Where Are the Flying Cars? 362
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Complaints of the non-existence of flying cars as expressions of disappointment in the failure of the present to measure up to the glory of past predictions have long been a staple of popular culture but all that is about to change when Terrafugia introduces their $148,000 "Transition," a 19-foot, two-seater that the company describes as a roadable light-sport aircraft. The problem is that the U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure in place to make landing in front of your house a viable alternative yet and a sky filled with people who don't have pilot's licenses could also be a problem. The idea is to take advantage of the 6,000 public airports in the U.S. so a pilot can fly into a small airport (video) and instead of getting a rental car, just fold up the wings on the aircraft and drive away. Terrafugia expects the first production model to be ready in 2009 and says they've already received advanced orders for 30 to 50 Transitions."
Not new (Score:5, Informative)
The Moller skycar is a little more revolutionary, since it takes off and lands vertically, and since it has multiple engines - how many of these Transitions are going to be crashed by celebrities when the one engine conks out? But Moller's stuff has been vaporware for twenty years, so don't hold your breath.
Not VTOLs? (Score:4, Informative)
There are roads, not runways, in front of houses, grocery stores and office buildings.
Shouldn't flying cars be VTOLs? I always thought so. I don't think it would be a good idea if a "driver" couldn't just "pull over" (understand, get stationary) and had to properly land on an airport. Just imagine running out of gas in the middle of nowhere..
Anyways, somehow, I feel that in a few decades, we'll enjoy affordable and easily operatable (understand, mostly automated) flying cars, and that we'll mostly enjoy the greater safety, although it would seem counter-intuitive that a flying car would be safer than a normal car (but on a second thought it's easier to avoid trees and obstacles when you're 1,000 feet high, not to mention the cars in the opposite way lane wouldn't necessarily have to come as close as one foot from your vehicle, in the air you have more space).
But back on topic, I don't see people taking off and landing horizontally, too dangerous, VTOLs are a must.
Re:Doesn't work that way (Score:4, Informative)
Something optimized for good flying won't do very well on the land.
Not only that, there's ever increasing pressure on energy supplies and people are somehow duped into thinking that they can afford to fly? Airplane fuel costs a little more and you'll be using a lot more of it to stay in the air, maybe two or three times as much. If you don't like spending $50/mo to $100/mo on gas, I doubt you'd like to spend $200/mo or more to cover the same distance. The cost to rent a plane is at least $60/hr depending on your region and the plane. That will cover more distance than two hours in a car, but there's plenty of preflight prep that takes time too. The plane my dad rents wouldn't take four people and cargo, it's four people or you take away people to be able to take cargo. Balance is a big concern too.
It costs about $5000 in training and expenses to learn how to fly. That training expense is not going to go down that much, because there's a lot to learn about flying that's not needed in order to drive a car. Given how so many drivers seem pretty dumb about driving, I don't think I'd want them in the air at all. There's a lot more regulation, for good reason too, damage in crashing a car is trivial compared to the damage you can do in a small plane.
infrastructure (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know about other people, but around where I live we don't have the infrastructure for the cars people want to drive. One Hummer parked on the side of the road, and there simply is not room for anything bigger than a Vespa to pass. With the building of the houses, many without adequate garages, I find an increasing number of roads to be impassable. Road that just a year ago were navigable and safe, have become impassable and risky due to the vehicles and driving habits of the new residents. God help us if they got a hold of flying cars.
Here is my idea of the use of flying cars. People who want to live in the suburbs can either build their houses for flying cars or drive their regular cars to a departure area. They can then fly to the bus, and take the bus in the 10-15 miles downtown. For may people, it would be no different from what they do now.
Re: Link to Movie (Score:4, Informative)
Direct Link to Movie File
http://www.terrafugia.com/mov_terrafugia_landing.mov [terrafugia.com]
Re:Huge blind spots when driving (Score:0, Informative)
Parent's link is takeover javascript bullshit.
Moller's skycar is a sham (Score:4, Informative)
He's had the skycar in development for 30 years, as you say, and in that time it's made one unmanned tethered flight. One. Fucking. Flight.
It's a failure, time to move on.
Smart team behind the Terrafugia Transition (Score:2, Informative)
I can tell you that this is a group of bright engineers who really are in love with flying -- just as are thousands of other private pilots around the world. I think many Slashdotters misunderstand their target market. The Transition requires both a pilot's license and a driver's license, so it's aimed at people who are already private pilots but want the convenience of not having to find a ground vehicle once they've landed at their destination airport. The listed price of their vehicle is comparable to other small planes like those from Cessna, and the extra convenience they're able to provide private pilots may be game-changing.
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Educational microcontroller kits for a digital generation. [nerdkits.com]