Photographer Glimpses Larry Page's Flying Car Hovering In California (Maybe) (siliconvalley.com) 88
From Hollister, California -- population 40,000 -- comes a good update from the Mercury News on Larry Page's efforts to fund a flying car:
Even from a few hundred yards away, the aircraft made a noise strikingly different from the roar of a typical plane. "It sounded like an electric motor running, just a high-pitched whine," said Steve Eggleston, assistant manager at an airplane-parts company with offices bordering the Hollister Municipal Airport tarmac. But it wasn't only the sound that caught the attention of Eggleston and his co-workers at DK Turbines. It was what the aircraft was doing. "What the heck's that?" saleswoman Brittany Rodriguez thought to herself. It's just hovering."
That, apparently, was a flying car, or perhaps a prototype of another sort of aircraft under development by a mysterious startup called Zee.Aero...one of two reportedly funded by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop revolutionary forms of transportation... A Zee.Aero spokeswoman said the firm is "currently not discussing (its) plans publicly." However, a Zee.Aero patent issued in 2013 describes in some detail an aircraft capable of the hovering seen by people working at the airport. And the drawings showcase a vision of the future in which flying cars park in lots just like their terrestrial, less-evolved cousins.
Page has invested $100 million in Zee.Aero, which appears to have hired more than 100 aerospace engineers. But the article reports that apparently, in the small town where it's headquartered, "the first rule about Zee.Aero is you don't talk about Zee.Aero."
That, apparently, was a flying car, or perhaps a prototype of another sort of aircraft under development by a mysterious startup called Zee.Aero...one of two reportedly funded by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop revolutionary forms of transportation... A Zee.Aero spokeswoman said the firm is "currently not discussing (its) plans publicly." However, a Zee.Aero patent issued in 2013 describes in some detail an aircraft capable of the hovering seen by people working at the airport. And the drawings showcase a vision of the future in which flying cars park in lots just like their terrestrial, less-evolved cousins.
Page has invested $100 million in Zee.Aero, which appears to have hired more than 100 aerospace engineers. But the article reports that apparently, in the small town where it's headquartered, "the first rule about Zee.Aero is you don't talk about Zee.Aero."
Re: (Score:1)
No, it's not a meme for me. I really want a flying car that I can kill myself in.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh wow! You POSTED A "VLAD IS FAT" REFERENCE! Congratulations!
Just kidding.
Posting Vlad memes is literally the most basic, desperate, tragic, hopelessly-void-of-meaning, outrageously obnoxious, troublesome, costly, and downright pointless cry for help that the universe has ever screamed. Wow, you were born as a merely BORDERLINE retarded member of your species. WOW! INCREDIBLE! You managed to open your web browser and go to Slashdot (which in evolutionary terms, willing translates roughly to "fucking desperate for at least a few reasons") managed to somehow visit Trolltalk and post a "LOCKWOOD IS FAT" reference that was stale in 2001! WOW! This has literally only been taking place for ALMOST TWENTY FUCKING YEARS! WOW! Except guess what, nobody even reads Trolltalk anymore... which means you failed at submitting yourself to an act which means absolutely nothing. The only thing left to do now is kill yourself.
Not nearly as obnoxious as your post.
Re: (Score:2)
What the hell is a "Vlad is Fat" reference? A meme loses basically all of it's power, or supposed humor, when the context is missing.
Re:AT LAST! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
from a regulatory standpoint, it's neither. It's most certainly incapable of meeting crash safety ratings, and it doesn't meet aviation safety criteria. It may, eventually, possibly, with truly incredible composites, but the design objectives of modern cars and of airplanes are almost completely opposite.
Re: (Score:3)
It is a roadable aircraft. And it is not the first.
It is not the sci-fi type flying car since it can only take of and land on a suitable airstrip. So yes, it is a plane you can drive. I think it is mostly made for private pilots.
Legality is a problem because it has to be both street-legal and airworthy. The Terrafugia Transition did it by bending the rules a little. The airplane part is under the light sport aircraft rules but got an exemption because they couldn't meet the maximum weight criteria.
'squatch (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the fuck didn't this "photographer" take a picture of this "flying car"? Could it be the same reason cameras don't seem to work around UFOs and Bigfoot?
Re: 'squatch (Score:1)
Because the car looks like a plane?
Re: (Score:3)
That could be it. The whole idea of electric planes seems silly, hauling along that load of batteries with much lower energy density than fuel.
It would be even worse for an electric helicopter. What autonomy do they hope to get?
On the other hand, suppose you have a normal plane which just uses an electric boost for landing vertically? Maybe that doesn't make sense either but I can't dismiss that right out of hand.
Re: (Score:2)
That could be it. The whole idea of electric planes seems silly, hauling along that load of batteries with much lower energy density than fuel.....
It makes a lot of sense for a self-launching sailplane. The battery only needs enough energy to get the sailplane up to a sufficient altitude where it can catch thermals and remain aloft. The battery may weigh more than a small fuel supply, but you save weight on the electric motor vs. a more complex gasoline engine. It takes training, experience and ideal weather conditions to be able to operate a sailplane over long distances. So it's definitely not as simple to operate as a "flying car".
Re: (Score:1)
Paraphrased: "It was hovering 20 feet off the ground very quietly." That's what we want to see pictures of. "But by the time I could take a photo, it was already down." Of course it was.
But hey at least we get to see a hovering electric car on the ground being towed by a golf cart.
Re: (Score:2)
Flying directly towards him, I suspect.
Re:'squatch (Score:4, Insightful)
No, look again. there are not photos of anything flying.
Re: (Score:3)
No, there are no videos of the event described in this article.
Re: (Score:2)
He got a nice picture. It's just a golf cart.
Larry's been messing with us all along.
Re: (Score:2)
A flying golf cart sounds pretty cool.
Re: (Score:2)
Cameras work fine around bigfoot, but there are all these conspiracy nuts who start shouting about the mythical "Black Bear" every time you take a picture of one.
If you want to see some clear pictures of bigfoot, just search for "walking black bear" on youtube.
Re: (Score:2)
With talcum powder, a lot of cursing, and the assistance of the tooth fairy to do the zipper.
Re: (Score:2)
I really hope flying cars come with telemetry but maybe that's just me.
A Real Flying Plane ! (Score:2)
Yep looks like a real flying plane to me... not a car.
Given his past (Score:2)
I suppose there's more than one way to do it?
Nothing to see here (Score:1)
It's a weather balloon.
Re: (Score:2)
It's cool. It's also going to be a while. (Score:5, Insightful)
So you do it with a local AI and sensors. Sorta like a self-driving car. Great. Let me know when it's bulletproof in a 2D environment and I'll consider the 3D version. Let's remember that a groundcar can reasonably be operated manually by most people. Letting untrained pilots fly higher than three feet off the ground will require the addition of a new category to the Darwin awards.
Too bad. I really wanted a flying car.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Flatland is a lot more dangerous than 3D space. So many factors to consider--- is that ball that just bounced across the road ahead being followed by a kid or a dog? Is there an icy patch on that shady curve up ahead? In the air, potential hazards can be spotted long before they become threats and there are a lot more options for avoiding them.
The way to reduce traffic fatalities is to put everyone in the air, but make it so that they have to leave the driving to the AI. The operator's input should be no m
Re: (Score:2)
No, there's a lot more than providing an arcade experience involved. Thinking in three dimensions isn't quite as built-in to humans as you seem to think. Hell, half the drivers on the road can't handle thinking in flatland. What do you expect to happen in cubeland?
People better be thinking in at least 3 dimensions when they are driving on land because most control actions take a non-zero amount of time to take effect.
3D first, self-flying much easier (Score:2)
Great. Let me know when it's bulletproof in a 2D environment and I'll consider the 3D version.
That's actually backwards. Solving for the 3D case is vastly simpler, because while in the air you have very few obstacles to content with, you basically just have to be sure you can react to other planes, and have programmed in the coordinates of no-fly zones - otherwise travel is just a straight line. There are already drones that can find their way back home if the control signal is lost, and almost drones that
Re: 3D first, self-flying much easier (Score:1)
If the solid bit is above you you're upside down... Not a great time to land, even if the thing has wheels on top and bottom
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I want flying cars as badly as any kid that grew up watching The Jetsons. Problem is, you can't let Joe Sixpack drive - regardless of what everyone saw in Star Wars.
The problem is that flying requires significantly more energy than driving, so the viability of this as a mode of transport will always be questionable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I really don't care about flying cars.
What I want to know is, if I rent a flying car instead of flying the traditional way, do I still have to be fondled and have my shoes violated by TSA, or not? It might be worth the additional safety risk to avoid the indignities of security theater.
Re: (Score:2)
None of these concepts solve the problem of utility lines. A LOT of streets are criss-crossed with the damn things and none of it is on maps.
One advantage of airports is that they don't have overhead wires all over the place. And one advantage of regular cars is that they don't need to care about overhead wires, which is great, because cities and utility companies love stringing crap everywhere and making it all into an eyesore.
Re: (Score:2)
Aside from take-offs and landings, the problems the AI of a flying machine will face are a lot more simple than those an AI of a car must face. Drones show that many flying AI issues are already adequately solved. Issues concerning toddlers chasing after bouncing balls or ice on the shady curve just simply don't exist at flight levels above 10 feet. And take-offs and landings are probably not going to be much of an issue, what with sonar or laser assisted optical rangefinders managing the last little bit.
I
Re: (Score:2)
Letting untrained pilots fly higher than three feet off the ground will require the addition of a new category to the Darwin awards.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Why did I have to load in DOZENS of scripts... (Score:5, Insightful)
What the fuck is wrong with modern web developers and their obsession on using tons cross-domain-unsecure-bloat just to render a simple page?
That was a waste of time, so I'm going to bitch about it. The modern web has become a really shitty browsing experience, so thanks for that all of you dorks that continue to produce these shitty websites; and thanks for also being responsible for mobile-sites that are 100x slower than the older desktop versions.
Somewhere... (Score:3)
Avery Brooks is smiling [youtube.com].
Concept isn't new, but is the technology (Score:2)
There have been flying cars and vertical takeoff aircraft for decades now. The issues have always been engineering practicality. Carrying capacity, efficiency, range etc. The question is whether they have found a way to fix the technical issues that lead to these problems.
All electric may wind up cheaper, but the energy storage is even lower than for gasoline, so the weight problem becomes worse.
Vertical takeoff helps in some ways, but tends to lead to less efficient aerodynamics in cruise, and requires e
We've had flying cars for decades (Score:1)
They're called helicopters
hardest problem (Score:5, Funny)
The simplest problem is also the hardest to solve: All it takes is one sudden cross breeze to make something in the air go splat against the nearest wall, wire, or other flying thing. A hovering, or slow moving, vehicle on a breezy day is a disaster looking for a place to happen.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah uhm no. A toy with vastly different shape, air flow characteristics, etc. is not indicative of the behavior of a significantly more massive vehicle in any way. Simply saying "quad' doesn't add anything either, because four real engines function vastly differently from each other and from the ideal. Especially when maintenance is piss-poor like it is with cars. Consider flight-devoted resources in airports and airplanes still fail on routine basis.
Re: (Score:1)
It's bitztream, the autism-hating Slashdot troll!
Cruising above roadways (Score:3)
TFA says:
Americans collectively spending 8 billion hours a year stuck in traffic, (...) lifting off and cruising above snarled roadways has considerable appeal.
I suspect that Americans that have to drive to work during congested hours, will not be the ones that can afford a flying car.
Re: (Score:2)
No. Multiple companies have electric planes in the works. One powered by the sun flew around the world. Airbus has several different concepts in the works.
It's not really novel anymore and nobody has proven it's practical for a mass production. Normal aviation powerplants need to be lightweight and powerful which are not things easily achieved with current batteries and electric motors.
Parking lots (Score:1)
Free sandblasting every time someone lifts off or lands next to you. Maybe a center out pattern of landings could facilitate the process of the parking area keeping itself clear.
Flying car? (Score:1)
Isn't that just a plane?
Not a car...and also butt-ugly (Score:2)
Why doesn't the actual vehicle look like the sketch?
Not believable (Score:2)
This would have been more believable if they hadn't put all that makeup on Nicolas Cage and got him to portray the town mayor.