Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#211

Post by bitCromwell » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:35 AM UTC

melling wrote: post #118

danbruc wrote: post #31

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…

Let's build a bot to participate in HN discussions. Then we can all save some time and get back to work. My first two suggestions: Q: Someone is building flying cars. A: Do we really need them? Q: Someone is investing money into extending human life. A: Let's talk about the social implications of immortality.

We can abstract this a bit

Q: Innovation announced! A: Not possible based on my legacy experience/guild qualification.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#212

Post by elmar » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 11:44 AM UTC

orthoganol wrote: post #66

danbruc wrote: post #31

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 certainly think "flying buses" should come before flying cars.

We already have ryanair and easyjet.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#213

Post by zigzigzag » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 12:40 PM UTC

aurizon wrote: post #175

Translation:- Larry Page is spending millions of his personal wealth - which he is entitled to do - into a development quest to develop personal dual-use road/aircraft. This will never become economic, although is has been shown many times to be doable, with numerous products developed. None survived the economic screen, let alone the FAA screen. Let us see why:- Ever see a traffic jam? lines of 1000's of cars stoppe…

The air traffic control issues are surely the easiest aspect of the whole thing. It's just a large 3D pathfinding problem, the kind of thing computers eat for breakfast. I don't think anyone imagines they'd be manually flown.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#214

Post by Dove » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:10 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #119

smallnamespace wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a lot more space in the air than on land. But that's mitigated by the fact that the failure modes and much, much worse. I can drive safely at highway speeds with a couple hundred feet of separation between cars. FAA rules on safe separation between planes laterally is about 3 miles , or about 50 times the distance, or 2500 times the surface area. Plus planes compete with one another for access to airports,…

A 3 mile horizontal radius has little to do with flying and a lot to do with speed. At ordinary commercial airline speeds, it's the equivalent of a "20-second rule" (i.e. it's the distance covered in 20 seconds by a 500-600mph vehicle).

Just the same, cars can be driven almost bumper to bumper, at arbitrarily low speeds, in ten foot wide lanes. The realities of wind and minimum forward speed and prop wash dictate that aircraft will need a lot more clearance than a car does. I'm sure it will depend on the particular air vehicle and the rules of traffic in the sky, but I for one would have to be convinced that aircraft can give better throughput than a road can. On the face of things, I'm not sure that's the case.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#215

Post by amelius » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #31

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…

> Do we actually want flying cars?

Agree. Not every improvement in technology is actual progress. Let's skip flying cars and wait for teleportation.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#216

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

The hardest problem is going to be noise, and electric propulsion is not the solution. Rotating blades are very effective noise generators, and the only alternative we have to rotating blades in some form or other are rockets.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#217

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:22 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #31

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 think that most people who want a flying car imagine a world in which they are one of the few owners. Larry Page might be one of the few who could achieve that goal, but only so long as they are too expensive for the rest of us.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#218

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

bobsil1 wrote: post #161

knz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical about delivery drones for this reason. Between the noise, security concerns, and visual pollution it will be hard to implement mass adoption of UAV's for delivery.

You can run the motors out of phase to cancel noise.

It doesn't work.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#219

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #75

antiquark wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just designate all (currently free) parking spaces as drop zones, and all roads as emergency drop zones. Since ground-based cars will in all probability continue to be a thing, roads are not guaranteed to be empty, but are guaranteed to be plentiful and nearly everywhere. Autonomous cars can be signaled as some road strip is reserved for emergency landing, and within seconds they can vacate the road strip and block i…

Roads are guaranteed not to be empty enough for this purpose in any urban area - road traffic might diminish somewhat, but not go away, with the arrival of flying cars.

Even if a flying car could fold up to be the size of a current car while parked (which is not at all an easy matter) it will not be that small in a landing configuration.

Re: Larry Page is pouring millions into flying cars

#220

Post by mannykannot » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #110

fisherjeff wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we already have point-to-point 4-seater "air taxis". They're way more expensive than a ferry otherwise they'd be everywhere, and there's no reason to think a flying car would be cheaper.

...I hate to be aggressive here, but did you read the darn article? It's the reason we're even on this page, and it directly addresses your point. That's even underselling it, the entire purpose of the article is to ask and answer your point.

It does not so much address the issues as it glosses over them. For example, it assumes that past battery performance trends can be extrapolated, but the battery-makers, -engineers and -chemists themselves do not expect this. Nor does the article attempt to address the noise problem.