41–50 of 242 posts
There is just zero need for this right now, and is just silly nonsense. Work on making our ground systems 100% safe, efficient, and reliable first.
Do we actually want flying cars? They are probably less efficient because you have to overcome gravity, they are probably going to be pretty noisy, falling out of the sky and smashing into the ground is a new failure mode, ... Flying cars are certainly a nice gadget, but do we really need or want them? I can only think of two good arguments for flying cars, entering the third dimension if we run out of space on the s…
I'm saying it now. Flying cars for the general population is just not going to happen until the repulsor lift is invented, and ubiquitous with all aircraft. Many, many years into the future. Long after those of us on HN are gone. There is just zero need for this right now, and is just silly nonsense. Work on making our ground systems 100% safe, efficient, and reliable first.
With self driving, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than autonomous cars. Any point in a 30 mile typical travel radius is a <15 minute flight.
I hope they fly themselves as well. Humans can barely manage to safely pilot a car in 2 dimensions. I don't want to think of the carnage that would result if we took existing traffic and moved it 10,000 feet up in the air. Every fender bender would become a multiple fatality.
Forget electric. That's just a gimmick that allows these companies to say "in five to ten years because batteries." Prove it. Make a gas powered one to prove your concept. The simplest flying machine is probably an autogyro. Automate that for point to point transport, show the automation, redundancy, and safety for urban use. Solve those real issues and then we can talk about fancy designs.
How is an autogyro simpler than a fixed wing aircraft? The both have a motor, and on one of them the wings have to move.
I hope they fly themselves as well. Humans can barely manage to safely pilot a car in 2 dimensions. I don't want to think of the carnage that would result if we took existing traffic and moved it 10,000 feet up in the air. Every fender bender would become a multiple fatality.
Wouldn't you move it 1,000 feet up, 2,000 feet up, 3,000 feet up...
There's a lot more space in the air than on land.
Plus, in 3D you can make two non-intersecting non-parallel straight paths. Can't do that in 2D.
Forget electric. That's just a gimmick that allows these companies to say "in five to ten years because batteries." Prove it. Make a gas powered one to prove your concept. The simplest flying machine is probably an autogyro. Automate that for point to point transport, show the automation, redundancy, and safety for urban use. Solve those real issues and then we can talk about fancy designs.
"This kind of design wouldn’t work with conventional aircraft engines because 10 engines would be way too heavy. But electric motors can be made extremely small and light, allowing even a car-size vehicle to have 10 of them."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely it would be simpler than dealing with the complexity current '2d' autonomous car systems face? As long as you have designated drop zones, everything else becomes mathematically simpler.
But their entire path would require a drop zone. So in effect, there would be these long strips on the ground mirroring the flight paths of these flying cars. You might even run out of space on the ground for drop zones.
Forget electric. That's just a gimmick that allows these companies to say "in five to ten years because batteries." Prove it. Make a gas powered one to prove your concept. The simplest flying machine is probably an autogyro. Automate that for point to point transport, show the automation, redundancy, and safety for urban use. Solve those real issues and then we can talk about fancy designs.
huh, it looks like he might be under the mistaken impression that he's actually pouring it into small airplanes, as was I after reading the article.