Flying cars crash into each other at Chinese air show
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Congratulations, you can't count to 6.
Is there something I'm missing? I only count 5 so it's a pentacopter.
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People have enough trouble driving on roads, which place at least some limits on what you can do with a vehicle. Give them a flying car with no limits on where they can go anywhere in the X, Y, and Z axes and all hell will break loose. This crash, with two experienced "drivers", is a perfect example, and they ostensibly knew what they were doing.
Let's say we all magically become able to not crash into each other at all. That's not going to make things much safer; car aren't built with the strict QC of airplanes, they're bound to have more failures.
When you have wheels, it's not all that problematic, with some luck you could even be unscathed after losing a wheel on the highway.
Once you're flying though? Anything happens and you're pretty much toast
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Is there something I'm missing? I only count 5 so it's a pentacopter.
Look through the cockpit
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My bet is that personal flying vehicles will happen and gradually spread --- probably not as a mass replacement for ground-based vehicles --- but it'll be fully-autonomous vehicles. It won't be Average Joe becoming a pilot.
EDIT: Well, okay, I mean, you can get personal flying vehicles today --- in the US, you don't need a license or anything to fly something like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_parachute
...whereas you do to operate a car on public roads. Just not allowed to fly over built-up areas. But I'm talking about heavier vehicles.
I sure hope that's not true. Cars already are a nightmare of inefficiency and should ultimately be reserved to some very specific usecases -- giving access so flying pods to everyone is possibly the worst possible method of transportation ever thought of.
Not only for the environment, as those would be mighty inefficient, but also for safety; people love clowning on Boeing but letting the auto industry make aircrafts will give us a lot more to be anxious about.
Also, when a car fails, or a conductor has an emergency, in most cases the car just stops, we don't end up with a ton of steel tumbling down at 200km/h on buildings, random people and other flying vehicles
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Air travel is considered to be among the safest methods of travel.
.....but thats only because historically we only let experts operate those vehicles. You thought it was bad to drink and drive? Wait until uncle Randy has 250 hours logged to get a liscense, and he drinks and flies!
And also a huge QC culture. If we let the auto industry make aircrafts for the general public, we'll soon wish we were flying Boeing
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Is there something I'm missing? I only count 5 so it's a pentacopter.
There is another rotor hidden behind the cabin, you can barely see it though the window
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Air travel is considered to be among the safest methods of travel.
.....but thats only because historically we only let experts operate those vehicles. You thought it was bad to drink and drive? Wait until uncle Randy has 250 hours logged to get a liscense, and he drinks and flies!
That's just a normal day in Alaska.
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People have enough trouble driving on roads, which place at least some limits on what you can do with a vehicle. Give them a flying car with no limits on where they can go anywhere in the X, Y, and Z axes and all hell will break loose. This crash, with two experienced "drivers", is a perfect example, and they ostensibly knew what they were doing.
wrote last edited by [email protected]The pilot has always been the limiting factor for flying cars.
People are always saying "it's the future, right? Where are my jetpacks and flying cars?". And the truth is, there have been many prototype vehicles over the years that could be called flying cars, we've already done it. The reason everyone doesn't have one in their garage comes down to two factors.
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Price. The reason cars are as affordable as they are is mass production. That is to say, still quite expensive, but within reach for most people in developed countries. With mass production you get that economy of scale, but most people simply don't need a flying car, so it will be hard to ever reach that level of mass production.
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Skill to operate. A "flying car" is simply an aircraft that you can park at home. It's an airplane or a rotorcraft of some variety. As such, you'll need a pilots license to operate it, as well as (probably) a special certification for VTOL vehicles. Obtaining a pilots license is not as simple as a driver's license, there's just a lot more to know and the consequences of being underprepared are more severe. This isn't within reach for everyone, not everyone should be a pilot. That fact makes mass adoption near impossible and that exacerbates the first issue, not being able to utilize economies of scale.
The way I see it, people can't be expected to operate flying vehicles safely in congested areas, it's just not a realistic expectation. But I do think there is a route to this Jetsons future. When we actually master self-driving vehicles, when it's a mature and reliable technology, an expected feature on every new car, when it's demonstrably safer than any human driver, and when you no longer require a driver's license to operate the vehicle, at that point we're finally ready for flying cars; the rest of the technology is already there waiting for us.
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I think if they become a thing people won't directly control them. Instead they will fly autonomously.
It's way easier to make something fly itself than drive itself
It's way easier to make something fly itself than drive itself.
That's not entirely true...
The thing is, for something to really be a "flying car" you need to be able to park it at home. That means you need to be able to fly it around a whole lot of hazards, buildings, trees, telephone poles, unpredictable children. Yes, a modern autopilot can take off, fly a route and land all by itself, but the airfields they're taking off and landing at have none of those hazards I just mentioned as well as air traffic controllers in the tower watching out for problems.
That said, I do think autonomous control is absolutely the way to get there. Just don't assume it'll be easy. We should still master self-driving on land first before we start applying it to personal aircraft.
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That reminds me of something my flight instructor told me as a teenager. If you lose your engine at night, aim for a dark patch, because lights mean structures. Set up for an emergency landing as you usually would, and as you get down to short final altitude, turn your landing light on. If you don't like what you see, turn it back off.
Classic!
Yeah I think I heard something along those lines. It's important to always have a contingency plan!
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the flying "car" in question. Just seems like a quadcopter to me, but I guess that's why I'm not in marketing.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Ya would think a flying car would at least have wheels. The marketing is doing the heavy lifting lol
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Air travel is considered to be among the safest methods of travel.
.....but thats only because historically we only let experts operate those vehicles. You thought it was bad to drink and drive? Wait until uncle Randy has 250 hours logged to get a liscense, and he drinks and flies!
wrote last edited by [email protected]Not to mention that the frequency of inspections even for the kind of planes amateur pilots fly is insane compared to cars.
Something like a Cessna 152 (common single seat, single prop, plane) has in addition to the annual inspection another one every 100h of flight, plus of course before using it the pilot has to conduct a pre-flight inspection (which is mostly visual).
Imagine if before starting your car you had to check that the steering wheel actually turns the wheels or that the brakes actually work and every 100h of use you have to take it to a mechanic for a more thorough inspection, plus the engine only lasts 30,000h and you have to replace it after that.
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It comes with a car carrier.
