stable than a fixed wing aircraft. It has a steering wheel that you turn right it goes right. To go higher give it more gas to go lower give it less gas. No ailerons, flaps, rudder or elevator, it uses warping of the sail to turn. If you guys have questions about ITEC or the Maverick I would be happy to answer them. BTW I have not flown in it yet, they only have the one proto-type and three more are in production. But I have gone 92mph on the ground and it can easily take my Corvette. Doug at itecusa.org