Flying Car More Economical Than SUV

fusion812 writes "The M400 needs 35 clear feet to take off but thanks to its 770 hp engine can whiz to 365 mph - cruise control kicks in at 326 mph - and climb at 6,400 feet per minute. You may hear it before you see it: it emits a rather noisy 65 dba at 500 feet. Interestingly, with a fuel consumption of 20 miles to the gallon on the road, it's rather more economical than a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and looks positively eco-friendly compared to a Hummer."

MPG not important

[jepaton]

Moller said that today's economics give each M400 a theoretical price tag of around half a million dollars, but in volume production it could drop to $300,000 and in really large volumes to below $50,000.

If you can afford one of these the MPG isn't going to be an issue.

Re:MPG not important

[SillyNickName4me]

You usually cannot afford such things when you just throw away your money...

Vaporware?

[Ch_Omega]

I have been hearing about this particular car since late eighties, at least. I have an Arngren Electronics catalogue from 1990 that mentions the M400, and I have been hearing the exact same things about where they are in the process, etc. for the last ten years... Considering that it probably won't be available for sale in a long time yet, most people would be able to save up the cash to buy it when it's finally there. :)

Re:MPG not important

[bwalling]

I can just see people trying to put in enough miles to make one of these things more "economical" than an SUV.

I was in an elevator a few weeks ago with the owner of a brand new Hummer. He was complaining about the fuel economy (I have no sympathy for him there). He said that there would be a diesel version in two years, and he was going to buy that one because he could save money on gas. It was incredibly difficult to not just start laughing at him.

Re:MPG not important

[ralfg33k]

My wife and I just howled with laughter at this one: this Hummer owner is the kind of schmuck who goes home, kicks his dog, then complains the next day that his foot hurts.

Re:MPG not important

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

yeah, many of us know that you should keap your car for a long time since it will save you a lot of money. But so many people have this "need" to have a new vehicle every 3 years.

Keap a vehicle for 10 years that doesn't get the best mileage is far cheaper then replacing a vehicle every 3 years even for ones that get better mileage.

Really doesn't even take that long, just 6 years or so will do. When your not paying car payments for a few years, it frees up a lot of money.

Re:MPG not important

[SEWilco]

Follow the links and you'll see what a Skycar is made of. The speed does not require much stronger materials than a car requires. If you've ever crashed you know a car doesn't withstand anything over a few MPH.

You'll also see that the Skycar has two parachutes. The first models will require a pilot's license, but by the time consumers are buying them the high speed flight will only be done under computer control. Manual flight will be slow, and taking a car out of manual mode will make it shed the sp

Re:MPG not important

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

Mileage and Emissions arn't connected completely except for CO2 which isn't currenlty a concern. Getting the highest mileage and getting the lowest emissions as the same time isn't possible. To run an engine at it's most efficient points has trade offs in emissions.

At any rate this is dumb. Since for one most SUVs do better then 20mpg (not all SUVs are huge things, most are small and do no worse then a bigger car, or a high end car).

Also, across the board this thing would get piss poor mileage, how often

That may be so...

[acehole]

But the cost of the flying car would be significantly more than an SUV.

What of the costs for learning how to drive/fly one of these things?

I'm not really looking forward to the time where people who run out of gas/petrol simply fall out of the sky to their deaths and those on the ground.

Would you let a cletus like character behind the wheel of one of these things?

Re:That may be so...

[nkh]

for learning how to drive/fly one of these things?

Please, you're on Slashdot, we already know how to drive flying cars! Or have I wasted all these years playing video games?

Re:That may be so...

[in7ane]

"Would you let a cletus like character behind the wheel of one of these things?"

This will breathe new life into the Darwin Awards. Seriously though, we license people to drive, we also license people to fly aircraft, one would imagine that we could license people to fly these things as well. And from what I've read about it it seems that there are a lot of electronics for safety (so not going to fall out of the sky when fuel runs out) and control (stabilization mainly I guess).

What, no 'but what if te

Re:That may be so...

[ziggy_zero]

I'm sure the licensing would be much more akin to an airplane license.

Oh, and...

What if terrorists get a hold of these flying cars?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WE'RE ALL DOOMED

DOOMED I SAY

Re:That may be so...

[buzzcutbuddha]

So you have to pay more to get the thing initially. Boo hoo. You can fly at 326mph to your destination and get better gas mileage. So you have save time and cash on your commute, or going wherever. Is it really that hard to see the long-term economic benefits?

At 326mph I could get to work in 9 minutes. That alone is worth the price of admission.

And, btw, intelligence is absolutely no indicator of someone's ability to pilot or steer or drive a machine. I've seen plenty of supposedly smart people (think of some professors you've had) that can't drive a car to save their life. And I don't think any of us are going to nominate Dale Earnhardt Jr for a Nobel Prize, but I don't question his driving skills.

Stop being so damn elitist.

Re:That may be so...

[TheRaven64]

You can fly at 326mph to your destination and get better gas mileage.

It has better gas mileage than an SUV on the ground. Expect that to drop off very quickly once you are in the air...

Re:That may be so...

[Catbeller]

Um, nope. Better mileag (theoretically) in cruising flight than an SUV on the ground, per mile.

To be fair, that's not factoring the fuel necessary to get to cruising mode if you take off in VTOL mode. That'll eat up some crude.

That still doesn't get around the concept's flaws

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'm surprised that the group that rips on Infinium Labs for being the vapor that they are doesn't rip on Moller for being vapor far longer than Phantom Console.

Skycar, IMO, is a scam. Yes, they have two "test flight" pictures, might be rigged or faked.

Don't count on 326 MPG on 30MPG. Remember, these are vapor numbers on a flying vehicle with barely any wings at all. If it's too good to be believed...

Re:That still doesn't get around the concept's fla

[GooberToo]

I agree. Considering he has what, six or eight engines running, 30mpg sounds pretty impossible. Besides, most aviation vehicles are measured in gallons per hour and not mile per gallon because, based on wind, a gph rating would be all over the place. A gph rating is going to be fairly static.

Re:That may be so...

[Ed_Moyse]

Moderators this is *NOT* a +5 interesting since amost ALL of the points raised by this idiot are answered on the Moller international website [moller.com]

Now I'm not saying that they've got everything sorted, but at least read the proposals before spouting off!

For example, there are planned to be two paracutes on these things (so they won't "fall out of the sky when they run out of fuel"). Also you will not need a full pilots licence (so it should be cheaper), and frankly a well-trained "cletus type" is much less lik

Re:That may be so...

[dildatron]

Did you know that "cletus like" characters are often better at driving than geeks like you? These are people that drive tractors, tractor trailers, dump trucks, etc. And can probably fix a whole lot more than you when things go wrong. Suck of this geek supremicist bullshit. You are not better than everyone at everything. You are better at a small subset of things.

Re:That may be so...

[Technician]

I'm more interested in the economy they get while queued up in the landing pattern. You think the freeway is bad with 50 on and off ramps, try an arial traffic jam with only 3 or 4 off ramps (landing strips in the destination area) where the traffic can't slow down or stop.

They won't be too popular simply because of the problem of not being able to park close to you place of employment. You get much closer to the door in your SUV.

Re:That may be so...

[M1FCJ]

Airspace is quite controlled as well, at least in Europe. Where you can fly is pretty regulated. There are volumes of space left for small aircraft but still you are pretty limited (as the roads are).

The nice thing is given a separation distance, air traffic can still hold enormous volumes.

On the other hand while driving on the ground I only have to live two seconds worth of distance as a minimum between my car and the guy in front of me. On air, this distance is much much longer. The traffic might be still pretty bad.

Re:That may be so...

[SillyNickName4me]

> So it won't be too hard to program the controls to sense the gas level in the tank and not let you take off until you have enough fuel to get to your destination.

Well.. technically true of course, but seeing how people already have a lot of trouble 'programming' their video to display something else then a blinking 0:00 (or 12:00 dependign on model) I doubt they are going to be able to put in a destination so that the car could calculate if it has enough fuel..

Re:That may be so...

[The Evil Couch]

which makes it self-regulating against putting idiots in the air. :D

Re:That may be so...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Gyrocopters would make good civilian flying
> cars.. They're easy to learn (about 30 odd
> lessons) and if they run out of fuel they
> autorotate automatically..

And you land in a crowd, or on the side of a building and tip off and die. No, the lawyers will incinerate companies like this. Both sky cars and gyrocopters, for general use, will need computer control to manage fuel, takeoffs, and landings.

Actually, sky cars should be very safe. With multiple engines, the computer could keep it fly

Re:That may be so...

[anshil]

Hmmm, What is a gyrocopter?

Re:That may be so...

[jafiwam]

With a real link this time. [autogyro.de]

Re:That may be so...

[GooberToo]

I wish mods would bother to read the thread before they moderate. There is some very bad information being present here. Gyrocopters are not safe. Period. Anyone that says otherwise is an idiot. Someone was kind enough to even offer a link in this thread supporting the dangers of these things. Everything I stated about gyrocopters is 100% factual. Please, mod correctly. Mods are pushing down correct and accurate information in exchange for a clueless troll that doesn't have the foggiest idea what he

MOD PARENT DOWN

[localroger]

The author of the parent comment knows just enough about gyrocopters to tell a lot of shit-stirring lies.

First and foremost, gyrocopters can't stall. At all. That's why they were invented. Juan de la Cierva was obsessed with the dangers of stalling in fixed-wing aircraft, which is why he devoted his life to promoting the autogyro. (Ironically enough, he actually died when the fixed-wing aircraft he was riding in stalled and crashed.)

Autogyros aren't used commercially because helicopters are better at VTOL, slow-speed and hover flight, and fixed-wing aircraft are more fuel efficient and faster for distance and heavy lifting.

You can get a personal Experimental class autogyro for under $20,000 (about the same as the less expensive fixed-wing EA class kits) and they're much safer than either fixed-wing craft or (especially) helicopters for novice flyers.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[The Evil Couch]

yes and no. they're safer in some respects and more dangerous in others.

here, text from the wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

Flight characteristics

Autogyros are often regarded by fixed-wing aircraft pilots as "dangerously unstable", which is certainly true if one tries to fly a autogyro using fixed-wing principles. Piloted properly, a autogyro is slightly safer than a fixed-wing aircraft because it cannot stall. A "stall" does not mean an engine-out event, it means a fixed wing aircraft is travelling too slowly for the wings to produce lift. Since the rotor of a autogyro is always spinning, it cannot stall. If forward airspeed becomes zero, the autogyro will slowly drift to the ground, rotor still spinning. A vertical landing in this manner will not critically damage most autogyros.

One weakness in the autogyro is pitch instability (pitch is the tilting up or down of the craft as viewed from the front or the back). Pitch instability is a problem because autogyros cannot handle negative-gee forces (positive-gee forces push people into their seats; negative-gee forces make people float out of them, such as driving down a steep hill at high speed in an automobile). Negative-gee forces "unload the rotor". A flying autogyro hangs from the rotor much like an object hung from a string. As long as the plane is hanging from the rotor, stability is maintained. The instant zero or negative-gees are introduced, rotor speed begins to decay and the gyroscopic forces stabilizing the plane are lost.

Negative-gees are usually caused by Pilot-Induced Oscillation, or PIO. PIO happens when a pilot adjusts his pitch too much too quickly, then makes a countering control input to bring the pitch back. The countering input often overcompensates, and the autogyro begins to buck like a bronco. This is most likely at high engine throttle settings. If the pilot continues to fight the plane, the rotor (which is flexible) usually flops down and strikes the spinning propeller, which destroys both and sends the autogyro into an uncontrolled fall. The way to avoid this during an incipient PIO is to apply gentle backpressure on the stick (to raise pitch) and cut engine power. Note that this is the exact opposite of what fixed-wing pilots are trained to do when in trouble, which has lead to some unfortunate accidents and the autogyro's undeserved reputation for being "dangerous".

Another danger is "bunting over" or a Power Push-Over (PPO). A autogyro's vertical airspeed (climb or sink rate) is directly coupled to airspeed. Increase forward airspeed, increase rate of climb. In order to maintain level flight at high engine throttle settings, the pilot must tilt the rotor forward to translate some of his lift into forward motion. Too much tilt, and the autogyro's overall pitch will aim down towards the ground. When this happens, negative-gees occur, rotor speed drops too low to provide lift, and the autogyro tumbles end-over-end in a sommersault. It is impossible to regain control after a PPO.

Two factors lead to pitch instability: no or too small horizontal stabilizers (h-stabs) and high thrustline engine placement. A large h-stab, ideally in the prop wash (where the propeller blows on it) will reduce the tendency of a autogyro to over-pitch as a result of improper control input.

If the engine thrustline in a pusher-type autogyro is high -- meaning the axis of propeller power is above the center of gravity for the aircraft -- the autogyro tends to pitch forward under sudden power application (see PPOs above, as for why this is Bad). (Unfortunately, Benson-type autogyros have a notably high thrustline.) If the thrustline is low, the autogyro tends to pitch up under sudden power application, which is harmless. It's difficult to have a low thrustline without a really tall autogyro (such as a "Dominator" style) however, so most autogyro designs simply try to get the thrustline as low as possible though still being slightly abo

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[GooberToo]

it cannot stall.

That's false. Most everything stated above, assumes zero wind conditions! Read on.

Wind, as I originally stated, is one of the most dangerous aspects of these crafts. If you fly with a tail wind, the effective lift is GREATLY reduced. Thusly, GREATLY increasing the chances of a single rotor stall. That means, ONE HALF OF THE ROTOR IS CREATING LIFT. THE OTHER HALF IS NOT! This means at best, you have little to no control and YOU CAN NOT AUTOROTATE! This also means, it's possible th

Re:That may be so...

[GooberToo]

Because they are friggen death traps and the moderators are buying into his misinformation! Everything he stated is false.

Gyrocopters are dangerous. Very dangerous! And yes, they nto only stall, but FALL OUT OF THE FRIGGEN AIR! Autorotation is not always an option in a gyrocopter. This is exactly why some have looked into using things like depleated uranium in the rotor tips so that they can maintain enough energy in the rotors to widen the window where they can safely autorotate.

Simple fact is, gyro

Re:That may be so...

[GooberToo]

Yes, you can stall. You can often recover. The problem with these death traps is when you fly any wind. Wind is what makes these things so dangerous. Fly in 0 wind and blue skies, it's probably fairly safe and fun. Fly when there is wind and you're playing the odds, which are NOT in your favor. Check the statistics!

Wind kills idiots that believe these things are safe. Rotor stalls are fairly easy to create in these things. Stall a rotor and you tumble or flat out fall from the sky. With a stalled

Re:That may be so...

[GooberToo]

Except that helicopters can fly well, both against and with the wind. Gyrocopters can not. If a gyrocopter flies into too much wind, it can cause a rotor stall; but requires fairly high winds which would still be flyable by planes and helicopters. If you fly with a tail wind, you can EASILY lose lift AND forward momentum and fall from the air with a rotor stall.

Cross winds are also very dangerous for these things. Flipping or inverting a gryocopter is hardly unhead of. These things are dangerous and t

Re:That may be so...

[phliar]

Except that helicopters can fly well, both against and with the wind. Gyrocopters can not. If a gyrocopter flies into too much wind, it can cause a rotor stall; but requires fairly high winds which would still be flyable by planes and helicopters. If you fly with a tail wind, you can EASILY lose lift AND forward momentum and fall from the air with a rotor stall.

Ignorance is not a vice; we all have to learn some time. But which kind of idiot calls this "informative"? (Four of them!)

When an aircraft is a

Re:That may be so...

[GooberToo]

You may want to learn what you are actually talking about before you post.

There is a difference between IAS, TAS and ground speed. Learn the difference. Once you know that, then, learn what keep the friggen thing in the air. DOh! What a concept!

Eco-friendly???

[Kwelstr]

"it emits a rather noisy 65 dba at 500 feet. Interestingly, with a fuel consumption of 20 miles to the gallon on the road, it's rather more economical than a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and looks positively eco-friendly compared to a Hummer."

How about NOISE POLLUTION???? 65 dba at 500 feet. Yeah that's eco friendly in my book!!!

Re:Eco-friendly???

[McDutchie]

Not to mention the industrial, chemical and biological pollution caused by spontaneous post-crash combustion of scores of these containers packaging freshly deceased would-be amateur pilots. I'm not sure the ecological effects of dumping and incinerating tons of such canned meat product [spam.com] are well known, especially if the meat is human and the dumping is done over inhabitated areas.

Re:Eco-friendly???

[gl4ss]

...and not to mention the production pollution. though suv's might be just as bad in that sense.

however, are they still able to fly these things? just saying because I saw an article about these like 10 years ago already and it seems like a dnf project for now as well....

WTF?

[Cthefuture]

Am I missing something or what?

65 dBa is quiet. Those crappy old desktop computers put out more sound than that. Most high quality cars have an interior road noise level of around 65 dBa at 60 MPH.

Did they mean 165 dBa or something? (now that that would be loud as hell)

Re:WTF?

[Reverberant]

It's 65dBa at 500 feet. Since loudness decreases/increases quadratically

Warrax_666 makes a good point. (and to answer your question, sound usually decays at a rate of 10*log10(D/Dref) for line-sources and 20*log10(D/Dref) for point sources, although ground absorption and atmospheric absorption can cause more rapid attenuation in certain circumstances).

65 dBA at 500 feet translates to 85 dBA at 50 ft (assuming point source propagation, which is probably reasonable).

For comparison:

• Locomotive idling @ 50 ft: 80 dBA
• Bus idling @ 50 ft: 75 dBA
• Automobile @ 50 ft, 50 mph: 70 dBA
• Diesel locomotive @ 50 ft, 50 mph: 92 dBA
• Transit train (electric) @ 50 ft, 50 mph: 86 dBA
• Train horn @ 50 ft: 105 dBA

So in short, it's louder than cars traveling at 50 mph, but not as bad as a train horn. Also keep in mind that if the flying car is, well, flying, there won't be anything to shield the noise from the vehicle, and that may make it louder than normal cars in practice.

65 decibels?

[LeBlanc_Joey]

If that is 65 decibels it is NOT loud, from howstuffworks.com [howstuffworks.com] :

• Near total silence - 0 dB
• A whisper - 15 dB
• Normal conversation - 60 dB
• A lawnmower - 90 dB
• A car horn - 110 dB
• A rock concert or a jet engine - 120 dB
• A gunshot or firecracker - 140 dB

Re:Eco-friendly???

[Tango42]

If there are enough of these in the sky then congestion will be just as bad. And worse, if you're in stationary traffic at 500 feet, you won't be for long...

The sky is three-dimensional

[jbellis]

There would have to be many times more skycars than there are currently automobiles for congestion to be "just as bad."

I love high gas prices

[Anonymous Coward]

and I hope they go higher. $5 a gallon.

You've had 2 kids you couldn't really afford, a house in suburbia you can't afford, and now you've bought a Chrysler LeBehemoth that gets .8 MPG.

You deserve it.

And for the non-americans in here

[Mr. Marabou Man]

20 (miles / US gallon) = 8.50287411 kilometers per liter [google.com]

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[ahillen]

Or like we say over here:

11.7607292 liters / (100 kilometer) [google.com] :)

(or 1.17607292 × 10-07 m2 [google.com]? Whatever... ;) )

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[Daath]

Man that's really insane, the cars I'm considering goes 20-25 kilometers per liter. That's 47-58 miles per gallon!
It's not just gas prices that is a factor here, cars pollute, so the less they pollute, the better.
The noise pollution of this thing is significant too. No, this is cool but it needs to get better. Way better.

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[sydb]

Americans don't worry about things like pollution, that's why there gas is is practically untaxed (therefore cost is not an issue) and their engines are so large.

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[Naffer]

If by untaxed you mean 25% taxed... then you're right. 50 cents on every gallon is tax.

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[sydb]

That's right, in the UK we are currently paying around 72% tax, and it was 85% in 1998.

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[Kopretinka]

It would have been more helpful if the figure was in liters per 100km, the usual here in my country:

20 miles per US gallon = 11.8 l/100km

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[Kopretinka]

Sorry about the self-reply, just have to add that the simple formula is: x mpg = 235/x l/100km, and of course x l/100km = 235/x mpg.

Re:And for the non-americans in here

[Hektor_Troy]

Just to nitpick, we don't use 8 significant digits when using km/l. 1 is more than enough. 8.5 km/l. Anything more is ridiculous, as the number will fluctuate anyway, and is probably rounded from something.

Here on Slashdot we often see posts like

"that's 8.50287411 km/l" followed by "see, this is why we don't want metric - it's too dificult to remember compared to 20 miles/gallon".

Of course we could do it the other way around as well. 8½ km/l 19.993239674108264552443197350831 miles/gallon. This is of course why we metric people hate imperial - it's too difficult to remember compared to 8½ km/l.

And for Simpsons fans

[HeghmoH]

20 miles/gallon = 537,600 rods/hogshead

Dawn of the age of the understicker...

[Black Parrot]

IF YOU CAN READ THIS

I'm about to land on you

Re:Dawn of the age of the understicker...

[MouseR]

"I can't brake for nobody"

Re:Dawn of the age of the understicker...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I break on impact" :(

Economic Impact

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty soon most in city travel will move towards public transportation and small aircraft will remove much of the cost of building highways and their economic cost. Really this whole thing makes a lot of sense to the government.

Re:Economic Impact

[Wells2k]

Remove the cost of building highways? Ummm...have you looked at what a good portion of the traffic is on the highways is these days?

Trucks.

Cargo shipping is one of the biggest reasons for the highways these days, and I really don't foresee the use of "small aircraft" as being a good replacement for the trucking industry at this time.

Yes.. but

[Viceice]

all we need is for soem nuts to decide to pack 1 full of explosives and fly it into a building.

I'd expect instead of building highways, all the money will be going to building shielding for buildings.

Re:Yes.. but

[17028]

As opposed to using a normal Cessna that costs less and can carry more?

So what?

[divine_13]

Well i guess that the fact of a vehicle being a bit more "economical" that others does not make it better. There are alot of other features; support, part prices, driving abilities etc.

Vapor

[Lord Kano]

Moller and his Merlin series of personal aircraft have been on the drawing board since before most /.ers have been on the internet. I have yet to see one of them in flight.

LK

Re:Vapor

[in7ane]

Take a look here [moller.com], it has a few videos (which do look quite real before somebody brings that up).

Re:Vapor

[gl4ss]

Hover demonstration doesn't count as this thing working as supposed(flying from one destination to another).

Its astonishing

[Timesprout]

That someone actually spent 200 Million dollars on a project like this. Flying cars are a cool idea but lets face it totally impractical with todays infrastructure. Also given the paranoia over security today I cant imagine the US Govt being in any great hurry to allow the masses get airbourne.

I reckon he needs to find 400 people with more money that sense to but them as very expensive novelties to break even.

Re:Its astonishing

[adam mcmaster]

Flying cars are a cool idea but lets face it totally impractical with todays infrastructure.

That's true, but the fact that it wouldn't be useful today shouldn't prevent us from developing tomorrow's technology.

Re:Its astonishing

[BiggerIsBetter]

Also given the paranoia over security today I cant imagine the US Govt being in any great hurry to allow the masses get airbourne.

True enough. However there's plenty of small aircraft and even small jets available already. I guess only rich people should be allowed personal aircraft. I guess rich people aren't terrorists?

Re:Its astonishing

[dheltzel]

I guess only rich people should be allowed personal aircraft. I guess rich people aren't terrorists?

So you think that lowering the financial bar for aerial terrorists is a good thing?

I think the costs should be raised, anything that has the effect of making an attack more costly, will have some effect on reducing the frequency. Plus a botched attempt might costs as much as a successful one, making it more risky for the terrorists. That's why terrorsts prefer low-tech, low-cost weapons. There are a lot of

Re:Its astonishing

[BiggerIsBetter]

So you think that lowering the financial bar for aerial terrorists is a good thing?

I'll take that as a genuine question rather than you attempting to put words into my mouth.

I think lowering the financial bar for personal aircraft for *anyone* is a good idea. Cheap aircraft can be had, but you're looking at some pretty old designs and hardware. Making better craft cheaper is a good thing, and can make flying safer for those that want to. The idea of raising prices to a point where only the extremely wealthy and suitably large corporations can do so smacks of elitism and "corporatism". Eg, common people shouldn't be allowed to do things, some of them might do something bad! Better only let the good (rich/white/christian/political/etc) people do those things, or only companies so we can regulate them (and because most sensible well off folks use companies as vehicles for their finances anyway).

Personally, I like the idea of jumping in a cheap reliable plane and flying somewhere nice and remote to go camping for the weekend, but people like you would rather see me "under control" and put through security checks and 3 hour check-in queues - because that's "safer" isn't it? And as I understand it, terrorists are rather well funded already, so don't kid yourself that life will be rosy if you price anything interesting out of the Joe Public market.

Look buddy, keep your paranoia to yourself. The US has got the largest military spend in the world and bases in everyone else's countries... but now you're getting pissy over letting some average dude fly his family around because you think someone might attack you? In a 4-seater Cessna? Uh, that's been within terrorists reach for *decades*. There's some serious introspection needed here...

Re:Its astonishing

[drinkypoo]

I hope you realize that the average person with slight technical skills can build an airplane if they are willing to follow instructions carefully, and for less than the price of a new car? Hell, I have a web bookmark to a book someplace that tells you how to make your own hand-laid carbon fiber aircraft. Now be realistic, if you can make your own aircraft for less than the cost of your explosives (if you're using anything interesting) what the hell would keeping complete-build units expensive accomplish? A

More economical probably only on long distances.

[deragon]

I bet it is only more economical on long distances. I am sure that one needs to burn a lot of fuels just to go to the grocery 3 kms away. Takeoffs must not be cheap, nor landing as they are probably done slowly.

And it seam to seat only one person. Wait until you have the family size comming out (if ever).

I never believed in this flying car running on conventional engine. For a flying car to be practical, we would need a revolutionary engine, something like an "anti-gravity" engine that runs cheap. So

Re:More economical probably only on long distances

[turgid]

I am sure that one needs to burn a lot of fuels just to go to the grocery 3 kms away.

Try a bicycle or Shanks's Pony.

Re:More economical probably only on long distances

[sydb]

You're assuming these people have functional legs. Homo Sapiens is slowly evolving a single limb which is only useful for the control of the gas and the brake, and the Americans are leading the way.

Fortunately most other nations still use a manual clutch, thus ensuring a full compliment of the requisite bodily appendages for human powered propulsion.

Skycar will never happen.

[Nick Driver]

Even if Moller can ever get this thing working (very, very doubtful based on the man and the machine's history thus far), the physics involved in a purely vectored-thrust/powered lift flying machine, make it the potentially most dangerous and unstable aircraft you can ever have. Unless all thrust generating and vectoring parts are always working perfectly 100% of the time, the machine will be completely uncontrollable. Think of Neil Armstrong's experience with the "flying bedstead" [nasa.gov] here. Heck, even a helic

Re:Skycar will never happen.

[Catbeller]

I have this suspicion that most people posting don't understand that the Skycar can glide. It's a plane. With wings. Control surfaces. It has eight wankel engines producing vented thrust coordinated by redundant controllers. Most of the flying chores are automagically smoothed out by the flight computers.

It can fly like any normal plane with only two of the eight engines operational. It doesn't have to VTOL; it can take off or land in the normal fashion. Since the engines are not mechanically linked in the normal sense, it would take a catastrophic failure to lose more than a few engines. You might lose the near-VTOL capability, but a pilot could land a troubled Moeller with less trouble than your average Cessna, theoretically. The power and control systems are far more redundant in a Moeller.

It's not a flying saucer. You might be confusing the Skycar with the "flying saucer" hovering testbed he made +-30 years ago?

If I'm not mistaken, the craft also has a 'chute that fires in an emergency. Or would, if someone would fund the poor man enough to build the full-scale prototype.

Anyone flying the Moeller would have to be a licensed pilot; this would cut down the "oops" factor.

Moeller has spent a lifetime thinking the engineering matters through. I wish he and Burt Rutan would have lunch sometime.

video link

[mm0mm]

details of M400 here [moller.com].

the site has video/media [moller.com] page as well, in which you can see noisy hover test [moller.com].

I don't mean to be cynic, but I couldn't help wondering what practical use this vehicle may have. with two passengers maximum, this looks to me like fancy miata of aircraft. maybe this can become California governor's commuter vehicle, but I don't want to see dozens of these flying around above my neighborhood.

Re:video link

[Slashamatic]

The M400 can carry 4 people, you linked to the M200 (which has actually been flight tested). The concept of the Sky-Car requires some serious infrastructure (being researched by NASA) allowing much of the control to be asserted by specialist traffic systems, resulting in the so-called "Highways in the Sky".

The future is later

[BalloonMan]

If you get tired of waiting for flying cars, try some "life extending" organic almond butter [moller.com] from the good Dr. Moller.

CopyCat.

[JohnGlenn]

He's about 50 years too late!

http://www.museumofflight.org/collections/craftdis play.html?ID=3 [slashdot.org]

Why compromise...

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

...when you can have both in one! Flying SUV's! The noise pollution of the flying car and the gas-guzzling capacity of a Mac truck.

Seriously, how long do you think it will be before one of these is invented? With the American consumer market interested in style and power over economic- and environmentally-safe auto's, I'm guessing about three days after a smaller version of the flying car is available.

Why stop there?

[tommck]

I'm holding out for the Winnebago! [sciflicks.com] :)

Obviously...

[Epistax]

I was under the impression that a tanker exploding was more environmentally friendly than an SUV. Better mileage too.

Of course it's more economical

[YrWrstNtmr]

A vehicle made out of vapor should get damned impressive gas mileage.

So it gets 20mpg on the ground. How is that significant?
The damn thing doesn't exist yet
What's it's gas mileage in the air? After all....that the point of this thing.

Moller has been shilling people for years over this thing.

It would be damn expensive
It would still require a pilots license
It would still require an airport and runway to land. Unless of course he has the navigation and control system down to sub-1 meter accuracy. hahaha
D

Re:Of course it's more economical

[argent]

Moller's taken on a tough job, trying to design and build a safe and affordable flying car, and he may not succeed, but by the gods and their pet demons it's terribly churlish of you to call this man's vision "shilling people for years".

He's built it, It's flown, it's not a product yet but it's not bleeding "vapor".

Plaguarism

[JoeyLemur]

Nice plaguarism with submitting that story... not even a mention of The Register [theregister.co.uk], who had that text word for word [theregister.co.uk].

The point isn't the practicality of flying cars

[Jonas the Bold]

The point is how much SUVs suck. There is no excuse for having worse fuel efficiancy than a fucking airplane.

Re:The point isn't the practicality of flying cars

[Neophytus]

bravo!

Re:The point isn't the practicality of flying cars

[jcam2]

I think a more interesting and fairer comparison would be an SUV vs. a real airplane with a similar passenger capacity, such as a Cessna ..

Re:The point isn't the practicality of flying cars

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think a more interesting and fairer comparison would be an SUV vs. a real airplane with a similar passenger capacity, such as a Cessna .."

It's been done, more or less. Years ago, Flying magazine compared the fuel economy of a Grumman TR-2 airplane with that of a Ford Pinto. To be fair, the Pinto held 4 people, and the Grumman only held two, but we all know that most cars rarely
carry their max passenger capacity.

At any rate, the airplane won, based on gallons of gas used to
go from point A to point B. Th

Re:The point isn't the practicality of flying cars

[tommck]

If you read the article, that's the mileage it gets _on_the_ground_... not in the air!

Heck, it probably ways less than many SUVs too! Probably has no towing capacity and is extremely streamlined...

More appropriately (because of its shape), it should be compared with sporty cars and, there, it's not so great..

Who cares about fuel economy?

[Bender Unit 22]

I do(or rather, I would if a shortage of money was an issue), because due to local taxes created by enviromental nuts in the goverment, I pay over twice as much as people in the US for my fuel.
But if the prices were on the same level, I wouldn't give a xxxx.
But then again, I might. Because then I would buy a much larger and less economic car than I would need which would use twice the amount of fuel and I would be in the same situation again. :D

btw, the same enviromental nuts had put a 200% tax on cars so I bought a car from 1987 for 2500$.
I do plan ,however, that my next car should be one that can run on unleaded fuel and have a catalysator. Maybe even have a few safty features such as airbags etc.
But I'd be dammed if I want to spend 30000$ just to buy a 90hp compact(3 door hatchback type).

So where am I going with all this? Well raising price on a item, gas, heating, electricity will make people try to save it, but at a certain level it just backfires. High prices on heating are another example. Small suburbs has shown to have the same low quality of air as the smog plaqued big city, due to the homeowners installing a wood furnace to save money on heating. The problem is that what they are buring in them and the way they are doing it are causing a lot of bad particles to be released.

Place your orders here

[logic-gate]

Buy one here [moller.com]

Anyone got a spare $100,000 for the deposit?

Finally!

[Progman3K]

I've been waiting for my flying car since the 1950s!
And now they're finally here!

Reality Check

[xyote]

Flying as a mode of transportation only works because there are relatively few aircraft in the air so they can be kept really far apart, and the pilots are well trained.

It is repeatedly demonstrated every single day that ordinary drivers cannot handle 1 dimension in driving, let alone 2 dimensions such as intersections and multi lane roads. 3 dimensions is completely out of the question. Are you totally insane?

Re:Reality Check

[Sergeant Beavis]

The FAA only requires that aircraft fly 500 feet apart from one another, unless they are in formation. Add to that, the fact that there is sooooo much sky out there and you have a lot of room. The only real congestion in the air right now is above major airport hubs and even that is very manageable. However, you are correct that improvements need to be made. It is difficult to orient yourself over 3 axis, so NASA and several other groups have been working on a new navigation system which would creat

infra-consumption

[moviepig.com]

... a fuel consumption of 20 miles to the gallon on the road ...

Wonder what the effective mileage would be if adjusted for the resulting reduced wear-and-tear on that road.

Sport Pilots License

[Sergeant Beavis]

While I find the M400 very interesting, I think the future of aviation will be affected to a much greater degree by the proposed regulations for pilot licensing.

The FAA has proposed new rule for what will be called a Sport Pilots License. The rules should be approved this summer and it will make it much easier for anyone to become a pilot. For one, you won't have to take an expensive physical any longer.

However, there are a lot of restrictions on someone with an SPL. You can't fly an aircraft that has a gross takeoff weight higher than 1232lbs. You can only fly under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) conditions and you cannot fly any faster than 132MPH.

Because flight training takes place in the less expensive Light Sport Aircraft class (LSA) flight training should be less expensive. Also, a prospective SPL student only needs to fly 20 hours to get their license. Normally, you have to fly at least 40 hours.

Personally, I can't wait.

If you want to learn more about it, goto www.sportpilot.org [sportpilot.org]

Moller has had some trouble with the SEC

[Gorgonzola]

Read all about it here [sec.gov]

Re:where this car fails miserably

[Lispy]

You are seriously right. I used to take flying lessons and when I was on my ride home from the airport I was really amazed how two dimensional driving is. It's actually kinda weird to lack a third dimension when you got used to it.