Boeing CEO: First Operational Self-Flying Cars Are Less Than 5 Years Out (geekwire.com) 184
Speaking at the GeekWire Summit, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company is making rapid progress on the first operational self-driving airborne vehicles and that we could see them take to the skies in under five years. "Muilenburg laid out the company's vision for flying cars, as well as the importance of safety measures for the concept," reports GeekWire. "Muilenburg said the company is already building prototypes and expects them to fly within the year." From the report: "Imagine a future city that has three-dimensional highways, with flying taxis, flying cars," Muilenburg said. "That future is not that far away. In fact we are building the prototype vehicles today. We are also investing in the ecosystem that will allow that to operate safely and reliably as it must." The full vision of self-flying cars ferrying people through busy urban areas will take longer than five years to realize, Muilenburg said, but vehicles that start with more simple functions like cargo aren't far away.
The ecosystem to manage this new method of travel includes enhanced air traffic control. Earlier this year, Boeing teamed up with Austin-based SparkCognition to develop artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies for tracking and directing flying cars through traffic corridors. Muilenburg wouldn't say where these futuristic vessels would be tested, though he did say that the environment would be a "similar case" to Airbus' Vahana flying-taxi testing ground in Pendleton, Ore. Testing self-flying cars requires dedicated airspace and a slate of approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The ecosystem to manage this new method of travel includes enhanced air traffic control. Earlier this year, Boeing teamed up with Austin-based SparkCognition to develop artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies for tracking and directing flying cars through traffic corridors. Muilenburg wouldn't say where these futuristic vessels would be tested, though he did say that the environment would be a "similar case" to Airbus' Vahana flying-taxi testing ground in Pendleton, Ore. Testing self-flying cars requires dedicated airspace and a slate of approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Driving (Score:3)
People already can't drive with wheels on the road, just think of the danger once they get airborne. Am I suppose to turn first, or do you? Just imagine all the ground injuries.
No one reads the manual.
Re:Driving (Score:4, Insightful)
This is about SELF-DRIVING flying vehicles! Anyways I agree that even without human drivers, this is going to introduce some huge risks. The noise is also going to be problematic. Last but not least, flying requires significantly more energy than driving so this is probably going to be quite expensive. To summarize, I predict that this technology will only be affordable by the wealthiest peoples and that it will have very little effect on the rest of the population (except for the noise).
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Anyways I agree that even without human drivers, this is going to introduce some huge risks.
You misunderstand. This is actually a facade for a population-control program. The subsequent reduced population will use less net energy, more than making up for the energy costs of lifting these into the air high enough to euthanize their occupants (and sometimes others for bonus points).
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Unless of course, you design the failure mode to take out the most densely occupied structure if it's over/near a poor part of town, and to crash in an unoccupied are if it is over the wealthy part of town.
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Why do you always see the fucking error as you press submit?
AREA not ARE.........
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For decades, everyone has been talking about self-driving cars, self-flying cars, etc. But myself has yet to see them.
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Then yourself is blind. Most planes have auto pilots. Many cars these days are capable of self driving and do it.
He said "self-flying cars", not "planes", and I've never knowingly seen one, or a S-D car either.
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And instantly, every barricade and anti-vehicle security system in front of every government installation ever is completely worthless.
They won't be able to even get regulations passed to allow this in 5 years.
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If you want a type cert from the FAA in 5 years, you better have a flying _final_ prototype today. And 20x the vehicle's flying weight in documentation.
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A big problem will be maintenance costs, which are not "self-fixing" and repair costs from self-flying "cars" crashing into homes, schools, businesses, etc.
If you think car insurance is expensive now just wait until flying cars become available.
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flying requires significantly more energy than driving so this is probably going to be quite expensive.
You are probably right, though if energy is the only driver than this problem could largely disappear as the cost:capacity of batteries drops. I mean, it won't disappear because cars will also see the same benefits, so flying will always cost more than driving. But if you use fuel costs of cars today as your baseline, it's possible that flying would be cost-competitive. Certainly you can see how the premium might be worthwhile for something like express delivery, which often involves aircraft now anyway.
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(Propellers/rotor blades) are wear items and are expensive. Much more than tires. The propeller will be about 10-20% of the price of light plane.
Helicopters are torn down and completely rebuilt every (IIRC) 2500 hours or operation. Cost is a significant fraction of the price of a new helicopter.
Just for comparison, average cost to run a turbine helicopter is $10/minute. Give them a ton of 'credit', assume the flying car will only be $1/minute.
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To summarize, I predict that this technology will only be affordable by the wealthiest peoples and that it will have very little effect on the rest of the population (except for the noise). geantvert 2018
Just like computers.
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
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" this technology will only be affordable by the wealthiest peoples and that it will have very little effect on the rest of the population (except for the noise)."
That's what some people said about airplanes & horseless carriages.
It was true except for the "effect" bit - which is arguably negative on balance.
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It's the economics that matter (Score:4, Insightful)
What part of "self-flying" did you not understand?
Doesn't matter. You're worrying about the wrong thing. Vehicles that don't need humans to operate them safely are arguably a good idea. Frankly piloting vehicles (cars, planes, boats, etc) is a waste of human time and ability for the most part. If we can develop computers that can do the job better then that's great.
What gets lost in these discussions is the fact that even if we develop planes that can fly themselves it isn't going to change the economics of operating an aircraf of any description dramatically. Replacing a human pilot with a computer doesn't suddenly make planes affordable to the common man. The cost of the pilot is almost a rounding error in the cost of owning and operating any flying vehicle. You have the purchase cost, maintenance, storage, inspections, insurance, fuel, financing, and more which together VASTLY outstrip the cost of the pilot. Replacing a human pilot with a computer doesn't change most of those costs much if at all.
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The cost of the pilot is almost a rounding error in the cost of owning and operating any flying vehicle. You have the purchase cost, maintenance, storage, inspections, insurance, fuel, financing, and more which together VASTLY outstrip the cost of the pilot. Replacing a human pilot with a computer doesn't change most of those costs much if at all.
Hmm I wonder if Boeing even thought about these costs before they decided to spend billions of dollars on research down this road. I guess it's just something an army of engineers don't think about when they are designing a new product to sell in the marketplace?? So i guess a company like Boeing that has been in the aerospace business for ever and a day now is just totally clueless about how all this works.
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It could also be in their best interest to market pie-in-the-sky dreams in the hopes of growing the market beyond their conservative internal estimates. They probably still benefit six different ways even if "self-flying cars" don't catch on the way the marketing suggests.
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R&D Spending versus cost of pilots (Score:2)
Hmm I wonder if Boeing even thought about these costs before they decided to spend billions of dollars on research down this road.
Please cite a document showing Boeing spent "billions" on this specific research. They do spend billions on R&D ($3.1 billion in 2017) but most of it is for other projects. For example they spent $29 billion on R&D for the 787 program alone. I've seen no evidence that this is anything other than PR puffery.
I guess it's just something an army of engineers don't think about when they are designing a new product to sell in the marketplace?
Unwad your panties. There is a financial reason to develop technology to fly vehicles autonomously - just not the ones cited in the article - that "justification" is pure marketing BS. Flying
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Do you know what a taxi is? (Score:2)
meanwhile in the real word real research is happening by Boeing's competitors
You specifically claimed that Boeing was spending billions on R&D for this stuff and then failed to back up that assertion. Now you are talking about Boeing's competition? (who you also fail to establish is spending "billions" on this stuff) That's called moving the goal posts my friend.
So keep thinking it'll never happen
The only think I claimed will never happen is FLYING CARS which is absolutely true because physics is a bitch that way. You linked to a research project about a type of drone airplane being used as a taxi. Planes ar
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Hmm I wonder if Boeing even thought about these costs before they decided to spend billions of dollars on research down this road. I guess it's just something an army of engineers don't think about when they are designing a new product
I've worked in some large engineering companies, and no they don't.
The way it works is that a small research group has some finance to think up ideas. They have some, mostly crazy. PR seizes on one from time-to-time and takes it up to create a stir and get the company into the news. Then the bean counters and market research guys notice it and do some sums, with bad results. A board member steps in and vetos it as being "Not within the company's vision". Research group moves on to next idea. Rinse and re
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... (battery based is only practical for extremely small aircraft due to the nasty fact that doubling the size of battery increases its volume by the square and its weight by the cube).
With you until you wrote that.
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What is your point? (Score:2)
Clearly you have no idea what we spend building roads, or the cost of highway fatalities.
You think putting autonomous piloting tech into planes will change either of those things in the slightest? Air travel is already FAR safer than driving and yet we still drive far more than we fly because safety isn't the only or even the paramount concern. You think planes are are going to become magically able to land where cars do and that some miracle will occur to make them affordable by people who aren't crazy rich? Air travel isn't going to replace cars and no amount of wishful thinking will make
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Air travel is already FAR safer than driving and yet we still drive far more than we fly
Aircraft accidents are dominated by take-off, landing, and other crashes close to airports. Crashes away from airports are rare partly because the sky is pretty empty of other planes to collide with, and also because commercial aircraft are very well maintained (by car standards). Long distance commercial flights have a good safety record (fatalities per mile) because only a small proportion of their travel is spent in take-off and landing; such flights have a safety record similar to trains (West Europea
EV aircraft (Score:2)
The Pipistrel Alpha Electro (the world's first mass-produced electric plane) has running costs (energy, mantenance) one fifth of the gasoline-powered version.
Citation needed. That plane can stay in the air all of 60 minutes [pipistrel.si]. A typical small plane like a Cessna can stay aloft 4-6 hours and carry more cargo. Even the company's website says it is "optimized for traffic pattern operations" which is PR speak for it can take off and circle the airport and that's about it.
In any case this has nothing at all to do with autonomous piloting systems which have no inherent relationship to the type of power used to propel the aircraft. ICE, jet, EV, etc doesn't matter fo
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I won't say it won't happen. It's probably going to be super expensive though.
We don't even have meaningfully self-driving cars. As yet, AFAIK, full collision avoidance still isn't available in UAS, even the super high dollar systems. UAS have a pretty poor accident record too.
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The key concept is 'self driving.' (Score:2)
This is not about putting people at the helm of flying cars. Heaven forbid.
Putting a self-driving land car into the real world presents a much bigger challenge than putting a self driving drone fleet in the air. Especially if they were all networked and reporting their positions centrally and to each other.It has long been apparent that moving a self-driving conveyance in the air poses fewer problems than putting a self driving a car on the ground for several reasons as follows:
Computers have been control
Not New (Score:3)
They've had operational flying cars since before I was born.
Making it operate is not the problem with the Jetsons fantasy.
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Why would they need to be especially good at either? A flying car is certainly for a completely different context than most planes and as a car it would would only need to offer an adequate experience as any trips of significant length (like the commute from the burbs to major urban areas for work) would likely be done in the air.
Really bad a flying and driving (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would they need to be especially good at either?
That's not the problem. The problem is that any design we can actually build are REALLY BAD at both. To get the thing aloft you have to strip out vast amounts of weight and even then we can only just barely get them airborne with limited cargo capacity. They are so light and fragile you can't really drive them on the road safely. Even a minor fender bender renders them no longer airworthy. When they are on the ground you have to lug around heavy impractical wings and in the air you have to lug around heavy impractical drivetrains. They're bad on fuel economy, fragile, expensive, can barely carry any cargo, can't land or take off anywhere useful, slow, loud, uncomfortable, etc.
The ONLY way a flying car could be practical is if we had a breakthrough power supply. Think Tony Stark's arc reactor made real. No internal combustion engine, no EV tech, no fuel cell tech, nor any other power source we have or are in any danger of making can generate enough power while being light enough to make flying cars a practical reality either technically or economically.
A flying car is certainly for a completely different context than most planes and as a car it would would only need to offer an adequate experience as any trips of significant length
Not when it's cheaper to buy both a plane and a car than a combination vehicle that does both activities worse for more money. Even if we ignore all the technical problems with flying cars (which are legion) the economics of them immediately make them non-viable.
(like the commute from the burbs to major urban areas for work) would likely be done in the air.
Umm, where do you think you are going to land this thing? It isn't going to be landing on 5th avenue on NYC. You have to land at an airport and drive from there. And if you are going to do that then you might as well just fly a real plane and own/rent a real car. You're not really thinking the problem through. Even if we somehow managed to figure out the technical and economic problems with flying cars (which we won't) we would have to make VAST changes to our infrastructure to be able to use them anywhere except flying to/from airports. You're not going to land a flying car in the parking lot of your local mega-mart and you sure as hell aren't flying one into a dense urban area.
Demonstration vehicles (Score:2)
They've had operational flying cars since before I was born.
Let's be accurate. We've had a few thoroughly impractical prototype vehicles that have no real utility as either a car or an aircraft. They barely qualify as cars, perform badly as aircraft, and even a minor fender bender would render one no longer airworthy. They have very limited cargo capacity, are slow, and are hugely expensive. Not to mention you REALLY don't want to be in one in a real accident on the ground. They are basically proof of concept demonstrators that served to prove that the concept
Re: Not New (Score:3)
I'll know it's the future when I see a fusion-powered self-flying car that cures cancer.
I don't want a self flying car (Score:5, Funny)
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I do want a self-flying car. One I can take to 13000 feet, exit from in my wingsuit and have it return to its parking spot while I'm landing.
Not going to be mainstream (Score:5, Insightful)
Flying cars are not ever going to be mainstream. The problem isn't who operates them (humans or machines), even, though human drivers can't even handle two dimensional operations reliably so I would be terrified of the average driver today having to deal with three dimensions. No, the problem is the energy cost of getting a car in the air in the first place. I don't see a reasonable solution to that problem coming any time soon unless we discover some heretofore unknown magical method of doing antigravity or something like that. In general, it's far more economical to keep general transportation using traditional ground transport simply because you necessarily remove the cost of lifting and then lowering again the cargo and vehicle.
That's not to say that rich people won't have flying cars. I mean, they may be a bit more practical and helicpoters assuming they ever work. That's assuming they aren't already helicopters....
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The main benefit to 'flying cars' is that you can have 'layers' of 'roadways' to help alleviate traffic. However, a more-obvious solution that has the same effect is having layers of actual roadways (overpasses), or tracks for trains/monorails. Or a rat's-nest of above-ground hyperloops. Or just put people in pods and use a railgun to launch the pods to the destination (parachute optional).
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Layered Frickin' Roadways!
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The Zeppelins of yonder didn't need much in the way of power to get aloft. Not really anti-gravity, just a smart use of differences in densities of various gases. Not fast either, compared to modern aircraft, yet not exactly slow either when it comes to typical city-level distances.
Re:Not going to be mainstream (Score:5, Interesting)
Zeppelins are truly a majestic form of transportation, until you try to land one in a storm.
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Details, details :-)
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Zeppelins are truly a majestic form of transportation, until you try to land one in a storm.
Citation?
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"Why would you want to land in a storm? Go around it."
Because that's where you live/work?
Not a bold prediction (Score:2)
In many ways self-navigation in air is simpler than self navigating cars, which is a nearly mature technology. In air you don't have to follow roads, stay in lanes, account for and merge with constant traffic, or avoid as many obstacles. Just "Go north by northwest and fly higher than power lines and wind turbines". Take off and landing may be tricky to implement reliably for all scenarios.
However this only eliminates the cost of trained pilots. As OP pointed out its the energy cost that makes it unlikely t
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Need more then 1 FA more like X per X passengers + maybe more staff for longer flights.
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Don't forget miss the birds and the millions of recreational drones.
At least, the good news is that in a few years there won't be any more birds and likely. Then again, there won't be any more birds anyway as climate change continues, no people either. The entire technology should accelerate global warming given the extra energy requirements of getting from point A to point B. No doubt that justifies its necessity.
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In many ways self-navigation in air is simpler than self navigating cars, which is a nearly mature technology. In air you don't have to follow roads, stay in lanes, account for and merge with constant traffic, or avoid as many obstacles. Just "Go north by northwest and fly higher than power lines and wind turbines". Take off and landing may be tricky to implement reliably for all scenarios.
Not if this massively increases the number of flying vehicles, especially at low altitudes. Self-navigation in air will remain simpler in many ways, but they will almost certainly be required to operate in "air lanes" to restrict their impact on the ground.
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They already are helicopters. Just google "flying car" and any major manufacturer like Bell or Airbus. You'll see demonstrations of what is essentially helicopters, and in case of Bell their speciality, tiltrotors.
Re: Not going to be mainstream (Score:2)
No, the problem is the energy cost of getting a car in the air in the first place
People keep saying this, but it's not really true. For example the Cesna 172 gets the equivalent of about 14 miles per gallon. That's not nearly as good as modern cars, but it's not horrible either. It's even better when you consider the fact that you can fly straight lines instead of winding paths, which cuts down on distance as compared to a car. Nor do you have to waste fuel accelerating and decelerating at lights, or in bumper to bumper traffic.
Getting into the air doesn't have to use huge amounts o
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My guess is everybody assumes flying cars will be VTOL craft and not fixed wing and will rely on rotary surfaces for lift and thrust. You would think that in order to be "wide spread" they would need to be VTOL to avoid the need for runways, etc.
I would guess the gimmicks will be super short ranges, small payloads (2 adults), based on some kind of electric fan propulsion with swappable battery packs. Like everything else, the big wait is probably less the aeronautics than the means to power it.
Fuel economy and point to point travel (Score:2)
It's even better when you consider the fact that you can fly straight lines instead of winding paths, which cuts down on distance as compared to a car.
That's only true if you restrict your travel path to nothing but airports. If you want to actually go anywhere that is not an airport you aren't likely going there in a straight line no matter what vehicle you choose. Cars in general can get a LOT closer to their ultimate destination than any aircraft in most circumstances.
Nor do you have to waste fuel accelerating and decelerating at lights, or in bumper to bumper traffic.
No instead you have to drive to an airport, fly to another airport (which may or may not be close to where you want to go) and then drive to your ultimate destination. Calling that poi
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Rather than trying to build flying cars we should invest in enabling people to work at home, or at least near home.
Out of town shared office blocks, where you can have a private office with high speed internet so that you can just walk to work in the morning most days. Apartments with a home office as standard, or build the office space into the apartment block if people want that separation of work and home life.
Give companies an incentive to use these spaces. At the moment they can externalize the costs o
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the high energy use only applies to the very beginning and end of the flight.
Only for fixed-wing aircraft (or autogyros). Which most of the proposed self-flying cars most decidedly are not.
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3) which happens to occur twice with every flight. If they can be made electric and designed for short trips.
There will likely be few "point to point" flights as people are simply not going to allow highways to form over their homes unless they are at high altitude, which will increase energy costs dramatically.
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Seems very unlikely the rich will want to car pool.
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The cost of getting into the air is not that high.
What are you comparing it to? The cost of the cheapest helicopter is $250,000. That would put it at the number 4 slot in this list of "most expensive luxury cars" [autobytel.com].
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A passenger jet typically uses less fuel per passenger-mile than a car with a single occupant.
Talk about a cherries and watermelon comparison.
This is true only on a large airliner that is mostly full (with economy class passengers). My 2018 model Prius (very nice, I rode in a friend's new Lexus costing more than twice as much, and it was only a slightly better experience) gets an honest 51 MPG (averaged over 30,000 miles). This Wikipedia list [wikipedia.org] shows only 9% of the airliners listed can match that if only half full, and smallest of these seats 135 people, which is also the highest mileage airplane list
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You forgot the possibility of dirigibles propelled by teams of men rowing wind-oars. The skin of the dirigible can be made of a photovoltaic material in order to power fans used to cool off the rowers.
20 years huh... try over 100 (Score:2)
Imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Your idiot neighbor having one of these.
The noise of these things flying over your house. day and night.
The 3 dimensional zoning debates. And lawsuits.
The amount of energy this needs, just while we try to reduce our energy footprint.
The pollution this generates right where it causes the most problems, in busy urban areas. The levels of energy required can only be achieved by burning something. crudely.
Don't get me wrong, flying cars would be great, in a Jetson style future. But in our overpopulated world I associate them with the more bleak and dystopian images of the future that some science-fiction paints.
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electric motors do not produce pollution
Noise pollution is pollution.
(and electric motors do not produce rock 'n' roll, whether operating AC or DC #seewhatididthere)
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No they will just have to worry about some terrorist renting one, packing it with explosives and then crashing it into those skyscrapers filled with the idle rich. With self-flying cars, they won't even have to fly it themselves.
We are more likely to see first see terrorists everywhere using them more frequently than the wealthy, who will be busy building concrete shelters equipped with anti-aircraft defenses.
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No they will just have to worry about some terrorist renting one, packing it with explosives and then crashing it into those skyscrapers filled with the idle rich. With self-flying cars, they won't even have to fly it themselves.
But I understand that they only get a ticket to paradise and a date with a houri there if they kill themselves in the process. So we have nothing to worry about
Not gonna happen (Score:2)
Oh look, Boeing trying to pump its share price (Score:5, Insightful)
Flying cars may happen in 5 years but they'll just be toys for the mega rich and won't be allowed to go anywhere that a helicopter can't anyway due to civil regs and noise issues. This is nothing more than Boeing pumping its share price. Again.
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Try landing one in the middle of a busy road and see how long before the police turn up.
Blockchain? (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, now I know this is complete marketing B.S. (look, I'm being nice!). There is no reasonable use of "Blockchain" in "Directing Traffic and Tracking Vehicles". That is utter and complete nonsense.
Just call it, "Blockety McBlockFace" and be done with it. F.F.S. (see, I'm being nice again).
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Blockchain will be essential in tracking down terrorists and drug/human trafficers who use these things. For these folks, they are an advantage as they won't have to fly them, themselves and they won't have to worry about a pilot being able to identify them.
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We tried to set up an early version of a block chain to sign and track engineering document revisions at Boeing about 20 years ago. Management freaked out, as this would have hampered their ability to go into the document management system and retroactively fix their screw-ups.
I don't see Boeing implementing anything that enforces accountability or provides an audit trail.
Moller !! (Score:2)
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Fly by wire too - a warm fuzzy feeling (Score:2)
Marketing BS (Score:3)
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company is making rapid progress on the first operational self-driving airborne vehicles and that we could see them take to the skies in under five years.
Note the use of the word "vehicles" not the word "cars". We already have operational self-driving airborne vehicles. They're called drones and we've been doing them for quite a while now. Not a single one of them resembles what we call cars nor are they useful for that purpose. We also have transportation vehicles for people to fly in but they are called airplanes and helicopters and they aren't going to drive on our roads. If it doesn't drive on a road by definition it is not a car. If they want to developed a vehicle that doesn't require a human pilot yet is safe to fly people around that's great but then just say that. They aren't working on flying cars because flying cars are impossible with any technology we currently or are likely to possess any time soon. And even if the technology was worked out the economics of it make it an absurd proposition. Operating any vehicle that flies is going to be VASTLY more expensive than almost any vehicle that doesn't for all but a handful of corner cases.
"Imagine a future city that has three-dimensional highways, with flying taxis, flying cars," Muilenburg said. "That future is not that far away. In fact we are building the prototype vehicles today. We are also investing in the ecosystem that will allow that to operate safely and reliably as it must."
Has there been some magical breakthrough in power density that I'm not aware of? Because unless we have invented the equivalent of Tony Stark's arc reactor we aren't going to have flying cars. Muilenburg's statement is the sort of marketing BS you would expect from a company that makes aircraft. Saying they are "building the protoype vehicles today" is a content free statement. Ford built a nuclear powered prototype [wikipedia.org] car back in the 1950s and yet I don't see them at dealerships curiously.
Also the word taxi has NOTHING to do with any specific type of vehicle. Any type of vehicle can be a taxi because taxi is by definition a vehicle hired for transport. A 747 can be a taxi. So can a boat, a helicopter, a bicycle, and yes a car. Taxi is a service not a specific type of vehicle. Airplanes and helicopters are used as taxis today. Whether or not they are piloted by a human or a computer is irrelevant.
an faa level code audit is not easy (Score:2)
an faa level code audit is not easy but at least Boeing should have coders who are good unlike uber.
Happenstance of context (Score:2)
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Any form of heavier-than-air flying is much more energy intensive than surface transportation
Probably. It depends on how high up you go, how far you're going, and what traffic is like in between.
and can only realistically be powered with hydrocarbon fuel.
Completely false. We already have prototypes of autonomous air taxis that can travel for fifteen minutes plus on a charge. That's plenty of time to make short trips.
I trust that Slashdot readers are educated enough to understand that all those battery powered electric multicopters for personal transport
...already exist.
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We already have prototypes of autonomous air taxis that can travel for fifteen minutes plus on a charge. That's plenty of time to make short trips.
You drank too much of the Kool-aid. Those are fair-weather demonstrators, and those 15 min flights are without payload, in ideal conditions. Until you get something that the FAA will allow anyone to fly in, you need MUCH more capacity to cover reserve time and fail-safe requirements.
I have to assume you were foolish enough to invest in one of those scams and now deny reality. Good luck with that.
Broader Industry Push, not Just Boeing (Score:2)
And then... (Score:2)
Yeah, right (Score:2)
Killjoy cities, towns, counties, and especially HOAs are borking sUAS whenever they can. What makes anyone think that a flying car is going to be unobtrusive to et past those folks?
Re:"blockchain technologies" (Score:5, Insightful)
They're literally available now. It's called "helicopter with autopilot". Problem being that autopilot still needs someone to give it orders and troubleshoot potential problems, which is solved with introduction of "pilot" into the system. Not to mention space needed for take-off and landing, and that elephant in the room called "costs".
Pretty much all major aerospace companies that function in helicopter sector have their version of a "flying car". Essentially all of them are light helicopters of some kind. Bell and Airbus talked and to a limited extent demonstrated their ambitions recently. I guess this is Boeing's declaration that they also have a foot in the potential market.
elephant in the room called "costs" - & NOISE (Score:2)
Till they get anti-gravity. Pushing enough air down to lift a person up makes a lot of noise.
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Till they get anti-gravity. Pushing enough air down to lift a person up makes a lot of noise.
That's why claiming Boeing is working on "flying cars" is a lot of "bullshit". They aren't. They're working on air taxis. They will have all the same restrictions as helicopters, but they won't have a pilot. None of them are going to be singlecopters, either, nor run on fossil fuels. They will all be battery multicopters. That makes them quieter than helis at all times, so while they still won't be fit to take off from driveways, they will be able to take off from more locations.
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That's why claiming Boeing is working on "flying cars" is a lot of "bullshit". They aren't. They're working on air taxis. They will have all the same restrictions as helicopters, but they won't have a pilot. None of them are going to be singlecopters, either, nor run on fossil fuels. They will all be battery multicopters. That makes them quieter than helis at all times, so while they still won't be fit to take off from driveways, they will be able to take off from more locations.
Now if only the US military would let them use the technology that makes stealth helicopter blades so quiet. Then they'd really have something.
Re: elephant in the room called "costs" - & NO (Score:2)
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Helicopters and other rotary-wing aircrafts do not takeoff and fly by "pushing air down". Vertical takeoff jets like the Harrier do.
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Helicopters and other rotary-wing aircrafts do not takeoff and fly by "pushing air down"
The wrongness is impressively great in this one, Obi-wan.
ALL aircraft attain altitude by pushing air down. Despite what your incompetent 3rd grade book might have claimed, Bernoulli doesn't apply in open systems, the shape of the wing doesn't matter, and if you haven't noticed, planes can fly upside down just fine.
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The "chopping" noise that helicopters make comes from collision of air from main rotor with air from the tail rotor. Since most of air taxis do not have tail rotors and instead use various kinds of multiple main rotor systems, they're fairly quiet.
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Will it be legal to shoot them down, like drones - if they fly over your property? :D
As your lovely nubile teenage daughter and her friends sunbathe semi nude in your backyard - you can't forget that part of the rationale.
https://www.cnet.com/news/judg... [cnet.com]
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Yeah, people have been promising flying cars since the 1950's. They look great on the cover of Popular Science magazine, but will probably never be practical in real life until we have self driving AI perfected. Of course, the robots will probably become self aware and take over by then.