The Business of Flying Cars
- Thread starter mikea
- Start date
inav8r
Line Up and Wait
Insurance and lawsuits will keep their dream from coming to production past the prototype (assuming it even ever gets built)...
*sigh*
*sigh*
ScottM
Taxi to Parking
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2005
- Messages
- 42,529
- Location
- Variable, but somewhere on earth
- Display Name
Display name:
iBazinga!
inav8r said:
Shoot I am just thinking the salt on the roads around in the winter woud be reason enough for it to never work. Talk about corrosion problems
fgcason
En-Route
I'm still not seeing it.
They can throw technology and computers at the flying car problem until it actually flies and maybe with some semblance of safely.
BUT:
(a) Say a mere 1000 of these things are flying over NYC. ATC can't handle that assuming they're not NORDO. 250,000 of them over the same city? How about 700,000+ during rush hour with stressed out psychotic p!@$ed off operators trying to get ahead of each other? It's just not going to happen, well, maybe it can happen - exactly once. (I fully intend to invest in the undertaker and scrap metal markets the day before it happens though)
(b) Training and skill levels. This is the equivalent of getting the entire population into CE152's and having them fly CAT IIIc approaches by tomorrow afternoon. Your average auto driver in reality simply is not going to be able to handle it no way no how, and the idea is to throw them into a 3D frictionless environment with no physical boundaries. These are the same people that can't handle the coefficient of friction of rubber on concrete. We won't even get into crosswinds or wind tunnel effects in high rise concrete and glass canyons. Ban them from cities defeats the purpose and they are the same people that run redlights so they'd go there anyway.
The random elitist rich guy? Sure. The mindless peasant masses? Not going to happen.
+20 points for concepts
+100 points for effort
+30 points for technological advances
+1 point for idealistic pipe dreams of the perfect world
MINUS a couple hundred million points for real world practical application
They can throw technology and computers at the flying car problem until it actually flies and maybe with some semblance of safely.
BUT:
(a) Say a mere 1000 of these things are flying over NYC. ATC can't handle that assuming they're not NORDO. 250,000 of them over the same city? How about 700,000+ during rush hour with stressed out psychotic p!@$ed off operators trying to get ahead of each other? It's just not going to happen, well, maybe it can happen - exactly once. (I fully intend to invest in the undertaker and scrap metal markets the day before it happens though)
(b) Training and skill levels. This is the equivalent of getting the entire population into CE152's and having them fly CAT IIIc approaches by tomorrow afternoon. Your average auto driver in reality simply is not going to be able to handle it no way no how, and the idea is to throw them into a 3D frictionless environment with no physical boundaries. These are the same people that can't handle the coefficient of friction of rubber on concrete. We won't even get into crosswinds or wind tunnel effects in high rise concrete and glass canyons. Ban them from cities defeats the purpose and they are the same people that run redlights so they'd go there anyway.
The random elitist rich guy? Sure. The mindless peasant masses? Not going to happen.
+20 points for concepts
+100 points for effort
+30 points for technological advances
+1 point for idealistic pipe dreams of the perfect world
MINUS a couple hundred million points for real world practical application
Last edited:
Dave Krall CFII
Final Approach
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2005
- Messages
- 5,022
- Location
- Seattle WA
- Display Name
Display name:
Dave Krall CFII SEL SES, Cmcl HELI
tom. said:
You're absolutly safe from the high volume air traffic fiction visions that will never materialize using any aircraft, much less these hybrids.
It is still quite feasible though in the traditional smaller pilot populations of the home/amateur/experimental category, especially with the improvements in engine weight v. available power combined with improved strength to weight ratios of airframe materials since the fairly successful hybrid compromise that Molt Taylor (sic?) built and flew.