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Flying cars

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Re: Flying cars

#11

Post by starpilot »

harperlee wrote: post #7
blunte wrote: post #2

Most people are lucky to drive a year without a costly mistake. Put them in the air, and their mistake (or a self-driving mistake) means death. And even if we can make personal air travel safe, how ever are we going to coordinate it? I appreciate the advances we gain from the crazy/idealistic people who invest time or money on flying car ideas, but it is just never going to happen. The earth will burn and humans will…

On the other hand, software that manages traffic in the air automatically might be much more simple. No kids suddenly crossing the street, no traffic deviations due to construction, no obsolete system of signalling that can be manually overriden by any construction worker, etc.

Indeed, this is why UAVs preceded unmanned cars. See the DARPA Grand Challenge.

Re: Flying cars

#12

Post by jacobolus »

unrealhoang wrote: post #10
blunte wrote: post #2

Most people are lucky to drive a year without a costly mistake. Put them in the air, and their mistake (or a self-driving mistake) means death. And even if we can make personal air travel safe, how ever are we going to coordinate it? I appreciate the advances we gain from the crazy/idealistic people who invest time or money on flying car ideas, but it is just never going to happen. The earth will burn and humans will…

Isn't it going to be easier to be safe on the sky as there's much more space, i.e. collision rate will be much much lower?

Small planes flown by amateurs are extremely unsafe compared to most kinds of transportation.

Re: Flying cars

#13

Post by A2017U1 »

jacobolus wrote: post #12
unrealhoang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it going to be easier to be safe on the sky as there's much more space, i.e. collision rate will be much much lower?

Small planes flown by amateurs are extremely unsafe compared to most kinds of transportation.

It's about the same if not less dangerous than riding a motorcycle.

https://inspire.eaa.org/2017/05/11/how-safe-is-it/

Re: Flying cars

#14

Post by diggernet »

hestipod wrote: post #9

I remember the Moller Sky Car ads that were in every Popular Science magazine of my youth 35-40 years ago. That beautiful, deep red, futuristic machine with the rotating engine pods was something little me was sure I'd be flying around in some day. Life disappoints.

I know how you feel. I used to live in the same town as them, and dropped by their location once to check it out. But still no SkyCar in my garage. Surprisingly, it appears they still exist.

https://moller.com/

Re: Flying cars

#15

Post by dreamcompiler »

blunte wrote: post #2

Most people are lucky to drive a year without a costly mistake. Put them in the air, and their mistake (or a self-driving mistake) means death. And even if we can make personal air travel safe, how ever are we going to coordinate it? I appreciate the advances we gain from the crazy/idealistic people who invest time or money on flying car ideas, but it is just never going to happen. The earth will burn and humans will…

Disagree. Autopilots for aircraft have been proven technology for 100 years. It's a dramatically easier problem because there are many fewer edge cases, more degrees of freedom for the control system to exploit, no fixed roads to follow, and less traffic. And with widespread use of transponders, aircraft talking to each other is already common. It's still considered future technology for cars.

Re: Flying cars

#17

Post by dreamcompiler »

jacobolus wrote: post #12
unrealhoang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it going to be easier to be safe on the sky as there's much more space, i.e. collision rate will be much much lower?

Small planes flown by amateurs are extremely unsafe compared to most kinds of transportation.

It's highly correlated with pilot experience, and it's not monotonic. Pilots with 20 hours are pretty safe because they are scared of everything. Pilots with 2000 hours are extremely safe because of their experience. Pilots with 200 hours are quite dangerous because they're complacent and overconfident.

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Zone-Second-How-Pilots/dp/007...

Re: Flying cars

#18

Post by dreamcompiler »

True flying cars exist. I watched one go from car mode to plane mode, fly around, land, and drive off the runway in car mode again at EAA in 2013. They work and they meet all the expectations we had when we were kids. Except one: They cost over a quarter million dollars. Everybody said we'd have flying cars, but nobody told us only rich people would be able to afford them.

Re: Flying cars

#19

Post by reggie44 »

Most people cant handle driving on the road, let alone in the sky. Especially if there are more people in the air. Wait until the cars start falling out of the sky killing people.

Re: Flying cars

#20

Post by benj111 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #15
blunte wrote: post #2

Most people are lucky to drive a year without a costly mistake. Put them in the air, and their mistake (or a self-driving mistake) means death. And even if we can make personal air travel safe, how ever are we going to coordinate it? I appreciate the advances we gain from the crazy/idealistic people who invest time or money on flying car ideas, but it is just never going to happen. The earth will burn and humans will…

Disagree. Autopilots for aircraft have been proven technology for 100 years . It's a dramatically easier problem because there are many fewer edge cases, more degrees of freedom for the control system to exploit, no fixed roads to follow, and less traffic. And with widespread use of transponders, aircraft talking to each other is already common. It's still considered future technology for cars.

A plane autopilot isnt really the same as full self driving though.

You might be right but in the flying car future we'll have millions of flying cars doing the daily commute, all trying to land in the middle of a city. So I guess flying cars will be like normal cars, the easy bit is the middle bit, either flying in well defined lanes, or driving on the motorway. The hard bit is at either end.

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