New Flying Car Design Unveiled 233
An anonymous reader writes "Terrafugia has unveiled plans to build a semi-autonomous, hybrid-electric, vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicle for personal aviation. The new design, called TF-X, is in the works even as the company's first product, Transition, is still awaiting production because of technical and regulatory hurdles. Terrafugia's founder says the goal of TF-X, if it can get past the safety issues in both aviation and automotive industries, is to 'open up personal aviation to all of humanity.' But it will have a lot of competition from companies including AgustaWestland, Pipistrel, and the stealthy Zee.Aero, all of which are working on vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles for consumers."
Are they safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens when flying cars collide with buildings or other infrastructure?
Re:Are they safe? (Score:4, Insightful)
The same thing that happens when any other small plane collides with buildings or other infrastructure... which is why actually flying something like this will require a pilot's license.
Enough with the "Fake" Flying Cars Already (Score:3, Insightful)
A Flying Car uses some kind of anti-gravity device. It can float. Don't show me a hovercraft, helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft.
For greater clarity but so as not to limit the generality of the foregoing, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhF4gu87rn0 [youtube.com]
People can't navigate in 2D (Score:4, Insightful)
Most drivers don't seem to be able to handle safely navigating on surface roads.
I'm pretty sure the vast majority have no hope in hell of operating a flying car when they have up and down available to them.
And I can't see the FAA wanting to suddenly let a bunch of people start taking to the skies in something like this without a proper pilots license.
Re:A solution to a problem that doesn't exist (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem does exist. Traffic jams are real, and flying in a straight line could save a lot of fuel. There is plenty of demand for flying cars, the problems have always been legislatory.
2D is hard enough for some, 3D will be a disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it, most people have a hard enough time on a (relatively) 2 dimensional plane. Accidents all over the place. Now you have to worry about people coming from all 3 dimensions... forget about it.
Add to that, at least it is normally hard for someone to go through the side of a house unless the accident is really bad or they were driving really fast. Now anyone would be EASILY able to go through a roof.
Re: Are they safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is slashdot, so any close approximation of spelling is as good as any other.
Re:Are they safe? (Score:4, Insightful)
Same thing that happens when cars collide with buildings or other infrastructure.
Re:A solution to a problem that doesn't exist (Score:5, Insightful)
Traffic jams are real, but putting the cars in the air isn't going to fix that problem. The key problem with driving cars into cities is that they take too much space per passenger (at rush hour, on average, 1.02). Granted, putting traffic corridors in the air gives you a bit more space, but you also need to leave a lot more safety margin.
Flying in a straight line might save fuel compared to flying detours, but that doesn't mean it saves fuel compared to driving. These flying cars don't stay in the air all by themselves, you know? And, seeing as we're all bitching about the price of gas to drive... ask your friendly helicopter pilot how many gallons his chopper burns per hour.
There are solutions to traffic jams. Telecommuting, walking, cycling, public transport.
Oh yeah, and if your hearing's still too good: Suggest to Air Traffic Control that they replace the couple of hundred planes / day over, say, LAX, with a couple of hundred thousand planes^H^H^H^H^H^H"Flying Cars" per day.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a flying car. But frankly I'd rather save up for a one off trip to space instead. At least I won't have to kid myself that that's solving any problems.