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Technology

Flying Car by end of year 196

Posted by Hemos from the i-want-my-jetpacks dept.
James Green writes "CNN is reporting something will surely make everyone want to duck - the SkyCar, an invention by Moller International, of California. Quote, "The Batmobile-shaped vehicle will seat four people, do about 5 miles per liter of gas, have a top speed of over 600 mph and will take off and land vertically." It is due for a maiden journey in the next few weeks. "
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Flying Car by end of year More

Flying Car by end of year

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  • Hehe...
    5 miles per liter is better than many of those popular SUVs can hope for :)
  • I, for one, am more than a bit sceptical.

    Don't get your hopes up to see this any time soon. Mollers been working on it for 30 years...

    Cheers

    ps. Moller International is a company that many of us (the aeronautical engineering grad students here in Davis [ucdavis.edu]) poke fun at.

  • Why not stay on the ground? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Such a setup could also be setup on the ground. I read an article in the IEEE Spectrum (I think it was the Spectrum) about improving traffic throughput by automating the land based highways, also removing the same "idiot factor" to which you refer. Staying on land eliminates the chance of falling out of the sky.

    Anyways, the idea behind the automation in the article I read is allowing cars to join together in "platoons" where they travel as one big group down the highway, with a very small distance between each car, and higher speeds are possible because the "platoon" acts as a unit. If a car needs to exit, it coordinates its exit w/ the other cars in the platoon and detaches from the platoon. Anybody read this article? Maybe someone can give the issue of IEEE Spectrum it was in.
  • Fender benders will be spectacular.
  • I wonder if you can VIFF (vectoring in forward flight)?

    That is one of the neat tricks a harrier can do, and since the nozzles actually rotate past vertical (110 degrees IIRC), it just stops dead in the air. Useful when you have a bogey on your tail.
    Of course, the decceleration can also give you whiplash.

  • It's not at all practical for use in the city, and it's a silly design, but if you have the money this little guy would mean that your trip to the cottage doesn't have to be three to six hours in bumper to bumper traffic, but a short drive to the airport or some new kind of helipad... and poof, in an hour, you're further into cottage country than most roads can take you.

    It could also open up a whole new realm of commuting for people who need to commute between distant cities... Some people already buy small aircraft for this purpose.

    I think that's how cars started out around the turn of the century... the wealthy started moving to the suburbs. In twenty years they might be living anywhere they feel like. Be it telecommuting or hopping into your personal aircraft.

    IMHO, I think it would be better to get rid of roads, cars and any notions of personal aircraft, and replace them with thick public transportation and work at home network access. If all the roads were ripped out of my city, and the buildings pushed together I could walk to work. A two-day workweek would be nice, with the pay of a five day week... hmm... then I could work three jobs and buy an aircraft to commute to cottage country :-)

    OK, knock me down a point.. I'm off topic.

  • Re:so archaic... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are you serious (seriously, I can't tell when people are joking or not on /.)?

    I learned in physics that you can't extract any energy from a static magnetic field. One when a magnetic field is changing in some way can you extract energy from it. Granted, the Earth's magnetic field is changing, but it's changing at an incredibly slow rate. The field is also very weak, so I don't know how useful is would be.
  • Ever since oil has been used as an energy source people have estimated that we are about to run out. Whether it ba a few decades or a century. There is far more oil in the earth than commonly assumed. Also, if oil becomes very expensive because of scarcity it will not be long before other energy sources are adopted.

  • Vulnerable to Assault? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Combine this story with the development of
    the 'Non Lethal' engine-stopping beam taser,
    and I think I see a problem here..

    I think I'll wait for airships to come back in.
  • Sorry, fast math backwards, my mind is somewhere else... 5miles per liter is like 20+ Miles per gallon, which is very good.

    But, I must say, it also ditracts from the credibility, it's hard to believe as is.

  • Some Unanswered Questions (Score:4)

    by jlamorie ( 7498 ) on Friday May 28, 1999 @05:16AM (#1876230) Homepage
    I think this is a great concept, it is just a shame that their website doesn't give out more information. I look at the Rotary Rocket Company [rotaryrocket.com] as an example of a group that is doing something pretty crazy, but with a lot of their progress monitored on the website. It really boosts confidence in their project.

    M200:
    It would be nice to see some of the results of the '150' flights of the M200. Was this with a different engine than the Freedom Rotary? The technical information is really a bit lax.

    Horizontal: What about landing horizontally? Surely this would save fuel, and be useful when flying into a normal air strip. If they are conforming to anything near the FARs for helicopters, then the landing gear should be strong enough.

    Low Speed: The website doesn't give any decent information about the low speed characteristics (stall anyone?) or transition stability.

    But then.. maybe they don't have the budget to put all of this information online.

    Joshua Lamorie
    Aerospace Electronics IV
    Carleton University [carleton.ca]

  • Re:Vapor... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He's assuming a lot of regulations will be written just for these skycars. Such as them getting their own skyways, and not having to share space with other air traffic. Probably won't be happening anytime soon.

    But as far as no good ideas in years, if you'd ever taken a ride in the rotary-powered jetboat they built, or their hybrid-electric car (you've never before seen a Civic leave 20 feet of rubber on the pavement), you'd have a different opinion of those rotary engines of theirs. Check out Freedom Motors [freedom-motors.com] for what they've been working on the past few years.
  • 600 mph is better than many of those popular SUVs can hope for, as well. ;-)
  • Now would that be for US gallons or UK gallons, unfortunately there's a difference...

    Actually, lets scrap all this ounces, furlongs, pints, groats and pecks crap one and for all and just standardise on SI, everyone else has (well the Brits still use miles for road distances but everything else is metric).

    Nick

  • The claim is that it is a lifting body. It is definitely not a lifting body. Hell, a _brick_ will fly with big enough engines on it.
    There is _way_ too much drag and _way_ too little as far as lifting surfaces. When this fellow says it glides but not enough to land, that translates to 'about 4/1 at 500kph', with about as much as lift as a flung rock.
    If you had to do the 'glide and find a place to pop the chute' thing, you would be pointed back maybe twenty degrees, losing speed very rapidly, falling like a rock and unable to see the ground in front of you because of the very steep angle of attack. If the front nacelles take more of the lift and allow a saner AoA, drag increases severely. There are no good lifting surfaces in this design- it's basically a four-rotored helicopter. Not intrinsically a bad thing, but not to be downplayed: this is severely fuel-inefficient compared to normal aircraft of its class, and very unhelpful if power is lost.
  • Has anyone even considered the stopping distances of different cars???? This would have to be factored into the system by providing more space or some kind of inter-car telemetry.
  • I suppose it's new as a mass-produced vehicle, but then again, it isn't mass-produced yet (if it ever is).

    Doesn't anybody remember the Avrocar? (waaaaay back...)
  • Does this airplane use the "ground effect" to maintain altitude or is there enough lift created by the tiny stabilizers/wings?
  • I remember seeing this in Popular Science back about 7-8 years ago. It seemed to be an interesting idea, and despite people making fun of Moller, at least his company is trying...

    Of course, as I remember, people made fun of the Wright Brothers, too.

    I am curious as to how the flight trials go for this vehicle...

  • lol!

    sounds like something my step father has been wishing for for years. He used to always scream "arm the torpedoes!!" when we got stuck behind a motorhome... can you imagine a motorhome SkyCar?! It'd be like an AirBus or something!! :)
  • The other big question I have about automated highways would be driver attention. If the driver isn't having to control the car, that driver's inattention to their surroundings will grow rapidly (even moreso than the people who are supposed to be controlling their cars now). How are you going to get a driver who's reading the newspaper to a) sense that there's an emergency b) get good situational awareness c) take control of the vehicle d) get safely out of trouble rapidly enough to be safe? Consider that the time between one driver stepping on the brakes and the driver behind him seeing the brake lights and stepping on the brakes is close to .5-.7 seconds.

    The ONLY way an automated highway system would work, IMHO, if it was failsafe to the nines, and NEVER relied on driver intervention. There is no way to bring a driver's nervous system online to take control of the car quickly enough to be safe in an accident.
  • And just think... When you are stuck behind one in heavy traffic, you can just look underneath it to see if there really are cars up ahead, or if the driver is just wierd... Unlike SUV's which tend to block not only the view of those directly behind them, but anyone within their wake for about a half mile...
  • Slick looking 4 seater.
    Claims 20 MPG.
    Prototype cost ~$1mil to develop.
    Expected asking price for production model $60k.
    Needs FAA approval to be mass produced.
    Owner will need pilot's license to operate.
  • Ducted fans (like the Moller) are orders of magnitude quieter than jets (like the Harrier).

    One thing that hasn't been touched on here (which is likely to spark some interesting thoughts) is that Mr. Moller's vision is for a completely automated, pilotless system. That means, you climb into your SkyCar (which likely will not be owned buy you, but be available to you on a subscription service from a vertiport), tell it where you want to go, and it will automagically whisk you away to your destination.

    How do you like THEM apples?
  • IANAA (I am not an aviator), so I don't know whether this thing will fly or not. But, for it to be practical, it will need one more thing.. Completely computerized control. The real problem with the idea of flying cars is the one truth that has been proven through the ages: people are stupid.

    The whole reason for the FAA regulations is because people are fallible (or stupid). If these things were controlled by computer (with sufficient backup systems) and just directed by humans, the FAA might allow "home use". But until you can just get in and say "take me to work" and have the car take care of navigation, this thing would just be too dangerous in the hands of idiots.

    -Tom
  • This looks like it's the same "Merlin" that was about to be released in about 1985 or so. It can do everything CNN says, but the noise level is so outrageous as to be dangerous. (80 db or so? I forget)

    That, and it looks like a safety and environmental catastrophe in the making. I'll still take the bus.
  • This Wired article [wired.com] mentions
    • The vehicle will be legal for use on streets (so it should have tail lights, etc).
    • It can go 30MPH, driven by an electric motor.
    • It can fly horizontally on two of its eight engines.
    • If engine failure does not allow vertical landing, either an airplane-like runway landing can be done or its two parachutes can be used.
    • There is an airbag under the plane to soften a parachute landing.
  • Remember, these are smart cars you are talking about. If one has a problem, it will try to pull over without slamming on the brakes. The other smart cars will be talking to each other and using radar. Even if there is a road obstruction or a car which stops suddenly, the other cars will be using the brakes faster than the human will (and perhaps driving around the problem, particularly if the vehicles ahead pointed it out).
  • Ha, Texas has the friendliest drivers. How can prune-pickers know how to drive when there are constant traffic slowdowns?

  • Re:Is this supposed to be new? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I read about this yesterday on another site(can`t remeber which) and it stated that if/when it goes into production you WONT need a pilots license, and that this is what is new.
    Also being VTOL its going to be much more practical, Rush hour is bad enough now without people using the main steet as a runway!!
  • Man, haven't we all dreamed of this? I've been hoping to see this in my lifetime ever since the final scene in Back To The Future, and the entire Back To The Future II. Now even if this is really gonna be out be the end of the year:
    Imagine the layers and layers of red tape this is going to have to go through? Even if it can take off vertically, will it have to be done at an official airpad or runway? Where will you land? All these questions and regulations will tie up this machine for years. :-(

  • This could actually help the quality of driver on the roads. I remember a Click and Clack on Car Talk once saying that airbags should be replaced with pungee sticks so that people whould drive safer since they knew that if they hit something they'd be dead. As for the people that didn't figure it out and kept driving like nuts Darwin would take over and the problem would eventually go away. This same principle applies to flying cars - the idiots will crash and eventualy get wiped out... we might loose a few innocent people along the way but oh well if it gets me home from work faster...
  • After looking at the picture on this homepage a big question comes to mind...

    What is the difference between this and a personal airplane or jet?

    This just looks like a less expensive oddly shaped personal jet airplane. You are going to need a pilot's license to use one and I am guessing you would have to take off and land and airports... I seem to be missing the "car" part of this whole thing... any thoughts?

    Josh
  • I don't understand how the amount of time that's gone in to getting this thing to work relates to how long it's going to take to finish the testing and prototyping. Keep in mind that this isn't GM or Boeing funding this thing...it's ONE DUDE scrounging for venture capital. Timescales will be long.
  • Great job, moderators. 'Score: 0 (Informative)' ... Keep up the good work!
    ----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
  • the harrier is a jet, this uses rotary powered fans which are an order of magnitude quieter. Please read the article before posting. =)

  • Re:A couple of points (Score:3)

    by Micah ( 278 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @07:34PM (#1876261) Homepage Journal
    When calculating the cost to go somewhere, you should look at the cost per mile, not the cost per hour. Remember, this thing goes a lot faster than cars. If it gets 19 miles per gallon, then it will take only slightly more fuel than your average car to get from A to B.

    Actually, it could be argued that this thing gives you MORE for your gas money, especially in the city. Think about it - with cars you're stoping and starting all the time. With this thing, you'll fly constantly. No rush hour jams that eat up gas. And no WAITING! If you calculate your TIME at $20 per hour, that will add up QUICK!

    I won't believe this until I see it, but if it takes off (no pun intended), it is a real breakthrough.
  • wtf is a SUV?
  • The CNN story incorrectly quotes the technology on the SkyCar. Moller International is at http://www.moller.com and the correct information is a top speed of 390 mph, 30,000 ft. operating ceiling, 15 miles per gallon, and a 900 mile range. Much more information is available on their website. :^)

  • fremen asks, ". . . will I be under the jurisdiction of the FAA or the local law enforcement agencies . . . ."

    Probably the FAA. There is already a precedent: the falling Pinto in the movie The Blues Brothers. [imdb.com] According to the "making-of" documentary, the Pinto really did have to be approved by the FAA.

  • They should make the car look like a DeLorean, with the doors that swing up and the tires move from the bottom sides of the car to come in the car on the underside. Plus, we can even include Mr. Fusion, the time circuits and the flux capacitor.
  • Not to mention the heat. I was at an airshow once when a Harrier mistakenly hovered over a 60 ft. diameter asphalt helipad. Big mistake - the asphalt and landing markings all melted into a pile of steaming goo, and the area had to be cordoned off for an hour to cool so that no kid would mistakenly wander over and melt off his foot/leg/pelvis. And this thing was hovering at 15 feet. Imagine some hick parking one of the babies at 6 feet over his car, electrical transformer, lawn, or foolish person. I think human intellect might have to evolve before the Moller car becomes safe enough for mass production.
  • From the original New Scientist [newscientist.com] article:

    Another problem that Moller must tackle is noise. Residential areas usually tolerate noise levels about the same as background traffic--up to 70 decibels--but the Skycar generates about 85 decibels. Moller is looking at ways to reduce noise, by carefully avoiding resonances and by using noise cancellation techniques. Even so, Moller admits it will be difficult to reduce noise levels to below 70 decibels.

    And those "noise cancellation techniques" would only help the occupants of the Skycar, not the poor boogers in the street below.


    Regards, Ralph.
  • The FAA will just do what they've always done about pilots that violate air regs. Get your tail number (and in this case, likely an ID encoded in your transponder signal) and often as not, have somebody waiting for you when you land.

    Words you don't hear on the radio after you tell the tower you're clear of the runway/landing area: "Acknowledged, and please report to the FAA rep.".

    Heh, with flying cars you're always on traffic radar.
  • Anyone else find this funny? Moller has spent $100 million and 30 years designing their rocket car, which if everything goes according to plan will occupy a spot in anyone's garage who can afford a Lexus (eventually). Even without a mass-produced, 8 fan jetsled in the equation, it would be an optimistic estimate to assume that the world's oil supplies will last for century. So basically, by the time Moller actually produces these babies, there'll only be a need for them for another 50 or 60 years. Compound this by the fact that VTOL is tremendously taxing on fuel - the Sea Harrier that they allude to on their site uses something like 1/3 of its fuel just for a hover takeoff and landing - and I think that "rocket cars for everyone!" will only exacerbate a problem that is still becoming progressively worse in our environmentally conscious, emission regulated, ULEV times.
  • Not 600 MPH. 350 MPH, 600 KPH.
    15 MPG. Here are the specs. [moller.com]

  • Re:Is this supposed to be new? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nope, this guy has been selling investment opps in Popular Science for years. And yes the AvroCar sucked. But hell it was the 50's and people were supposed to be stupid. The moller site made lots of claims that were largely unsupported. I'll believe the flying car when space and aviation week does a demo. The AeroBots look very cool though, they just need a CCD camera, target aquistion software and subguns on 'em all running Linux of course. Check out www.moller.com [moller.com] and www.freedom-motors.com [freedom-motors.com]
  • >As for takeoff and landing, that will have to >occur at airports, although Moller says that the >FAA is planning to build several hundred
    >"vertiports" to handle vehicles like his own and >a civilian model V-22 Osprey.

    I wonder about this.. I'm a student pilot and as far as I know, there is no regulation that requires the use of an airport or 'vertiport'. If I wanted to, I could land and takeoff anywhere with the property owners permission. (I've been told that local laws may vary, but this is the FAA position)
  • I thought it could only go like 6 feet above ground or something.

  • Film at 11 (Score:4)

    by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @06:40PM (#1876278)
    Yesterday I invented a time-travel device powered by cold fusion.

    Do the math on this one folks. The only way he can claim that kind of mileage at 600 MPH is if either the coefficient of drag approaches zero or the fuel has an incredible chemical energy per unit volume. We know the first is unlikely because the car doesn't have any particularly revolutionary shape. As for the second, let's just say that you wouldn't be buying it at your local Mobil station.

    -jwb

  • Looks like my old '68 SAAB Sonnett.....hell, had I known I would've garaged it and been $3000 closer to building one myself....

  • SkyCar homepage (Score:4)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @06:37PM (#1876280) Homepage
    For those interested:
    SkyCar homepage [moller.com].
  • "I think we'll need to change our population before we can let the masses fly; get some more intelligence into the general mix of things ;)."

    Unfortunately, the current political environment, combined with basic Darwinism, pretty much guarantess that the general population will become LESS intelligent over time, not more. (at least here in the US)
  • More like, Bloddy screen of death...
    It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
  • If you can get your hands on the "Spirou" comics, published in Belgium (for the last 60 years or so), the "Z comme Zorglub" and "L'ombre du Z" feature exactly that kind of vehicle.

    Not bad for a story published around 1957...


    -- ----------------------------------------------
    Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!

  • Actually 20 mpg isn't that great for a small aircraft, it's as bad as that because they're using powered lift. A small Cessna or Cherokee will do a bit better than that, and those are not very aerodynamically clean aircraft. Don't know what the slick composite aircraft (the EZ types, or Lancair or Glasair at the higher speeds) will do.

    Consider that mileage in an aircraft is like "all highway miles" in a car -- the engine is running at constant speed, you're not repeatedly stopping and accellerating. Add to that the fact that aircraft have less drag than all but the slickest cars, and don't have to contend with tire rolling resistance, and a light plane easily gets better mileage than a car (until you go to much higher speeds, drag goes up with square of the airspeed).
  • but I like to think this is pretty cool... except for the speed. Isn't that like 747 style numbers? yikes, there's a misprint...

    in any case it reminds me of the movie that I saw 13 times when I was a child (and still get excited to see when it comes on TV). BACK TO THE FUTURE!! God what a bad movie... all three ;+)

    Whadda ya say we get Micheal J. Fox or Christopher Loyd to test this thing... it'd be kinda like when they named the first Space Shuttle "Enterprise". heheh :)
  • Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of them not taking off from airports. If they had to behave like normal planes, why would this even be news? I think it would be a neat idea if you could call this Skycar thing and have them pick you up in front of your house and bring you right to your destination. Or in the cities, the tops of skyscrapers could be landing ports. What I was implying, pretty much, was that the time savings from not having to get to an airport and deal with the crazy security and all the waiting would cut hours off any trip.

    Of course, from what I've read of the other posts here, this guy has been talking about making this thing for like 20 years, so I'm not exactly betting on it making its debut anytime soon.

    -----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
    Evan

  • I agree with the thought that this will never happen. Barring all technical aspects, there are 3 questions that need to be answered.


    1- Will the people take it seriously?

    Does it seem like too futuristic an idea? Will the people believe that this can actually happen?


    2- Will the government take it seriously?

    We all know how the government handles the regulation of new technological fields. Will they recognize this right away or wait till many problems arise?


    3- How will these two groups handle a new form of transportation?

    Will the public be willing to learn how to fly a miniature aircraft. And how will the government respond and regulate? Will they handle it Internet-style and wait until the market is incredibly huge. How strict will the regulations be? Would they even allow such a thing to happen?

    As you can see, there are many questions that need answering before such a thing can take place. This would be a major change in society. Insurance rates would skyrocket ;-)
  • I especially like the article that got -1 (flamebait) but baited people to write 2 or 3 2 (informative) articles.

    I like the parenthetical reasons, but the rating system still needs work.
  • Umm... California drivers... Well... Being born and raised in California, I would never, NEVER, consider the average population in California as "a bit knowing on how to drive." Especially in a the more urban areas, such as the bay area, or the LA Sprawl...

    And many of them love SUV's...

    (Being a Californian myself, I have people fill out waivers before they ride in my car...) (Well, ok, I don't, but I probably should...)
  • The article states that you will have to have an FAA approved license. I assume this means that you will also have to follow FAA regulations, making this much less interesting. i.e. Basically it is just a twist on a helicopter. You will be limited on where you can take of and land from unless you live in the country. As well you will have to file flight plans and stay at reserved altitudes.


    Though I have a VFR license, flying a helicopter is a bit scary for me because engine failure means you have to count on auto-rotate to land safely and then your landing choices are very slim pickings. This vehichle looks like it would become unstable if one of the engines failed and I doubt it has any sort of auto-rotate that could significantly slow it's fall, meaning certain death. You would have to be a brave soul to ride in it... probably all flights thus far have been un-maned.


    Jonathan

    jonathanclark.com [jonathanclark.com]

  • SUV (Score:1)

    by jkovach ( 1036 )
    Sport Utility Vehicle. A cross between a Jeep and a station wagon. These are becoming very popular in the United States. Due to it's large size, SUVs are very safe, but at the expense of any other cars involved in a collision. Sold for use in off-road and on-road driving but usually brought by rich people who just want to feel special.

    See here [fordvehicles.com] for an example.

  • If you really want to fly, you can do it cheaper. (Score:4)

    by JatTDB ( 29747 ) on Friday May 28, 1999 @03:12AM (#1876300)
    You can find small aircraft like the Cessna 172 for prices in the $30-$40K range used. Sure, it's not VTOL, and it doesn't have the 'B' sci-fi movie look, but it's available now, plus they've been around forever and for good reason (fairly easy to maintain, pretty reliable).

    If it would be legal to just take off from anywhere and land anywhere with one of those SkyCars, it would be kind of nifty. Now if you could just do that AND get out of having to file a flight plan, then I'd start saving my cash for one .

  • Won't Ever Happen (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Something the size of a car isn't going to hold
    itself up with a jet of air and move horizontally at any reasonable speed and get 5 miles/liter.

    Then again, how is it going to go 600 mph unless
    it goes way up where the airliners travel at
    475 mph? Sure, we're going to have a family
    car that maintains pressure, and is made of
    materials that can withstand 600 mph of wind,
    friction and airspeed. And those two little jets
    are going to be all it needs to do this, right?
    Will it fly on one jet? Can it cruise to a landing on 0 jets? How the flip does it fly without major wings? How about flight plans and permission to take off?

    I think somebody thinks that if people by Star Wars, they will buy anything.
  • As the Skycar web pages [moller.com] mention, 15 MPG at 350 MPH.
    10 gallons to go 150 miles, 20 gallons to go 300 miles. And you'll have gone those 300 miles in less than an hour.
    OK, now think about how often you have to go 100 miles away. How often are you going to have to go more than 300 miles?
    I don't know the cruising range, but if it is 300-600 miles, you'll still be able to go a great distance even if you have to refuel every hour or two.
    At 3,000 miles you'll run out of continent. Ten hours. Are five or ten landings in one day too much to hop across the country in a day, when you've already devoted ten hours to the trip?
  • Yeah - and instead of those dashboard Radar detectors, the car would have to come with chaff and flare launchers :)
    +----------------------+
    | GodEater |
  • The use of accelerating air to propel yourself, that is. I mean, why can't we harness the powers of the magnetic field of the Earth and turn that into an energy that we can ride on/be propelled by? This'd be MUCH more economic and would make less noise. Although I must admit, one of these things would make for some REALLY clean streets. :-)

    8Complex
  • http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/CuttingEdg e/skycar990211.html

  • Yada, yada, yada.... (Score:5)

    by Davorama ( 11731 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @07:01PM (#1876309) Journal
    Moller's been out on his ranch making anouncements like this for decades. Nothing ever comes of it. I've known folks (fellow students at Davis) who have worked with him on the project. They were good students but I've never heard of this thing doing any more than a hover and a short (unmanned) run. Of course, that's how the wright brothers started.... but the Wrights only took about 5 years to go from a bike shop to the first controlled, powered flight....

  • Reuters got the speed wrong (Score:5)

    by Captain Nitpick ( 16515 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @06:55PM (#1876310)
    Moller's web site [moller.com] states that the cruising speed is 350 mph, and top speed is 390, not the 600 mph Reuters (or possibly New Scientist magazine, Reuters' source) claimed. According to statistics provided by Moller (so the veracity of the numbers isn't guaranteed), it should have a comparable passenger miles/gallon to a 737.

    The site also states that the rotary engines that power the Skycar run on ordinary gasoline.

  • I remember, must've been 10 or 15 years back, they had a flying car on the cover of popular science. This one was described as having 4 jets (though it would only need two to stay aloft) and triply redundant computer systems for safety. The computers controlled the attitude of the jets etc... The guy hadn't actually built one, but he had the same claim; that a million or so in research funds would result in a mass produced air car for about $100,000. I remember thinking 'Cool, but who's gonna insure it?' Anyone else remember this?
    tea
  • The main question you need to ask yourself is, "How far do I want to go?"
    So you figure you can easily cruise 200 miles on one tank of gas. Sounds just fine with me, since you're also going pretty fast you don't mind refueling so often.
    Unless you have a 600 mile daily commute?
    --
  • Are you sure about the two wheels at the back, one at the front? Otherwise it sounds like it might be a Mercedes F300 Life-Jet [mercedes-benz.com] ( more photos [geocities.com])
  • Awesome! All that it needs are little "O"'s to come out of the back when you fly it! =P

  • Vapor... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 1999 @06:32PM (#1876315)
    moller's been ripping people off for years. They probably threatened a class action if he didn't come out with something pronto. It'll go into trial and fail miserablly (either by hook or by crook... maybe the FAA will be moller's accomplis, who knows)

    Basically, they guy hasn't had any good ideas since super-trap mufflers and his drone rotary engine DoD contract.

    ...and as a pilot, I find his concept (the operator will just be along for the ride) flawed. Anyone who's operated under the FAA's free-flight rules knows that there's a little more to the equation than punching in a destination, kicking back and lighting up a doobie.

    Hell, he even got press over here in Japan... fscking amazing..
  • I once thought as you did re: California drivers. I was born in TX, came here as a kid and learned to drive here. I'd heard all the normal bias against California drivers.

    THEN I started traveling to other parts of the country. (Particularly the Midwest & New England areas) California drivers are among the best. (And I live in an urban Calif. area)

    Now, do I think they could handle skycars? :) There would have to be some serious limits in place. (Beyond the pilots license.) Have an accident, crash land in someone's 4.6 mill. home, oops. I don't think my insurance would cover all that :)
  • ...and he says airpooling is the way of the future. football field-sized runways for VSTOL community-operated planes.

    Commuting? Gone. Replaced with Telecommuting.
    Airliners? Gone. Replaced with airpools.
    Cars? Gone. Also replaced with airpools.

    Bottom line, semipersonal air transportation for the last half of the 21st century.

    Give 'Life after Airliners' a read - very interesting stuff.

    He claims aircars like this particular one will fail because of factors like fuel consumption (960hp doesn't sip fuel), noise (look at their spec!), pollution (960hp!), and a few other things. Putting over 2400lbs of thrust down over a thrust disk of about 4 square feet total size is *never* efficient.

    I tend to trust Burt Rutan's judgement when he talks about efficiency, after all he's the only person on earth to design a plane to fly around the world nonstop without refueling.

    Also did anyone notice a significant resemblance between the Podracer in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Bob Pond's Pondracer? Which one came first? :)
  • While you're all talking about speed, accidents, gallons and stuff....think about this....

    If it can go up in the air...people will NEVER wait in line to cross an "airrpad"...they'll just make it go highjer...and then you have thousands of people going up and down in the air....

    Also...what about police??? What are they going to say when you are 200-500 feet above the ground?? "please step out of your car?"...i see somebody falling down here. And the police can't just go in front of a car to stop it if it's speeding.....it'll just turn quickly around, above or below??

    But a great thing about theese vehicles could be to make them to an ambulance....just imagine the posibilities in that....if somebodu has a heart attack....an air ambulance could be there like in 1 minute instead of maybe 5-10-15 minutes....and the same for police vehicles and so on....

  • Re:Moller's Motors (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yes, these are Wankel designs. The original Wankel Rotary was licensed to Mazda allong with a number of other motor companies. Moller purchased a division from OMC when their Wankel division folded giving him their license, designs, patenets, thousands of experimental engines, and unique equipment for construction of Wankels.

    He intends to capitalize on the unique properties of the wankel design in avation. Once started, nothing short of lose of fuel or destruction of the methanical rotor will stop the motor. (overheading, lose of sparkplug, incorrect fuel mixture are literally ignored.) They also have great mass to power ratios.

    Mazda abandon their designs due to repeated failures in cold weather. (lubrication would literally hold the side seals in, thus no compression.) And mazda suffered from inablity to rework the engine after usage. This meant if the engine failed at 100,000 miles you basically needed a new engine.

    It remains to be seen if Moller has overcome these problem as both were problems in mass production models that would not have appeared in the lab. As a replacement for a 2 stroke water craft motor, his motors are a good choice.

    You can read more on his Freedom motors page [freedom-motors.com]

    Anonymous with reason.

  • Hold on...my car has a range of about 300 miles (it's a Miata...teeny gas tank for a teeny car). I've seen few cars with much greater than 400 mph range...seems to me like you'd have to make the same number of gas stops in a given trip whether flying one of these things or driving...the trip is just compressed. How is this bad?
  • Well, if you can design a better aircraft than this fellow, I'll buy one from you not him.
  • How long until someone parks old ships every 200 miles between Hawaii and major continents? How much income could they get from running the only gas and food service for the next 200 miles?
  • New Scientist [newscientist.com]
  • It's a bit better than a brick or a flung rock - from the New Scientist [newscientist.com] article -
    "At a speed of 250 kilometres per hour, the engines produce only a tenth of the lift. Nearly half of the lift comes from the four nacelles---even the vanes that direct the airflow generate lift. Another 16 per cent comes from the fuselage and about a third comes from the rear wing."
    Anyway, it's got eight engines, which ought to be enough for a brick.

  • 6 feet? (Score:5)

    by Captain Nitpick ( 16515 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @07:25PM (#1876329)
    The Skycar's estimated maximum ceiling is 30,000 feet. It's definitely an aircraft =) They're limited to low altitude for the tests because their insurance won't cover much more until the vehicle is proven.

    Now whether or not it will actually work well enough to even get off the ground, I don't know.

    Top speed is also an estimated 390 mph, not the 600 mph in the Reuters article, and the estimated milage is 15 mpg on standard unleaded gasoline, with a maximum range of 900 miles.

    The definition of exactly what the vehicle is has been set by the FAA. It is classified as a "powered-lift aircraft." This contrasts with fixed wing for standard airplanes, and rotary wing for helicopters.

    As for takeoff and landing, that will have to occur at airports, although Moller says that the FAA is planning to build several hundred "vertiports" to handle vehicles like his own and a civilian model V-22 Osprey.

  • Moller (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 1999 @07:46AM (#1876331)
    As a former employee of Moller International, I can personally atest that he has some of the best rotory engines arround and the unique equipment to build them. If we used his motors in personal water craft, pollution would not be such a problem. However, I really do hope that his planes never leave the ground.

    By my observations that company is always flying by a wing and a prayer. (For poeple who think this is the first time he announced those specs, I recommend digging through your Popular Science a half decade back.) They did not have the funding to build the necessary redundancy into the electronics or hire experts necessary to insure stable flight at low velocities. When I left, the vehicle was little more than a mock up with a seriously flawed air redirection system. (I just hope that they have completely replaced that assembly before they attempt flight or it will be a very costly experiment.)

    The only person crazy enough (or that could wave enough liblity) to dare test pilot those contraptions is Paul Moller himself. He is an expert pilot who can actually keep a moderately unstable craft airborn. I wish him luck. Just be sure to find the date of his flight and make sure you are far from Davis, CA.

    Anonymous with reason.

  • Read the FAQ (Score:3)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Friday May 28, 1999 @04:44AM (#1876345) Journal
    Not 600 MPH. 350 MPH.
    Not two jets. Eight in the 4-passenger, 4 in 2-passenger, 2 in pilot-only.
    Ducted fans, like a Harrier. VTOL, then the ducts rotate and allow most of the thrust to go rearward.
    It is under FAA control, so the licensed pilot has to follow helicopter/VTOL/STOL rules.

    Look at the Skycar webpage [moller.com] and read the FAQ.

    I do wonder why their liability hasn't allowed them to try real test flights on the 2-seater. Or maybe the 2-seater does not have the two parachutes which the 4-seater has?

  • ... that stay on the ground.

    The article said you'd need a pilot's license to fly one, but I don't get the impression you need to take off and/or land from an airport... if there are too many of these things whizzing around, aren't there going to be a lot of fatalities? :)

    Cheers
    Alastair
  • I actually met a guy who was working on this... On a private road down in southern California (one with magnets imbedded, to provide navigation information to the cars...), they had the cars in formation, about two inches apart, going 80 mph... (Something that would probably be disturbing, if you were in one...)

    Although it removes the idiot factor, on computer glitch and WAM 300,000 car pile up... Kinda makes you nervous...

    As a safegaurd to that, such systems are supposed to be monitored by an active human driver, ready to take over in case of an emergency... But, even if you are an awesome driver, could you really manage to stear clear of a problem when going 80 mph in even 12 inch formation???

  • Re:A couple of points (Score:3)

    by jordang ( 31620 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @07:35PM (#1876350)
    Try reading the FAQ - http://www.moller.com/faq/
    it seems to address most of your, like:

    Where will the Skycar be permitted to take off and land?
    Only at FAA registered vertiports. Airports qualify as vertiports.

    How high has it flown?
    The M200X has flown to a height of forty feet. This has allowed us to determine its performance
    out of ground effect.

    So I guess it is intended to cruise a bit higher
    than six feet, and I think it's pretty safe to assume that it carries more than 23 gallons of
    gas.

    Jordan
  • Well it says the 'car' has an intelligent fly by wire system. With todays technology couldn't an remote-autonomous system be implaced for busy sky-highways. For example you take off manually but once you are in the air a regional traffic management system takes over control and directs you to your desired destination that you have filed just before takeoff. As this system would always know where every air-car is at any given time it can keep an even seperation between all vehicles and plan well ahead for any turns etc. This may end up being a great deal safer than todays land based roads, simply by removing the idiot factor (human error).
  • And if you want VTOL, you can buy a Rotorway helicopter [rotorway.com](kit, but pretty easy to assemble from what I've heard) for about the same $60K. Rotorway is pretty fancy as homebuilt helicopters go, there are others you can get much cheaper.

  • Flawed unit quoting (Score:5)

    by Captain Nitpick ( 16515 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @07:04PM (#1876361)
    I hate to reply to myself, but after finding a link [newscientist.com] to the original New Scientist article, the source of the error became obvious. From the New Scientist article:
    ...road-going vehicle, it has the shape of a Batmobile and a top speed of over
    600
    kilometres per hour    . There is one other unusual thing about the "Skycar": it takes off...

    From the Reuters article on CNN.com:

    ...people, do about 5 miles per liter of gas, have

    a top speed of over 600 mph and will take off
    and land vertically.

  • I did the math... (Score:3)

    by Evro ( 18923 ) <evandhoffman@ g m a i l.com> on Thursday May 27, 1999 @07:31PM (#1876364) Homepage Journal
    Let's see... 1 liter == .2426 gallons... it comes out to something like 19 MPG!! That's really incredible. That's honestly about what my car gets, and it's not a gas guzzling SUV (which is not to say it's not a gas guzzler).

    Odd thing is they listed it in "miles per liter." Shouldn't it be either "miles per gallon" or "kilometers per liter"? I guess they wanted to make sure they confused everybody -- Americans and Europeans.

    I don't know what the purpose of this would be. We have enough accidents at 30 mph, the last thing I want is some drunk driver crashing into my house at 600 mph. Maybe there could be some market for a super-taxi -- you know, NY to DC in 20 minutes, or NY to Boston in a half an hour, or something like that. Not for consumer use, that's for sure.

    I hope this never takes off (no pun intended -- honestly).

    -----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
    Evan

  • Can you say Noise? (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 1999 @07:48PM (#1876367)

    Ever actually been around a Harrier? I have.
    Not a pretty sound. In fact, its not only painful and deafening, its almost physically nauseating. We are talking fast, permanent hearing loss folks.

    The kind of noise a Harrier makes in VTOL will make you reach for the SAM. Not by choice, by instinct, by rage, to make the pain stop. I know I am being redundant. Unless they can make these very, very quiet as well, this ain't gonna fly with the home folks. Which is you an me bubba (or bubbette, whatever).
  • I would hate to live in a large city with a bunch of people flying one of those.

    Most people can hardly drive, much less fly.

    I hope they come equiped with photon torpedoes.

    "Aggrrrr! You cut me off!"

  • Speeding Tickets Anyone? (Score:5)

    by shogun ( 657 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @06:35PM (#1876401)
    If these things become commonplace does that mean that traffic cops will be armed with surface to air missiles?

  • A couple of points (Score:4)

    by fremen ( 33537 ) on Thursday May 27, 1999 @06:59PM (#1876407)
    A couple of points. The first is the question of whether this is a land vehicle or an air vehicle. That could prove troublesome to this project. It looks as if this will qualify as an air vehicle. Does that mean I have to take off and land at an airport? Once I take off, will I fly over roads or something else. Considering the fact that I have to fly only 6 feet off of the ground, then I am fairly limited in my terrain. So, do I have to fly 6 feet off of the ground on open terrain, possibly harming my $60,000 flying machine? Or do I fly 6 feet off of the ground on roadways, where I'll be able to fly at 600 mph.

    This brings up another question. If I fly over roadways, will I be under the jurisdiction of the FAA or the local law enforcement agencies (DPS, DMV, police, etc). I doubt I would be able to fly at the posted speed limit of 55, 60, 70 or whatever. Perhaps I'm wrong (I haven't seen the specs), but it would seem that flying that slow would possibly create problems with lift.

    Another point about this project is fuel consumption. Assume my fuel economy is 19 miles per gallon. Now assume that I am flying at 450 miles per hour (Not full speed, but fast enough). The math for this works out to me needing 23.6 gallons per hour. That's a lot of fuel (My car doesn't hold that much). So, now the question is also an issue of size. Do you create a smaller vehicle, but require refueling once an hour or so. Or do you create a larger vehicle, which would be more unwieldy (Especially at 6 feet above the ground) and require more training to fly. On a side note, it was shown during the Falkland war that Herrier jumpjets, despite all of their perceived advantages, had horrible fuel consumption rates. The American F-18, despite not being able to land or take off vertically, is considered by many to be a superior jet due to its lower fuel requirements (And the benefit of longer range). Of course, I digress...

    Overall, the project sounds like it will need two things. A better definition of just what kind of vehicle this is (And the rules that apply), and better fuel milage.

  • Re:A couple of points (Score:4)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Friday May 28, 1999 @01:47AM (#1876408)
    I'm not exactly sure why your post ended up moderated so high, most of the points you made were addressed in the article.

    Nowhere did it say it flys 6 feet off the ground. The intitial test flight is 6 feet off the ground.

    If the device leaves the ground, its not a car. Hovercraft are not cars and can not be brought on or over public streets under their own power.

    Its definately an aircraft. In fact, the article specifically says its an aircraft, and when its available, anyone with a pilots license could fly it.

    On the fuel economy standpoint, aircraft are always rated in gallons per hour. A small aircraft like a single engine Cessna runs 8-10 gallons per hour. This thing has four engines, so 24 gallons an hour isn't bad and is what any pilot used to flying multiengine aircraft would be used to.

    So there's a perfectly good definition of what the vehicle is, and that's pretty damn good fuel milage for an aircraft of its type, probably too good.

    I first saw this aircraft probably six or seven years ago on TV. This company has been claiming this was right around the corner for a decade now. I don't believe they'll ever sell any, except perhaps a few one-off X-class planes (I doubt they'll get FAA certification on the design, its very expensive...) and I don't believe there is a big enough market to mass produce a new multiengine aircraft enough to get the price as low as they claim.

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