Flying Cars Ready To Take Off 819
Ant writes "CBS News has an article, images, and a free streaming video clip of Elwood (Woody) Norris' invention of a working flying machine, AirScooter. He asked one of his test pilots to demonstrate it for 60 Minutes on a hilltop outside San Diego, California. It can fly for 2 hours at 55 mph, and go up to 10,000 feet above sea level. This week, he will receive America's top prize for invention. It's called the Lemelson-MIT award -- a half-million dollar cash prize to honor his life's work, which includes a brand new personal flying machine.
Woody Norris' and others' inventions are for NASA's 'The Highway in the Sky.' It is a computer system designed to let millions of people fly whenever they please, and take off and land from wherever they please, in their very own vehicles."
Just what the world needs (Score:3, Insightful)
public roads (Score:5, Insightful)
I am wonder (fairly sure they will)if they will need to introduce a new license scheme for them and a whole new set of transit laws
The potential problems that machines like this could cause is immense if this is not as tightly regulated as standerd aircraft not to mention the cross with auto mobiles
However if these things are avaliable for 50k from people like Mr Morris then I will definantly be rather tempted to get when if i ever have money like that laying around(Lets hope some unknown rich relative dies).
Re:Whenever they please? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuel Efficiency and Oil Dependence (Score:0, Insightful)
With gas refining capacity already strained, personal flying cars would be like taking one of the worst effects of SUV usage and mulplying that effect again.
Energy requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bit like free love: sounds good in theory, but the STDs kill the fun even before you try it
yeah Yeah, anyrthing but PR buzz? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of promises are made but nothing solid or real is ever shown or demonstrated, it always feels like the snake oil or perpetual energy people. Look at what I did! no you cant see how it works or it actually work in real tests.
how about he untether it and fly it across the country? Experimental aircraft licensing is really easy to get.
Re:public roads (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Energy requirements (Score:3, Insightful)
Making it safe (Score:2, Insightful)
The only way I see these things being actually safe for use is if the license can only be gotten through intensive training, akin to a private pilot certificate. Pilot training is expensive, but maybe it'll come down in price as methods of effective mass teaching are invented.
Re:public roads (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Headline is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
kit-planes are already cheap and pretty as much usable as "flying cars" would be in the next 50+ years anyways..
Re:400 feet but it goes to 10k! (Score:1, Insightful)
Flying at low altitudes (esp. less than 400 feet) is extremely dangerous, at least in conventional aircraft. This is known in pilotspeak as nap of the earth (NOE) flying. NOE flying is dangerous for a number of reasons. A couple of big ones are hitting objects like power lines, trees, towers, etc. Poor visibility can make this even more dangerous. Another reason is you have much, much less time to react if something goes wrong if you are flying close to the ground. It may seem counterintuitive, but the higher you fly, the safer you are.
Re:Energy requirements (Score:2, Insightful)
Obvious, but should be said. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a one seater.
The driver/pilot position is open to the elements.
It has no cargo carrying capacity (as far as I could tell.)
Max speed 55mph, 2 hours of flight per tank.
Skids only (no wheels), so you can't park it in a ramp/underground garage, so can't fly it to the city...
Cool toy? H3ll yeah. If I ever win the lottery (unlikely, as I don't play it) I'll be all over one of these. Replacement for a car? Bah.
What about uncommanded rolls? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, if Moller's specs are even close to right, traveling with two or three people to some harder-to-get-to places will involve using much, much less fuel than you'd use in a road vehicle, and we'd spend way less money, fuel, equipment, etc., maintaining roads into certain areas. And at 200 or 300 mph, you're getting someplace much more quickly than in a car, but with car-like gas mileage. With that time savings, you're going to see a lot of otherwise unecessary (and way, way less fuel-economic) traditional commuter flights end.
It's not like this is the sort of thing that people would be taking to the grocery store.
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I thought the two most important requirements to get a private pilot's license is MONEY and TIME.
Re:Skycar (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm quite skeptical.
Looks like a plane to me (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not a flying car. It's just another plane!
A small plane, but still just a plane.
There has to be another way of beating gravity than blowing air over a wing shaped objects at high speed.
Re:400 feet but it goes to 10k! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a bit different when you are driving a car and you go in excess of the speed limit. This is going into restricted airspace where you need to be licensed in order to fly above it.
Re:Skycar (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll grant that this is probably just hype...BUT...
Only being able to travel on roads is a major inefficiency of cars. How much gas is wasted on all those turns and curves, not to mention traffic bottlenecks, etc? They bring this issue up if you follow the link. Also, the roads have to be maintained and that uses fossil fuels as well.
Even if this doesn't quite get 28 MPG in a realistic situation for a commuter, it might actually use less gas than a car does now, since fewer miles would be traveled. My boss "commutes" from Kansas City to Oklahoma City every week. He drives a big ol' truck. I'm sure that his situation isn't unique and would probably benefit in a number of ways from one of these cars.
It would be more environmentally responsible if he just moved the business to Kansas or himself to Oklahoma, but...whatever...I don't want to move
As for danger...you're right. Especially if there was heavy traffic above, you'd always have to worry about a car falling out of the sky even if you weren't in one yourself. And driving in three dimensions is ofcourse trickier than two. And a flying craft is going to be less responsive to changes in direction, etc.
Some of that could be addressed with autopilots that fed each other with updates, but I'll admit I wouldn't want to be an early adopter of that technology.
Re:Whenever they please? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Energy requirements (Score:4, Insightful)
Conserving energy is an absurd notion. We need to continue to grow the per capita energy allocation. People need more energy so we can do cool things like fly around in cars. Conservation is often confused with efficiency. I'm all for making systems more productive. But to actually curb energy "consumption" is outrageous. We need to find new, safe, and more plentiful ways to produce as much energy as possible. Perhaps (if you are one of these global warming nimrods) you could argue that we need to produce less CO2. However, that is not a conservation issue - it's a pollution issue.
The automobile has revolutionized our society - changed family life, geography, etc. The car's impact has been huge. While not everything the car has brought us has been good, on the whole, I'd say it's been worth it. While I doubt this "air-car" will take off any time soon, if it did, who knows what revolutionary impact it would have on mankind.
This "green religion" clamping down on progress reminds me of the Church crackdowns on science during the Reformation.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Flying Cars + Tall Buildings = Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Energy requirements (Score:5, Insightful)
"We need to find new, safe, and more plentiful ways to produce as much energy as possible."
That doesn't sound to me like he's saying "let's use more oil."
Re:Obvious, but should be said. (Score:3, Insightful)
The driver/pilot position is open to the elements.
It has no cargo carrying capacity (as far as I could tell.)
Max speed 55mph, 2 hours of flight per tank.
Skids only (no wheels), so you can't park it in a ramp/underground garage, so can't fly it to the city...
The first cars were much more limiting than that, I guess that is why they never "took off"
Driving in 3 vs. 2 dimensions (Score:3, Insightful)
old old idea - never ready for prime time (Score:3, Insightful)
Flying cars have been a Popular Science wet dream for 50 years - maybe more. Personal jet backs fall into the same category. The issues have always been more than technical.
Flying an airplane, even a small one, is not a trivial task. The general population is incapable of taking on that kind of responsibility.
Plus, who will fund and build landing pads or landing strips? Who will agree to the noise from the "airports" or backyard landing pads?
Re:Flying Cars + Tall Buildings = Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Skycar - future fuel will be a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a physics based fact that keeping a mass, such as an air car, airborne consumes more energy than a ground based rolling car. So unless they can figure out how to make an air car run on a renewable energy source, which has less energy than oil based fuels, it'll never happen, or at best, it'll happen as the last of oil reserves are used up, and it'll use them up faster yet on top of that.
Re:Headline is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:2 hours at 55 mph? (Score:2, Insightful)
Going "point to point" and not having traffic congestion, you might get much further in two hours flying 55mph, than four hours driving.
Conserving Money is an Absurd Notion (Score:5, Insightful)
It's true; spending energy is fun and has many positive benefits, but at the moment our primary energy source is oil, and it isn't renewable. One day, maybe we'll have some new, safe, and more plentiful energy "income" sources, but right now we don't. When you're out of work, spending all your cash reserves is a dumb thing to do, and that's what we're doing with oil, right now. There's no "energy Visa company" we can borrow from while we're out of oil and waiting for fusion or high-altitude wind generation, either.
It is, in fact, even worse than the cash analogy; development of new energy technologies requires energy. If we let our energy reserves drop low enough, eventually we won't have the resources required to invest in new energy technology. It's like driving down the highway, and being close to empty. It's nice that there's a gas station 40 miles up the road, but if you keep the pedal to the metal, and burn up all your gas in 20 miles, you're still fscked.
Re:Just what the world needs (Score:3, Insightful)
Flying an aeroplane is NOTHING like driving a car. Use you common instinct as to how things work and you will shortly become a hole in the ground. Anybody reading this who thinks flying their own plane would be a neat idea, should first get a copy of "stick and rudder" and read it from cover to cover TWICE. While this book was first published in the 40's, it is still quite valid.
Now it will be possible to add computer automation to private aircraft eliminate the 'loose nut in the cockpit' (stupid pilot) there still remains the matter of navigation and weather. The former can be assisted by automation, but the latter never will be. If you have ever been up in a small plane in rough weather (let alone thunderstorms!!) you know you DON'T want to be! (Unless you LOVE riding rollercosters built in active combat zones). Besides the rough ride, there is vertigo (makes seassickness seem like a bit of gas). Large aircraft can get above the weather by going into the lower stratosphere, something light aircraft can't do without being pressurized and carring O2 (forget this for anything costing under $500,000).
Personal flying vehicles may replace motocycles, but not cars. The new generation of such vehicles will be usefull by public service and emergency operations though.
Re:Skycar (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, we are a long long way from flying cars or anything similar. I'm 40 and I doubt I'll see one in my lifetime given what I've seen so far.
Not Flying Cars Again (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is and has always been the infrastructure and regulation required to make it anywhere near safe for average citizens to fly. This Highway in the Sky program sounds neat, but it still doesn't address many of the major problems involved. I'd hate to see a flying car stall in New York, for instance, or a drunk teenager crash one into a building.
Give most people a plane and tell them they have to keep steering it in this little box on a screen and see how long they'll stick with it before going off on a joyride. The only way these things wouldn't endanger innocents would be if police installed anti-air missiles at every street corner to blow anyone that veers from their flight path to pieces. I'm not sure that too many people would line up to buy a flying car once that went into effect, though.
Re:Headline is wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
It's always amusing to read those picture books from the fifties which my parents stored in the attic, which claim that everyone is now flying around in choppers, commercial airliners are powered by nuclear reactors, and of course nobody still works nowadays because robots do all the work.
Re:Conserving Money is an Absurd Notion (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually we do.
Have for several decades.
It is called a nuclear reactor.
Wikipedia link to the latest design:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor [wikipedia.org]
However the 'Green Religion' people have successfully scared people away from it.
So really it is the 'Greens' who are causing the high energy prices and high levels of air polution that we have today.
Of course if we had low energy prices and low polution the 'Green Religion' wouldn't be able to spread as well so you really can't blame the green people. They are just looking out for themselves just like everyone else.
The thing that really disturbs me though is to see so many people on a technology site such as this who seem to have absorbed their position without reflection.
Honestly I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
Re:Skycar (Score:3, Insightful)
As a side note, he's down the street from me. At the same time, a few exits up there is the fuel cell initiative, which is only a few years old. They have regular show and tells and let people drive the cars. They are also trickling prototypes into circulation, letting people drive them[1]... and in the meantime Moller has an airstrip right across town and has never actually flown anything in the decades he's had "working machines only months away from production". How many years do you have to have "advance deposits" before it's clear that they aren't going to be delivered? Recently he's started touting organic almond butter as a way to extend life expectancy. He's a viagra spam away from being a blatant con.
[1] Walk off the street, drop your DL on the desk and take one for a spin. Specific days only, plus events like the recent Davis Picnic Day. They are nifty - I've seen a few different models in functional use on the freeway in the past year with the yellow "Hydrogen Vehicle" banner.
--
Evan
Re:Energy requirements (Score:3, Insightful)
Economics is much more effective at motivating people to change their behavior than laws. High cost of oil will generate much more funding for new energy source research than government grants ever can.
I don't know if you meant this as a negative or a positive of the Bush administration, assuming (big assumption) it's true.
Nice Helicopter....where's the car? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fifteen years is nothing.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Skycar - future fuel will be a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This is very much NOT true. We will not suddenly wake up one day and find all the oil gone. What will happen is that price of oil will slowly continue to rise for decades. This will facilitate a smooth transition from oil to alternative energy sources.
What most people don't understand about oil is that we dig up very little of the blackstuff. When we drop a well down and start sucking up reservoirs of this oil, we are really only dragging up the easiest to reach oil that is just sitting there. Most oil is left untouched due to the fact that it would be very expensive to remove it.
Three things are going to happen to make the cost of oil slowly rise as it is depleted.
1) Speculators will make sure that it rises slowly. Speculators watch the supply of oil and basically bet on how much it is going to cost in the future. While they do drive the price of the oil up by buying out supply, they also ensure a more even distribution over time of its distribution. For instance, if suddenly the oil companies were to announce that HOLY SHIT we are out of oil in a year, speculators would quickly buy up the supply and start parceling it away. The price absolutely would go up, but we wouldn't go from oil gushing out of our ears to being bone dry.
2) As the cost of oil is driven up, oil companies will naturally start digging up more expensive to extract oil. At $30 a barrel it makes no sense to go to an old oil well and start extracting all that stuff that takes $50 a barrel to extract. However, once the price of oil hits $100 per barrel, that $50 per barrel oil will make a tidy profit. So, as the cost for oil goes up, more and more expensive oil will be introduced to the market. The oil will not suddenly run out. Instead, more expensive oil will be introduced to the market that will slowly drive the price up.
3) As the cost of oil goes up, the demand for oil will go down. This is economics 101 supply and demand. Oil is the energy source of choice simply because it is relatively clean (compared to some thing), a very dense energy source, and extremely cheap. Today oil is cheap for the amount of energy you can make from it. The stuff is plentiful enough to fuel the world, and cheap enough for almost everyone to be able to buy it. This will not always be true. As the price goes up, more people will start to spend a few extra dollars to avoid having to shell out so much at the pump. Alternative energy sources will be comparatively cheaper then oil. People will move naturally away from oil. You can see a perfect of this by looking at Europe and the US. The US, where this is almost no taxation on oil, people own big ugly fuel hungry cars. In Europe, where the taxes on oil account for a full ¾ of the costs, people use significantly more fuel efficient cars and in general burn much less oil. Up the price of oil by 500% and even Americans will find it in their hearts (or more likely wallets) to be more fuel efficient.
The net result is that as the price of oil goes up, the consumption of the stuff goes down. As consumption goes down, the price slows its upward slope. The result is that you have a gradual increase in oil prices and a gradual move away from using it.
Re:Headline is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Park it in your garage instead of having to store it in a hangar?
Honestly, I don't understand why stories like this always suck the imagination out of some people.
Re:Skycar - future fuel will be a problem (Score:2, Insightful)
While I think your analysis is fairly insightful, I disagree with your assertion that the price of oil will slowly rise for decades.
History has shown that when the demand for a critical resource such as electricity or oil exceeds the supply, the price does not rise "slowly". When California experienced electricity shortages, the spot market price went up by a factor of 10 in a matter of months. This is not a slow increase - this is a spike. Crude oil futures were trading on the NYMEX last year at $35/barrel; this year it is $50/barrel. That is an increase of 50% in one year - not what I would call "slow". The problem that many are worried about is that the price of this essential commodity will rise much faster than our ability to replace our cheap-oil-dependent infrastructure with some alternative. This will lead to recession, depression, and possibly crash.
The only thing that can make the price of oil go down is for the demand to decrease faster than the supply is decreasing. However, unless we suddenly come up with some way to make our economy run on something other than petroleum, this means our economy will also decrease as our energy usage decreases. The problem with that scenario is that our economy is not geared to decrease - it can either grow (increase) or crash. There is no middle ground.
Re:40 years in the future: the Sky Jalopy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not necessarily - future fuel will be a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
No that would be true for ANY mass.
Cars are subject to two major losses: (by the nature of the vehicle)
Airtcraft are subject to two major losses:
Loss no 2 is proportional to mass in BOTH CASES, so everything else being equal, varying the mass is NOT getting you anywhere.
In addition, since your coefficient of rolling friction is ALWAYS less than one, you are ALWAYS going to loose more energy from #2 when you're flying than driving.
What you're doing is taking a really light, aerodynamic airplane and compare it to a huge, unaerodynamic truck, but that's not a fair comparison. For instance, How much cargo can a 20 MPG truck move compared to a 20MPG airplane?
A fair compaison is not to compare the MPG of two arbitray vehicles of vastly different capacities, but to compare MPG per pound of cargo. Once you do this, you'll see that your point doesn't hold water at all, as evidenced by the rates of all major shipping companies (UPS, Fedex, etc).