Flying Car Prototype Ready By End of 2017, Says Airbus CEO (venturebeat.com) 140
Airbus plans to test a prototype for a self-piloted flying car as a way of avoiding gridlock on city roads by the end of the year, the aerospace group's chief executive said on Monday. From a report: Airbus last year formed a division called Urban Air Mobility that is exploring concepts such as a vehicle to transport individuals or a helicopter-style vehicle that can carry multiple riders. The aim would be for people to book the vehicle using an app, similar to car-sharing schemes. "One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground," Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year. "We are in an experimentation phase, we take this development very seriously," he said, adding that Airbus recognized such technologies would have to be clean to avoid further polluting congested cities.
Yawn... (Score:1)
Prototypes have been around for years. Production on any of them never really gets any closer.
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That said, see my post above about why Elon Musk is unwittingly responsible for flying cars. Spoiler: electric cars threaten fossil fuel industry which will push for flying cars that use even more fuel and won't be electric any time soon.
And they have the lobbying power to ma
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We don't have flying cars for a number of reasons. Efficiency, reliability, user safety, public safety, supporting infrastructure (where to land), new complex regulatory requirements. eg, what about cars flying over your house.
Sure we do, they are called helicopters, they are just not practical for most people.
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We don't have flying cars, but AeroMobil goes on sale this year (a road legal aircraft). I think Terrafugia, another road legal aircraft, you can already buy.
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Why the fuck you would want to is unknown.
If you can afford a private plane then you can easily afford a Mercedes.
Which would you rather drive on the highway?
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Which is probably why, despite being out there, they haven't, ummm, had sales take off. The first flying cars, or roadable aircraft, are going to have major compromises, which is why they're very much a niche market.
We lack the power supply (Score:3)
We don't have flying cars for a number of reasons.
Actually we don't have them primarily for one reason. We don't have an energy supply of sufficient power to weight (including fuel) to enable a robustly built vehicle to get off the ground and travel. Basically we need something like Tony Stark's fictional arc reactor to make a flying car feasible. We can build a "car" that flies but with the state of the art in power plants there are simply too many engineering trade offs to make something more than a crude prototype.
All the other problems you mentioned
Please mod parent poster up! (Score:3)
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The Terrafugia Transition has a 23 gallon tank and under normal circumstances can go over 450 Miles.
The Terrafugia is a fixed-wing aircraft. Get back to us when you can do that with lift coming from ducted fans.
State of the art (Score:2)
Um, then we must already be living in a "Tony stark's fictional arc reactor" universe then since there are droves of flying car prototypes out there
"Droves of flying car prototypes"? Hardly. There are a few light airplanes that technically can be driven on a road in good weather at modest speeds. Get in a fender bender and they instantly are no longer air worthy. None are safe to drive in bad weather. None are practical in any sense of the word. None have ever become viable products that could be sold in meaningful quantities because there are WAY too many engineering trade offs. None are operable without a runway and a pilot's license. None ar
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here's what happened when Airbus built a fully automated airliner (with no human inside) and have it land itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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here's what happened when Airbus built a fully automated airliner (with no human inside) and have it land itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This was not an automated flight [wikipedia.org], and was not unmanned: there were 136 passengers on board. Three people were killed, and 34 required hospitalization. The cause was pilot error, and the flight crew was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for pulling a stupid stunt with a loaded plane.
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Emergency response (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see these being marketed to the masses any time soon - Moving rush hour into the air seems like it would be inviting chaos. Ambulances, however, seem like a perfect fit for this - Skipping traffic could save lives.
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Did you see the drawing? Large houses, larger lawns. Those aren't the 'masses'. Think Tesla.
Then think again.
Nice try Airbus, but I can't image the local yard Nazis allowing giant mutant bumblebees to knock over the azaleas early in the morning. Those tiny-tiny ducted fans would just shriek.
You think leaf blowers were bad....
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Take a look at the image credits. It's from Shutterstock. If that was the concept flying car from Airbus then I would expect the image credit to be from Airbus, or their subsidiary, and the car to have branding on it.
I do agree with you about the noise of the fans on the car in the picture. I wouldn't want those things flying around my house.
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Nice try Airbus, but I can't image the local yard Nazis allowing giant mutant bumblebees to knock over the azaleas early in the morning. Those tiny-tiny ducted fans would just shriek.
You think leaf blowers were bad....
Maybe that's why they have wheels, so they drive a to a suitable location where they can lift off.
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We have those already. They're called "helicopters" and they are already in service as airborne ambulances at many metropolitan hospitals.
It's a mature and proven technology, with plenty of well trained operators, service/support infrastructure in place, regulatory and safety mechanisms established and well enforced.
"Flying cars" are a solution in desperate need of a problem.
=Smidge=
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Yes, but you could improve on this if the vehicle could steer itself and the only staff on board were for taking care of the patient.
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Self-driving cars will be what kills any real demand for "flying cars". Who cares how long the trip takes when you're not forced to keep your attention glued to the road?
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Who cares how long the trip takes when you're not forced to keep your attention glued to the road?
Me - Albeit less than when I'm actually sitting and waiting behind the wheel. Traffic will always be a nuisance and reducing/avoiding it will always be a motivator.
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I was watching a re-run of RD (9 IIRC) a few days ago, and thinking of snagging that line for my .sig collection.
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At intersections they can just keep going at speed, passing each other after a short negotiation and small speed adjustment to create and time the right gaps in the flow of traffic, with the traffic lights turned off.
Thank God the only things that use intersections are cars, and none of those pesky pedestrians or bicyclists, which we wisely exterminated in the Great Purge of 2021.
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When Paving Day comes, pedestrians and bicyclists will be relegated to their proper role as pit slaves, providing fresh road-food and clean bathrooms while the rest of us cruise the Paved Earth in our atomic hypercars under the light of the chromed moon.
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The flying car, as it could be made with today's technology, is just a novel alternative to a helicopter, as you point out (or perhaps a "roadable aircraft"). They'll suffer from all the same problems of the aircraft that people aren't already using, including the cost to own and run one.
But most people don't think of it that way. Most people think of the flying car as a poorly thought out idea from a cartoon. It'll be just like a regular car except you can get away from traffic by moving up or down! It wou
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Just about anyplace you could safely land a "flying car" you could also land a helicopter.
And that's assuming you actually have to land. If it's enough of an emergency you'd probably be winching the patient up and down while in flight.
Solution in search of a problem.
=Smidge=
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Not true. A helicopter can't be moving horizontally when it lands. A flying car with wheels could potentially be moving at 70+ MPH horizontally when it lands. Assuming they can avoid any blades that stick out beyond the sides of the vehicle, that design difference completely changes the equation.
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Not true. A helicopter can't be moving horizontally when it lands. A flying car with wheels could potentially be moving at 70+ MPH horizontally when it lands.
1) Under what situation would such a maneuver be necessary, or even advantageous, and
2) Given the relative difficulty if making a "flying car" in the first place, it seems the last thing you'd want to do is add more weight and complexity with a second drivetrain (Indeed this has so far been a major failing in flying car concepts), and
3) Landing at 70+MPH is anything but safe, which is why it's typically only done on access-controlled runways under the supervision of air traffic controllers and ground crews.
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Landing on a freeway with other vehicles around you moving at 70 MPH. If this is designed to replace cars, it can't require you to land in an empty field or in a parking lot. It has to be able to land on a road in the presence of other traffic and be a normal car when not flying. If you have to land in an empty field or in an empty parking lot and then push it on tiny wheels into a parking spot, it isn't a flying car; it's a hel
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Not true. A helicopter can't be moving horizontally when it lands. A flying car with wheels could potentially be moving at 70+ MPH horizontally when it lands. Assuming they can avoid any blades that stick out beyond the sides of the vehicle, that design difference completely changes the equation.
Ok,, why do you think a helicopter with wheels couldn't land with a forward momentum of 70 MPH?
It's obviously possible for them to go forwards while descending, I've seen it.
Yes, helicopters can take off or land while moving forwards. There is at least one helicopter that requires this if it is more heavily loaded. You usually don't see helicopters doing this because the big feature of a helicopter is vertical take off and landing! (Duh)
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Ambulances, however, seem like a perfect fit for this - Skipping traffic could save lives.
Indeed! And that's why we have those, they're called air ambulances and sometimes a prince will literally fly in and save you.
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Anything that goes into the air is expensive. I noticed that the world-wide fleet of Sikorsky 92 was just shut down for 11 hours of boroscope inspection per aircraft following the catastrophic failure of a tail rotor on the West Franklin just before New Year. Anything that has (and needs) this level of after-sales support is going to remain expensive. (AAIB report [service.gov.uk] ; particularly fig 1 on p3 if you're into engineering pr0n.).
Looking at the solitary
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Upscaled, computer-controlled drones with redundant blades and motors. Sounds like a plan.
You won't even need a thing like a small plane chute, which exists, as computer-controlled emergency landings will be safer.
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_Nothing_ scales linearly.
It's a very old Engineering truism. I don't know of a single counterexample...dev/null does scale linearly.
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You don't need strict maintenance, just strict altitude limits. A vehicle falling from twenty feet off the ground, assuming it is bottom-heavy and lands on the tires, almost certainly won't kill you. At fifty feet, it probably won't. At a hundred feet, you'll probably have a low survival rate unless you have a whole-car airbag or something.
As long as self-driving cars fly over existing motorways, and as long as cars underneath are smart enough to avoid being landed upon, you should be fine. And even if
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I did say, "assuming it is bottom-heavy". If it tends to land upside-down, IMO, the entire design is a non-starter. if it lands upright, the tires would take some of the impact when they explode, and the axles would take a little more as they bend/shear. So it wouldn't be as serious an impact as in a helicopter falling from the same height. Plus, if you design it right, you could potentially handle a single-rotor failure without crashing anyway.
I am not interested (Score:2)
If yellow is the only color choice...
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Not in the real world (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see an autonomous flying car in neighbourhoods, except in locales where there aren't:
- Power lines
- Trees
- Pets (and children) that will be blown around lift jets
- Shingled roofs (see previous)
- Anything that can be blown around
- Anything that could come into impact with the flying vehicle
Don't these "futurists" know that their creations won't be allowed to fly/land anywhere aircraft can't fly/land now?
Re:Not in the real world (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't for you, citizen.
This is for your betters to move between their gated community, private clubs and corporate headquarters, and for essential security personnel to help ensure your safety and political hygiene.
Now move along, citizen.
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- Pets (and children) that will be blown around lift jets
- Pets (and children) that will be blown into lift jets
. . . wood-chipper-ed pets (and children) . . .
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So it's not all bad then.
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Only if they change the laws of physics. Lift jets push something up by blowing air downwards. They suck from the top. I mean, I suppose if you have pets and children in jetpacks, it might be a concern, but if your kids and pets are doing that sort of thing, you have bigger things to worry about then them getting sucked into my (hypothetical) flying car's engines. Just saying. :-D
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Oh great (Score:3)
With the way I see so many people driving, this is good news for the makers of bandages and burn units.
Seriously, take a short trip down the freeway and watch people drive...then ask yourself, "Would I want these people flying a car near me??"
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That's why nobody will be flying or driving them. They'll be autonomous from the start.
Photo (Score:1)
So is there an actual picture of what they're going for with the prototype or just a meaningless stock photo for space filling purposes?
A helicopter-style vehicle? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which can carry multiple riders? You mean like a helicopter?
Is it a car or a drone by another name? (Score:2)
Airbus plans to test a prototype for a self-piloted flying car as a way of avoiding gridlock on city roads by the end of the year, the aerospace group's chief executive said on Monday.
If it doesn't drive on the roads then it is not a flying car. It's basically a form of a drone that happens to carry people.
I'm curious how they think they have repealed the laws of physics sufficiently to allow a car that is robust enough to survive travel on normal roads AND still remain airworthy. All the so-called flying cars anyone has come up with so far lack power plants with sufficient energy to avoid massive compromises in design. A car that is light enough to get off the ground is too fragile t
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I think the key phrase is "Self-driving". If there's any significant collision risk, the car could simply go straight up to avoid it. Surviving on-ground collisions should be basically a non-goal at that point.
Self driving != accident free (Score:2)
I think the key phrase is "Self-driving".
Self driving isn't equivalent to accident free. Self driving vehicles will still get in accidents. They MIGHT get in fewer accidents but the number will not be zero. And the fewer accident notion is a very big IF at this point. Until we get such vehicles on the road we won't know if their accident rate is better or worse under real world conditions.
If there's any significant collision risk, the car could simply go straight up to avoid it.
I think you've been watching too many movies. Real world physics doesn't work like that. Some obstacles simply cannot be avoided. Some road conditions wi
Meh. (Score:2)
Wake me up when one costs less than $50k.
Not a crazy idea (Score:2, Insightful)
This whole idea that all electric cars are ever going to be practical or affordable is a pipe dream. I can see hydrogen powered cars being practical in a few decades though. And self-driving? Won't we have to repave all the roads with sensors and put sensors all along the shoulder? That's just dumb, that's just dumb because you can't make a car smart enough to navigate daily traffic with all onboard sensors. What's next, first stage rockets that can fall back from space and
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That's just dumb, that's just dumb because you can't make a car smart enough to navigate daily traffic with all onboard sensors.
This is exactly how Tesla does it, and while it isn't perfect, it's mostly usable and still improving. It's silly to say something is impossible when we are already most of the way there.
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That's just dumb, that's just dumb because you can't make a car smart enough to navigate daily traffic with all onboard sensors.
This is exactly how Tesla does it, and while it isn't perfect, it's mostly usable and still improving. It's silly to say something is impossible when we are already most of the way there.
Parent was being ironic.
Maybe in a free country, not here... (Score:2)
Between zoning, permits, licensing, environmental impact reports, HOA restrictions, FAA overreach, liability, NIMBY, and a myriad other issues, this is highly unlikely to happen in the modern USA within our generation. Most potentially society changing inventions are not feasible to test or deploy outside of closed corporate labs in this regulatory environment, at least not without the support of some Congress critters and the DOD...
Already? (Score:1)
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And look how some people drive and are unable to see in two dimensions to see what goes on around their car. Now you add a third dimension.
Agree. And it's worse than that. Cars live in a 2D world where there are 2 degrees of freedom (forwards-backwards and left-right). A flying vehicle adds 4 additional degrees of freedom (up-down, pitch, roll, yaw)... so much more that can go wrong.
When it comes to flying cars, I am not as pessimistic as everyone else here seems to be, but I don't see how Joe Public can be entrusted with one. I think there either needs to be a trained and licensed pilot, or the vehicle needs to be self piloting.
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or the vehicle needs to be self piloting.
You mean like it says in the first sentence of the summary?
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Current flying vehicles have those extra degrees of freedom because of their design, but in principle, you could design a flying vehicle that has only one additional degree of freedom (altitude), keeping the vehicle approximately horizontal at all times and using horizontally oriented secondary fans to steer. And arguably, you should, because at that point, it would be much more practical for
Just wait for my teleporter prototype (Score:1)
So... Moller sold his designs to Airbus? (Score:2)
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I didn't read that, but it's the same, held-aloft-by-four-fans design that Moller has been hawking for decades, which means that just like Moller's "Skycar", it's going to fly just slightly better than a grand piano if even one of those engines goes out.
Moller's original design had 12 ducted fans, 3 at each corner, specifically to be able to tolerate the engine-out scenario. They were also supposed to be small enough and light enough to be manually removable by a single mechanic. The quoted weight was 60 pounds. I think I still have that issue of Popular Mechanics in a box in the basement.
What Moller didn't know was that no group of small gasoline engines is responsive enough at the throttle for stable powered-lift flight. If he'd just tried electric m
Nothing new here (Score:2)
A flying car is also called "an airplane," and light aircraft have been around for a century. Curtiss never flew his Autoplane, but given that he was Glen Curtiss, there's no reason to believe he couldn't have if he hadn't been distracted by World War I. The Pitcairn PCA-2 was a production aircraft in 1923.
The History of Flying Cars [popularmechanics.com].
The reasons this will be a non-event, like all previous attempts are as follows:
1. Flying vehicles must be built to higher standards for safety reasons - not just of the pilot a
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4. Self flying cars are even more ridiculous than self driving cars, given that self driving cars cannot handle streets that have not been mapped to millimeter precision, or road constructions, or bad weather, or any of a million other real life conditions. Flying is geometrically more complicated than driving, and there's no reason to believe anyone alive to day will live to see true self driving cars.
Airbus A380s can already fly the ENTIRE ROUTE completely by autopilot, including the takeoff and landing (auto-landing requires an airport with ILS, which most major airports already have, not sure of the requirements for auto-takeoff)
While flying is technically more difficult than driving, there are far less things to run into, and a lot of aircraft already have a system similar to v2v, so the computer already knows where all the other aircraft are in the sky. Radar detection/avoidance also works much bett
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There aren't 100 million A380s in the air every rush hour. "Flying cars" will never be more than a toy for the wealthy.
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given that self driving cars cannot handle streets that have not been mapped to millimeter precision, or road constructions, or bad weather, or any of a million other real life conditions.
That's ... not how self-driving cars work. They rely on onboard sensors to follow the lane and deal with a variety of hazards. They aren't ready yet because the bar is so high, but they already work most of the time, even in bad weather with road construction.
there's no reason to believe anyone alive to day will live to see true self driving cars.
They're already here. Volvo will have 100 around the world this year (a few are already on the road in Sweden). General availability will be a few more years, but Volvo won't release them until they're safe (unlike Tesla). Self-driving functionali
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nope (Score:2)
If you think about the level of safety performance required for aircraft today to be approved, and the inspections that have to be conducted before every single flight ---
Just imagine, those same regulations that govern aircraft would permit a road vehicle (which gets beaten up by road hazards, rattled around by potholes, and is built to consumer automotive safety multiples of reliability) to just fly at a mom
Airbus is the one to do it. (Score:2)
No company has more experience with computer controlled flight than Airbus. The A380 is already capable of tarmac-to-tarmac autonomous flight, treating the human pilots more as a fail-safe than as real pilots. (For example, if the human pilot tries to do something stupid, like fly upside down or intentionally crash, the autopilot is designed to fight back).
People, read the article... (Score:2)
they are talking about using it like a taxi service.
I could see designated skylanes for a limited sectors and city departments like fire and ambulance services, along with taxies. I can actually see this being insurable if its limited in that capacity. And maybe just like planes if you complete a certification you can you have your own private version but im guessing the inital cost would be so prohibitive that not everyone is going to be able to do it, just like a commercial pilot's license.
With designated
Daddy! Look it's the White House! (Score:2)
Moller Skycar (Score:2)
They're late. Moller has been at it for 50 years [wikipedia.org]. I'm really late, but why not? I promise to release my flying car prototype next year too. I plan to take a different approach [youtube.com].
Not technically reasonable (Score:2)
The 3d image shows a vehicle with small ducted fans for lift, and minimal aerodynamic lifting surfaces.
Helicopters use very large blades because (for very basic physics: momentum goes as MV, power goes as MV^2) it is more efficient to move a lot of air slowly than a little air quickly. So it will need more power than a helicopter which will make it less efficient, noisier, and the down-wash will be more damaging.
There may be a few applications where the lack of exposed blades will help, but not many. Ev
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Ignore the picture. Notice it has the tag line "Image Credit: Shutterstock"? That picture didn't come from Airbus. It's just a stock picture the author pulled off the net. The article says almost nothing about how the actual vehicles will work, except that one concept they're considering is "a helicopter-style vehicle".
I think it's safe to assume Airbus knows how to make things that can fly.
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Airbus knows how to make things fly, but that doesn't mean that there are not groups at Airbus that are clueless. NASA knows about conservation of momentum but has a group working on what is essentially an inertialess drive.
Better link (Score:2)
http://www.airbusgroup.com/int... [airbusgroup.com]
Most of what's in the (originally) Reuters blurb is in the airbus link, except the 2017 date to get a prototype in the air, and doesn't contain that silly Shutterstock photo that has nothing to do with the Airbus group at all.
If I could afford one of these, I'd definitely get on, even if it had limited takeoff/landing allowables. Now, that's partly because the nearest gen aviation airport is ~1 mile from my house, and partly because I live in the mountains where the air mile
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Elon is partly and significantly behind the rise of electric cars.
Electric cars threaten the manhood of the fossil fuel industry.
Fossil fuel executives wonder how to save their beloved industry and provide a superior smog choking experience to everyone.
DING! DING! DING! DING!
I know! I know! Says one executive. Flying cars! They will use even more fuel. Provide more pollution. And they won't be powered by elec
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He's also a target of the Republican party... which I have NO idea why. I mean, aren't we supposed to celebrate entrepreneurs?
Is he? I can't recall ever hearing a Republican say anything cross about Musk. I will occasionally see libertarians roll their eyes at Musk fanboys because Musk relied so heavily on government subsidies, but that's about it. What are you talking about?
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Well from the article, "they" being Republicans, don't give a shit. The article is about one fabricated online journalist from someone with a grudge against Musk, who appears to be trying to shill to get Republicans to oppose Musk, but I've seen no evidence it's worked. I am a Republican and general right-wing nutjob and on all my right wing blogs/sites/forums etc I don't think I've ever seen any significant negative sentiment towards Musk. If I had to gauge the general opinion of Musk among conservatives/R
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Only flying cars were supposed to be available by Y2K.
The predictions for fusion power are remarkably accurate. 30 years ago, they told us it would be 30 years away, and indeed, 30 years later, it is still 30 years away.
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parachutes and rockets (Score:2)
what altitude do they work from?Oh, that's right 1000ft. So, your ridiculously heavy solution wouldn't work most of the time a taxi style flying car was operating
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Somebody in Qatar will order a 380SUV, but there won't be a lot of places wher eit can land.
Re:Boeing or not going (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not but there are fully autonomous helicopters being used by the military. That said, there is hopefully still some substantive differences between your typical upscale American suburb and the backwoods of Afghanistan. Noise, the acceptance of a half ton of wrecked aluminum in your back yard, more noise - I just don't see it here in the US.
Not to even get into the limited capacity that air corridors have compared to roads. That could possibly change as autonomous flight allows for closer aircraft spacing, but it's not going to happen quickly.
And that noise... If you think the weeny little Phantom-class drones are going to be shotgun targets, wait until this thing tries to land in your neighbor's yard.
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I didn't read this article, but I read one from a different source. What I got from that was not that they were targeting casual residential owners, but rather fleets used as mass transit. I think they're targeting places like New York, Hong Kong, etc. Dense population centres where they would be used as a flying autonomous taxi. Cities where the added noise pollution might not be noticed all that much. I don't think they're even targeting having these flying over your peaceful house in the suburbs.
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If you think the noise of a jet engine won't be noticed much in a dense population center like NY or Hong Kong, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you. Turns out 150 dB is noticeable in pretty much every environment. You can tell by when blood starts coming out of your ears.
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Cities where the added noise pollution might not be noticed all that much.
Take another look at the picture. Those tiny little fans will drown out the gunfire.
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Might even save some lives if it distracts the shooter.
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Funny you mention Hong Kong. It's where I live.
I don't see flying cars/buses/whatever here any time soon. The reason: high-rise buildings (most city blocks here are anywhere from 50 to 480 meters tall) and mountains (the tallest being over 900 meters tall). With those high-rises there is almost no place for any aircraft to land safely, it's just too dense. There's a heliport at the harbour and a few super luxury hotels have helipads on the rooftop. That are about your only realistic options.
Add to that the
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"If I'm flying somewhere I want a human pilot" "and if I'm driving somewhere, I want to be in ultimate control of the vehicle."
You don't trust a vehicle with 20+ sensors that can react 100 times faster to all those concurrent inputs, but you do trust a random cab/bus/train/plane/blimp driver to always make the right call? Those same people who are at fault in 99% of fatal accidents. Those same people who tend to fall asleep, show up at work drunk, have emotional issues, have undisclosed health issues, etc
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Don't fly in an Airbus A380 then, because they are already autonomous.
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Yup, I'm sure I read somewhere that the Moller Skycar was coming out in 2017 too.