The Coming Air Age 319
Lovejoy writes "Sixty years ago in The Atlantic Monthly, Igor Sikorsky wrote The Coming Air Age. "Any of us who are alive ten years after this Second World War is won will see and use hundreds of short-run helicopter bus services." He goes on to write about personal helicopters which fit in large garages and that helicopters that are easier to drive than cars, etc.. So, will personal flight ever be viable? Do wildly wrong predictions like this give futurists pause? I think they should."
Who needs helicopters... (Score:5, Funny)
Jouster
Not yet ... (Score:3, Funny)
--NBVB
It won't happen - Rocket Belts Kill (Score:2, Funny)
Still waiting, after all these years... (Score:3, Funny)
C'mon, already, when's it gonna happen??!! They told us we'd have our own personal helicopter, and I haven't gotten mine yet, damn it."
Hang in there, Red. We're still waiting for NASA to figure this out for us.
Nothing like a vertical take off... (Score:2, Funny)
Popular Science (Score:1, Funny)
Everyone knows that as soon as a project is published in Popular Science, it's doomed.
Popular Science continues to write articles on the most fabulous of technology, and most of them die a quiet death.
So, the problem wasn't Sikorsky or Helicopters or anything else. The problem was Popular Science. Keep your invention out of Popular Science, and you have a better chance of succes.
See rotor. See rotor break. Fall, fall, fall. (Score:2, Funny)
True enough. A helicopter mechanic (who may have been pulling my chain) once told me about a critical connector that he called a "Jesus bolt". Why? Because if that bolt lets loose, you're going to see Jesus.
Playing devil's advocate, though... if you're going to talk about gross structural failures, you have to admit that there will be similar problems with other aircraft. If a wing falls off of your Cessna, you're going to be just as pissed, aren't you? What's the likelihood of a rotor going away compared to a wing going kaput?
With that said, I think I'd prefer to be in a dead-stick Cessna, just as you would... but that's with today's helicopters. A liberal application of technology could go a long way toward fixing those shortcomings.
Re:An experiment... (Score:3, Funny)
3. Beat her like she stole a package.
Re:An experiment... (Score:5, Funny)
Just think of it as evolution in action.
In actuality, most FAA regs are to protect (a) people (and property) on the ground and (b) passengers. They don't really care much if a pilot kills himself (or herself -- although most of the female pilots I've known were a little less reckless than the males) as long as he doesn't hurt anyone else. (Unless, of course, it was a commercially built (vs homebuilt) aircraft at fault. And then they're still more concerned with the other folks who might get hurt by similar.)
Re:Not yet ... (Score:5, Funny)
Please turn your yoke up up, down, down, left, right, left, right, gas, brake, start to reboot.
Or, if they're built like anything from Detroit, a big 'ol light would come on that says "SERVICE AIRFRAME SOON" and it'd drop out of the sky.