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Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

bloomberg.com

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Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#151

Post by oftenwrong »

thesimpsons1022 wrote: post #147

am I the only one that doesn't want flying cars? I want to be able to look up and see the sky, not traffic. I don't want drunk drivers ramming into buildings. I don't want to have to build a horizontal wall over my backyard for privacy. what benefit do they even have? I'd rather just have fast ground transportation

I'd rather just have slow ground transportation that's practical. Walking is a human's natural mode of transportation, yet so many modern cities are built in a way that makes walking useless. Allowing all to live within walking distance of stores, work, and friends would be a greater achievement than a society built on the flying car.

"The paradox of transportation in the late 20th Century is that while it became possible to travel to the moon, it also became impossible, in many cases, to walk across the street."

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#152

Post by twinkletwinkle »

douglance wrote: post #145
zieski wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if what we need is frequent in person interaction with other people? Spreading out further and further, eating up arable land with exurban homes, putting more distance between ourselves and others. It seems unhealthy for us and the "nature" you want to be in tune with. "Across the study period, 66 595 youths died by suicide, and rural suicide rates were nearly double those of urban areas for both males (19.93 an…

VR solves that.

How deliciously dystopian.

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#153

Post by serge2k »

outworlder wrote: post #102
Nokinside wrote: post #21

Helicopters and small planes already exist. We might have autonomous helicopters and small planes in the future, but flying car concept is flawed and not because it's hard to build one. - Preflight checks and flight safety. Larry should first build normal small aircraft that can do without constant manual checks before flight. This is actually good subgoal to work with even without flying cars in mind. Reliable infra…

> Preflight checks and flight safety. Larry should first build normal small aircraft that can do without constant manual checks before flight. Omg, this. The amount of checks required for any sort of aircraft is ridiculous. A lot of it involves button pushing and checking status. This could be automated. For instance, for a cessna 150: STARTING ENGINE Mixture – RICH Carb heat – COLD Prime – AS REQUIRED Master switch…

Everything you set automatically is now more complicated.

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#154

Post by serge2k »

BurningFrog wrote: post #88
6stringmerc wrote: post #66

As long as there's the FAA involved, flying cars are a stupid idea. They are shitty cars if they're any good at being airplanes, and they're underperforming and over-priced airplanes just because they can somewhat function as a car. Now, if Larry Page's flying car company is also lobbying to gut the FAA's ability to regulate his creation, that's a whole other can of worms. I don't think personal flight devices are a…

Flying cars would be a product for the world market. The FAA only controls a small part of that airspace.

you think other countries regulatory agencies are going to be kinder?

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#155

Post by 6stringmerc »

tim333 wrote: post #149
6stringmerc wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, you can use whatever inaccurate terms you'd like but I won't share that approach. Personally, having grown up in an aviation family and being a studied gear-head, I simply don't share your confidence that individual control is inferior to automation at the root. In fact, I think until AI is comparable to the human brain, arguing that automation and programming is better is wrong; moreover it's unsuitable…

We have machine operated lifts and trains, almost self driving cars, aircraft autopilots and having witnessed my own efforts at flying a plane I think a computer could quite likely do a safer job.

Oh really? Because there's a bunch of Air France wreckage just North of South America regarding a computer fuck-up that wasn't properly ajudicated by the pilots in command, which would have saved the passengers (as it had in other instances where the pilots saved the plane). That's just a high-profile one by pilots who were easily more qualified than you or I to be in charge of a major airliner.

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/avi...

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#156

Post by adwf »

kuschku wrote: post #120
adwf wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to take into account more than just the pure physical efficiency of rolling cars vs. flying. There is the practical efficiency too. When I drive my car to work, I have to take a big dogleg out to the motorway, sit in traffic for 5 minutes to join, then drive down the motorway which is winding between the towns but mostly going the right direction, then take another big dogleg off + traffic, and finally I'm a…

Or one could increase the density of where you live, and build a transit network. The metro also usually goes in straight lines.

Yes, but much like a motorway, it's someone else's straight line, not mine. I still have to get to a station and then get to my destination afterwards, which could involve a lot of walking. Not to mention that not everybody wants to live in high density housing, it has a whole set of unwelcome problems of its own.

Personally speaking I love dense living and walking everywhere, but it's not for everyone.

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#157

Post by 6stringmerc »

outworlder wrote: post #135
handedness wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The examples you gave take no more than 30 seconds. Sure, FADEC can eliminate most of them, but they're quick. Other examples–checking the oil, the tank sumps, the intake, the tires, the flap tracks, the rudder bolt(s), the wing tips, the tailwheel springs, etc.–are the stuff that software largely can't replace, and are the more time-consuming part of taking off. Put another way, the latest fighter jets and commercia…

> The examples you gave take no more than 30 seconds. Sure, FADEC can eliminate most of them, but they're quick. Sure. Maybe I shouldn't have picked the engine section as the example. In the context of this thread, way more than that is needed. > Put another way, the latest fighter jets and commercial heavies still have significant visual preflights. And that is fine. The stakes are high, the plane itself is much mor…

The "staff" you mention that does the walk-around of the major commercial airliner is/are also the person(s) who will be piloting the plane, IIRC.

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#158

Post by oftenwrong »

alphapapa wrote: post #113
andys627 wrote: post #92

We'll all be happier and healthier and have more money for other stuff if we build our cities around walking, biking, and shared transit. Suburbs = unhealthy, inefficient, unhappy (it has been studied - look it up don't just comment reply "I love the suburbs and my driving my Model X everywhere").

I contend that people are happier and healthier where the population density is lower, resulting in less crime, less pollution, less noise, lower cost of living, more space, more privacy, etc. If you want to live in big buildings, packed together like sardines, unable to escape from the noise of your neighbors and everything that goes on in the city outside the window, more power to you. But don't presume to say that…

The problem is that usually you still have to commute to work. Living far away from jobs means a long, unhappy commute. The unhappiness caused by long commutes is well researched - look it up if you like. People compromise and live somewhere in between, which often means the worst of both worlds.

Contrary to what you say, dense cities can be quiet and have isolated private space. Look at the vast single-family-home suburbs of Tokyo. The population density is high even without large buildings, and you can live without a car easily (if desired), but you have your own house with a garden on a quiet, secluded street in a safe neighborhood all within walking distance of the train that can take you downtown. Not particularly cheap or spacious, though. The noisy, crime-riddled, no-privacy-at-all hellish city you describe is common, but it's not the only possibility.

What the sibling comment says is true about social interaction in cities as well. Living in the city people have more friends, more sexual partners, attend more events, and interact more with strangers. For some that is a plus.

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#159

Post by 6stringmerc »

serge2k wrote: post #154
BurningFrog wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying cars would be a product for the world market. The FAA only controls a small part of that airspace.

you think other countries regulatory agencies are going to be kinder?

Actually, they will. Not necessarily "kinder" but certainly more "lax" in my opinion.

The thirst for pilots in expanding markets - notably Asia - is forecasted to exceed the number of pilots working globally at the present. In order to fulfill this need, qualifications will conceivably be relaxed.

Re: Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars

#160

Post by 6stringmerc »

marvin wrote: post #142

This thread has the potential to become hilariously cringeworthy in a decade or so. I'll be checking back in five years to see if lightweight VTOL aircraft are still an idea that is "obviously stupid because we've tried it before and it didn't work". My guess is that the progress in batteries and electric motors will have made this concept a lot more feasible by then. At some point it will be a completely obvious ide…

No, they do work just fine with Jet-A. Are they practical? No. Will electric battery technology overcome the constraints within 5 years? That's a viable hypothesis, sure.
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