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The Military Transportation

Air Force Official Sees Use of Flying Cars By 2023 (breakingdefense.com) 101

Posted by EditorDavid from the up-up-and-away dept.
"Now is the perfect time to make Jetson's cars real," says the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics.

Breaking Defense reports: 'Flying cars' using electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology could be in full-up production for Air Force use in moving cargo and people within three years, says Air Force acquisition head Will Roper. Such a capability, Roper enthused, would give the U.S. military the ability to undertake missions "in three dimensions that we normally do in two," giving the services "much greater agility." This is why the Air Force program for investing in commercial firms now pursuing eVTOL vehicles is called "Agility Prime," he noted.

The Air Force will take a first look at vendor offerings in a virtual pitch event at the end of the month, with a focus on small eVTOL vehicles that could be used for missions involving transport of only a few people... Roper added that he expects that granting commercial producers Air Force safety certifications and allowing them to rack up flying hours under Agility Prime "will really help accelerate domestic use of these vehicles and [allow some companies to] get FAA certification sooner that it would have come if we had not interjected ourselves into the market...."

Agility Prime is designed as a "challenge" where eVTOL vehicle makers compete in a series of demonstration that ultimately could result in a contract for full-scale production.
Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger explains that they're looking for "a 100+ MPH vehicle that can go for at least 100 miles, with the ability to carry up to eight people."

"If Slashdotters have something in their basements upon which they have been working, get your flying machines ready because prototypes must be able to take flight by December 17th."
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Air Force Official Sees Use of Flying Cars By 2023 More

Air Force Official Sees Use of Flying Cars By 2023

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  • Moller Skycar?

  • Other requirements (Score:5, Interesting)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Saturday April 18, 2020 @03:41PM (#59962788)
    Is there a requirement that the eight people survive the journey?

    • ...a 100+ MPH vehicle that can go for at least 100 miles, with the ability to carry up to eight people.

      I'm entering my revolutionary new idea... it's called a helicopter. It meets all the requirements!!! I'm rich, baby!!!

      Perhaps there is an unstated requirement... the vehicle must be a BOONDOGGLE !!!
      The Air Force wants an ***electric*** helicopter apparently. Can someone explain what tactical advantage an electric helicopter provides over a gas powered one? Are they running short on gas?

      1) Newtonian physics dictates that the same volume of air must be moved at the same speed to keep a same weight vehicle a

      • Helicopters are notoriously challenging to fly. Likely one of the requirements for a "flying car" would be that it's easy to operate, maybe even comparable to a car so that anyone can fly one with little training.

        • It's not stated that's a goal, but OK, if true, why electric though? Sure, make a more flyable VTOL design if that's the goal. But why eVTOL?

          Is the Air Force running low on gas?
          Is it better to require having an electric charging infrastructure in place to be able to deploy aircraft?
          Is the delay of battery recharging superior to the rapidity of refueling?

          • >Is the Air Force running low on gas?
            Yes. We all are. Not today, but it's on the horizon, so designing new technology platforms that we hope to use for decades based on hydrocarbon fuels just doesn't make nearly as much sense as it used to.

            Electric motors have several advantages:
            1) MUCH better thrust-to-weight and thrust-to-size ratios than gas engines - which lets you put them right where you need the thrust with no need for drive shafts, etc.
            2) MUCH lower maintenance - you can often have only one pri

            • Detailed answer. Thanks.

              If electric is the real motivation, as perhaps it may be, then this article is strange to NEVER mention that once as a motivation for the project. They talk about agility and cargo and personnel capacity and range and speed. But they never mention maintenance, weight, noise, or a strategy to migrate off fossil fuels.

              One quibble: thrust-to-weight on motors may be better, but I think that holds only if you are plugged into the grid. If you have to bring your own power supply (batteries

              • Is it really that strange? All those benefits are pretty much inherent in the "e" part of eVTOL. Once you limit contenders to eVTOL designs - then you only need to specify what *other* requirements there are, rather than wasting time talking about on how you decided on the requirements themselves. They don't talk about why they decided on the other requirements either.

                I'd bet you're right about thrust-to-weight and (current) batteries - but as I said, batteries aren't actually terribly relevant. They'll

      • ...a 100+ MPH vehicle that can go for at least 100 miles, with the ability to carry up to eight people.

        I'm entering my new invention... it's called a helicopter. It meets all the requirements!!! I'm rich, baby!!!

        The Air Force apparently wants an ***electric*** helicopter. Can anyone explain what tactical advantage an electric helicopter provides over a gas powered one? Is the Air Force running low on gas? Is it better to require an electric charging infrastructure to be able to deploy aircraft? Is the delay of recharging superior to the rapidity of refueling?

        1) Newtonian physics dictates that an equal volum

        • Ah oops. Double post! :|

        • 1) Newtonian physics dictates that an equal volume/speed of air must be moved to keep a same weight vehicle aloft.

          No it dos not. Perhaps you want to look up how a wing of an airplane actually works ...

          • No it dos not. Perhaps you want to look up how a wing of an airplane actually works ...

            How about instead of constantly telling people to read a book or search the internet you provide some guidance on where to look, some keywords to search for, or maybe perhaps providing a useful link.

          • Perhaps you want to look up how a wing of an airplane actually works

            No. Why would I?
            Ohhhh, you didn't understand what **VERTICAL** takeoff and landing entails. LOL

            Try googling "VTOL" instead of "airfoil."
            (Airfoil, that's the word you were trying to think of.)

          • Perhaps you should as well. A wing produces lift by imparting an equal-and-opposite force on the surrounding air. Aerodynamics allows most of that force to come for "free" as far as the engines are concerned, but the air providing the lift must still see that equal-and-opposite force and experience a net downward acceleration.

            Of course, monkeyzoo's not entirely right, there's trade-off you can make between speed and mass - deflecting a large mass of air downward at low speed provides the same lift as defl

      • Can someone explain what tactical advantage an electric helicopter provides over a gas powered one? Are they running short on gas?

        The US military is constantly concerned about running out of fuel. The USAF is investigating biomass based aviation fuels, the US Army has been experimenting with vegetable oils as a replacement for diesel fuel, the USMC has been working on portable wind and solar power for forward operating bases, and the US Navy has been begging Congress and private industry for funds to develop their fuel synthesis process.

        An electric aircraft can be charged up from any of a number of power sources not suitable for an a

    • Can you imagine if auto mechanics were responsible for the safety of these things? People would be falling out of the sky left and right.

  • Nope, just more quadcopters (Score:3)

    by Slugster ( 635830 ) on Saturday April 18, 2020 @03:41PM (#59962792)
    The toy quadcopter design scales up pretty easily, but the problem is that it has a major efficiency/flight endurance problem.
    • Agreed, but the efficiency/flight endurance problems don't exist in a vacuum. As long as the efficiency and endurance are sufficient to make them a better alternative than ground traffic, then they become viable. And since grand traffic is constantly getting worse [seattletimes.com], even if there's zero progress at improving quadcopters, eventually at some point they become a better option than ground cars. (Provided you're OK with being flown around by a self-flying quadcopter, which we're also laying the groundwork for
    • Yeah, it is nonsense. To fly efficiently you need to move a large mass of air downwards slowly. In other words for a helicopter you need low disc loading, i.e. impractically large rotos, susceptible to wind gusts. Why would I want a vehicle that consumes energy just to hover? At least a car doesn't need to use energy when it doesn't move. We will achieve greater efficiency when we let people can telecommute. The recent lockdowns have shown that a large part of the workforce can do their job just as well fr

      • Spot on, Carrier.
        A solution in need of a problem.

        Unless maybe the air force just wants to create a new dependency on having high speed electric charging infrastructure in place anywhere it wants to deploy aircraft?

  • How much energy and safe that will be? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JcMorin ( 930466 ) on Saturday April 18, 2020 @03:42PM (#59962794)
    I don't think we will see flying car for average joe, it make little sense except for super rich and/or army. How much power that will take to fly by compared to simple car? How safe that will be? To be very safe like plane and helicopter, there is high cost associated with maintenance, compared to car maintenance that's pretty expensive!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      Planes are actually not that expensive to maintain or buy. You can get a decent used 4-seater plane for less than a cost of a new tricked-up SUV. The problem is that small airplanes not very useful, because you can only use them to fly between airfields. It's a nice hobby (I'm studying for a pilot license right now) but it's entirely impractical. Helicopters are versatile, but they are chock-full of critical components (like the famous "Jesus nut") that have to be manufactured to very high standards and hav

      • (like the famous "Jesus nut")

        That had BETTER NOT be what I think it is!

      • I own a small plane. Its horribly expensive to maintain, not just due to the engines. There are just a lot of parts without the benefits of very high volume manufacturing that cars have.

        Electric motors would be great - if there were enough energy storage in batteries, but the operating costs are likely to remain high.

        Just for a sense of scale, on my plane, the engines cost about $35K each, the propellers about $15K each and have similar lifetimes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cyberax ( 705495 )
          You have a twin-engine plane? Nice! I'm planning to buy a boring Cessna 172.

          I looked at the upkeep costs and for me the largest expense is the hangar space (around $400 a month). With 200 flight hours each year the maintenance would be around $100 per month amortized.
          • I would be very conservative in my estimate of how many hours you fly per year. 200 is quite a lot. You may be excited at first, but life often gets in the way eventually. Also, 400 a month for hangar space sounds like a lot. The hangars around me are like 100 a month at the class E airports. You might want to consider just getting a tie down for a used 172. It has the advantage of the high wings, so you'd only need to cover the windshield with a car-style sunscreen.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      Hey,
        Flying is easy. The only mandatory part, not so much (landing).

    • The Army already had one. It was called the Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee [wikipedia.org].

    • Unless physicists crack the secret of gravity and come up with antigrav technology it'll never be very energy efficient just like all other VTOL technology.

    • it make little sense except for super rich and/or army.

      It could also be useful for emergency services,
      like getting a firefighter up to the 30th story to rescue someone.
      A helicopter couldn't get close enough to the building,
      and the batteries would only need to last maybe 15 minutes.

  • Now is the perfect time to make Jetson's cars real

    You said "three minutes" ten minutes ago!

    Flying cars have been a promise since 1950-ies [robbreport.com]...

    Then again, if Henry Ford and other contemporary car-makers had to deal with the likes of FAA, maybe, personal car would've likewise arrived a few decades later...

  • Flying Car (Score:5, Informative)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday April 18, 2020 @03:50PM (#59962828)

    OK, I hope they remember a flying machine is not a flying car unless:

    1. You can drive it on neighborhood streets.
    2. It fits in a parking spot.
    3. Is reasonably quiet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mccrew ( 62494 )
      4. And comes with a pony

    • OK, I hope they remember a flying machine is not a flying car unless:

      1. You can drive it on neighborhood streets.
      2. It fits in a parking spot.
      3. Is reasonably quiet.

      4. It has an appropriate place to fix on flying car nuts.

    • They don't. I've had this argument here, too.

      There have been "many" (more than a few) roadable airplanes but so far zero flying cars. And barring massive new developments in physics, there won't be any in the foreseeable future.

      It only makes sense to replace traditional helicopters with electric multicopters for most purposes, though. The only ways in which they're inferior are range and refuel times.

      • Helicopters are more efficient because they have lower disc loading and variable pitch rotor. When you get a multicopter with the same efficiency you essentially get an electric helicopter.

        • You can have variable pitch rotors on a multicopter without collectives. That still eliminates the really sketchy parts.

      • The only ways in which [electric helicopters] are inferior are range and refuel times.

        So the only downsides are two critical characteristics of aircraft.
        And the only upside is what? Adding a requirement to have a massive charging infrastructure in place in order to deploy aircraft? =)

        Why not just make gas powered multicopters if the multicopter design is the source of all the advantages?

        • The up sides are reduced environmental impact and higher reliability with reduced maintenance, as well as reduced noise from the smaller rotors. Speed and point to point flight are the main benefits of air travel, and those are retained, albeit with another stop or two in between.

    • Is reasonably quiet.

      If someone manages to crank out a proper flying car - not a crippled "roadable plane" or an awkward multirotor with no failure mode, but the real deal, i.e. - something that looks more like a Lotus Esprit than an ekranolan, no one will give a flying fuck how loud it is; society will adapt.

      *It'll need to have "antigrav" or else be nuclear-powered; as the use of the word "car" greatly precludes much in the way of lifting-body designs.

    • 1. Nope
      2. Maybe, but #1 disqualifies it anyway
      3. Absolutely no, moving lots of air makes lots of noise

      • Regarding your claim that moving air creates noise .. How are birds orders of magnitude quieter than drones of the same size/weight?

        Loud noise is not a physics requirement.

        • Well then replace all your silly quadcopter blades with nice soft feathers and maybe it'll be quieter, but I'm pretty sure the ducted fans the USAF will use aren't going to be made of feathers so it'll make noise, mmkay?

    • There's not such thing as a flying car. It's an urban legend od USA.
      If it's flying, it's an aircraft, not a car.

    • 1. You can drive it on neighborhood streets.
      2. It fits in a parking spot.
      3. Is reasonably quiet.

      4. And is VTOL.
      These "flying cars" that are just airplanes with powered wheels
      are a crock, because you still need an airstrip to take off or land.

  • Helicopter? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Saturday April 18, 2020 @03:55PM (#59962844)

    I think our brilliant military is looking to reinvent the helicopter at a cost to taxpayers of billions.
    OTOH, we could just spend the money on something like education or health care.

    • This is the Boeing bailout phase 1, plant the idea. Phase 2, spend a ridiculous amount of money on "research". Phase 3, profit! Phase 4, change requirements to something actually feasible(extra points if it's something we already have eg F18 in place of F22) Phase 5, more profit! Wash, rinse repeat. Welcome to the military industrial complex.

  • There is zero chance that a flying car is going to make any significant difference in how the average person travels. Flying cars will be for the 1%. Everyone else will continue to gridlock.

    • Eh, renting for a time can be an option. Flying taxi? Flying weekend or work week commute rental? Could be for everyone but not like a personally owned car perhaps.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stooo ( 2202012 )

      >> There is zero chance that a flying car is going to make any significant difference in how the average person travels. Flying cars will be for the 1%.
      Agree. It's a crippled concept.
      >> Everyone else will continue to gridlock.
      Nope. Automation and ridesharing will resolve gridlock.

      • I think automating driving happens only when we get true AI,, robots that are fully aware and can understand and reason like a person. When they can do that, then maybe they can make the right choice in all driving situations, anticipate problems, choose between hitting a kid and hitting a dog, etc. Its probably 30 - 40 years away to get that kind of capability in anything approaching the size of a person.

  • Affordable flying cars or commercial energy generation from nuclear fusion.

  • For the same reason helicopters are still in their own quite small niche despite being known from Da Vinci times.

    You need air for flying cars and the air near the earth is quite bumpy and sometimes quite risky. These giant air dips you have on your sub-stratospheric flights when you drop dramatically down are present on all altitudes and when you are quite close to earth it can really affect your position in an unexpected and fatal ways.

    It's really wrong choice for the transportation media. Do your vacuum t

    • you only present engineering challenges as objections. we have cars with wheels and those kill 40K a year, seems the price we're willing to pay.

    • Multicopters are much less susceptible to pressure changes than airplanes or even singlecopters because they can throttle up quickly to compensate.

  • Seems to me that the usual defense contractors (Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Grumman, etc) will get massive amounts of money to build prototypes that don't quite work and cost 5x the original budget. They'll distribute production over 30+ states so that senators will force the DoD to buy these in the name of "jobs".

    Meanwhile, by 2024, we'll be able to order personal quad-copters on Alibaba from a factory in Shenzhen. I would not want to fly one, BTW, even though I'm a pilot.

    Now, if some American billionaire de

  • The military has been trying to get contractors to make them user-friendly VTOL vehicles for decades. The problem is, right now, it takes extra skills and training, and a lot of it, to fly current VTOL vehicles. In addition to the issue of pilots, VTOL craft have a lot more moving parts than a typical aircraft and, if these parts fail, there may not be any option to land safely. The military has been telling their contractors to come up with a vehicle that solves these problems. The problem they have is

    • "The military has been trying to get contractors to make them user-friendly VTOL vehicles for decades. The problem is, right now, it takes extra skills and training, and a lot of it, to fly current VTOL vehicles."

      They shelved the RAH-66 Comanche after paying for the entire design process, they literally completed the job and then decided not to buy any. It was similar to typical drones in that it was essentially self-piloting. If you let go of the controls it would keep station.

      "VTOL craft have a lot more m

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      US has a lot of people with skills this year.
      Some of them pilots.
      Join up and lean fly a VTOL.

  • They are called Powered Parachutes. They are basically a bare frame with wheels, a huge fan pushing them plus a parachute wing. Here is one of many websites that advertise them:

    https://skystriders.com/ [skystriders.com]

    They typically reach speeds of under 40 mph, cost less than $40k, carry upto 500 lbs, and can attain heights of over 10,000 ft. You generally need a sport pilot license to fly them, which takes about $5k and about 2 weeks.

    But nobody wants to a flying car that can't hit 40mph, let alone can barely carry 2 p

  • Tax dollars (Score:3)

    by t4eXanadu ( 143668 ) on Saturday April 18, 2020 @04:54PM (#59962996)

    Glad to see my tax dollars being put to good use.

  • Please don't add another dimension! People seem to have severe problems navigating in two... If we ever have flying cars, they'll have to be fully autonomous, otherwise we'll have even more dead people who thought they were under control...

  • Popular Mechanix magazine has run an article about the imminent use of flying cars once a year since around 1955. This guy must have missed them.

  • Fine wtih this so long as it's actual qualified USAF pilots at the controls. You can forget about anything like this for civilian use anytime soon though, and even if there was, it'd be a taxi service at best, with a properly trained, qualified, and licensed pilot flying it. You won't have one in your garage.

    • I can just imagine someone 130 years ago saying something similar about horseless carriages. Computers can fly better than they can drive cars...

      • But mostly because there are far fewer heavy objects in the air they can collide with. That changes a lot if you want to add self-flying cars to the fold.

        • Oh I'm sure anything the USAF puts in service will be about as automated as anything else they fly, and there'll be a qualified pilot at the controls, as I said, because they're not dumb.
      • 130 years ago horseless carriages had to be 'piloted' by someone who was qualified to operate it so really don't see what your point is other than to be an argumentative jerk. It's the USAF, they'll have actual pilots flying them, there's no argument to be made otherwise, and you're not getting a personal flying car, so just shut up.

        • I'm saying automation can advance enough a computer could do the piloting, you're the one being an ass. Already taxi quadcopters are being tested. Same idea.

  • The Valiant
  • https://netpipe.ca/?p=3988 [netpipe.ca] hotair multicopter - this is what they'll look like a bit.

  • It's probably technically possible (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday April 18, 2020 @08:06PM (#59963616)

    But considering how much trouble most people already have navigating in two dimensions, do you really think adding another one is a good idea?

  • Apparently he was so delusional that he said there would be flying cars by 2023.
  • What use would the military have for a passenger car?

    • What use would the military have for a passenger car?

      Like they have a use for Jeeps and Humvees.

  • But please get them out of the basement first, in order to pass the first criteria for qualification. After passing the drug test, of course

  • What he's talking about is, presumably, Boeing's flying car.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

  • would give the U.S. military the ability to undertake missions "in three dimensions that we normally do in two"

    Yeah, and we could organize the troops that do that into
    a group, maybe call it "Force of Air" or something.

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