Irrespective of whether the Moller Skycar is real or a scam, is the vehicle it claims to be technically possible or feasible? If I understand it correctly, it’s supposed to be a ducted fan VTOL that can function as a hovercraft at low speeds, fly in a hybrid mode (lift partially from fans, partially from wings) at intermediate speed, and transition smoothly to horizontal flight at it’s maximum cruise speed. On the one hand the Osprey does something like this however well or poorly; on the other hand, I’ve seen lots of ducted fan VTOL concepts from decades ago, so obviously nothing came of them. Does the concept have an inherent fatal flaw?
The article is dated Oct 8 2008. Is there a follow-up?
It requires an absurd amount of power to work.
Not technically undoable, but pretty much impractical.
Moeller makes welfare queens and CEO’s look respectable by comparision.
Why do I have to point this out in every flying unicorn thread?
There is not and never will be such a thing as a flying unicorn. The concept is incoherent.
What there is and can be are Pegasi. Flying horses that can be bridled and saddled. But imagine the compromises you would have to make for a flying unicorn! They could only be ridden by virgins. The alicorn would add unnecessary weight, and would make the beast (and rider) a constant target for poachers. Your costly animal would inevitably become too spoiled and obese to fly, as every 12-year-old girl in the neighborhood would constantly be sneaking over to pet it and brush its mane and feed it apples and popcorn and Chiclets. Lastly, they would only be available in Invisible Pink.
The term “flying unicorn” gets people thinking that they can just hop on and take off, just like any ordinary flying horse. But unicorns are not horses! You’re really going to purchase a mode of transportation that won’t let you near it the instant you’re not a virgin anymore? Seriously? What happens if you stop being a virgin in midair? People don’t always plan ahead in such matters.
I think I saw that movie but don’t remember what the transportation was. What was it?
What law of physics is violated by antigravity?
I’m certainly no physicist, but my understanding is that every model of gravity has some problems associated with it. Gravity’s instantaneous propagation defies special relativity. A particle model for gravity seems to suggest that stuff should be heating up because of the continuous interaction with particles, and we don’t see that.
But assuming the particle model to be true (and I know of no proof it isn’t) there must be some material of such density that it is opaque with respect to gravity particles. Yes?
Potentially a number of them, from what I understand.
AFAIK, nobody’s demonstrated how fast gravity propagates.
Not necessarily. First, gravity might not be caused by particles, but could be a wave, like an electromagnetic field. Secondly, if there are particles involved with gravity, there might be some characteristic about them which provents heating from occuring.
You find that material, and I’ll see to it you get a Nobel Prize.
My incredibly limited understanding of Dr. Einstein’s work says that it might be possible to create what could best be called “synthetic gravity” which means that it has some of the characteristics of what we call artificial gravity, but would, in fact, have distinct differences. (What they are, I dunno, and I’m not digging around for the article on the NASA scientist who came up with the theory.)
At the moment, we’re not even sure what gravity is, and how its created (we know mass is involved, but not what it is about mass which creates gravity). Until those matters are settled (and its unlikely to happen until sometime after we get a collider larger than the LHC built), the odds of someone coming up with even a realistically possible means of generating artificial/synthetic gravity. It may turn out that you can do it, but the amount of energy required is so vast that we’ve no hope of generating it, save some magical power source capable of producing as much energy as the sun does.
I’m not surprised. I almost said “at least the '50s.” It’s just that I don’t know many people who were in school in the '30s. My grandfather was born 1935 :).
Why all the hate on folding wings? Figheter jets which launch from carriers have folding wings.
I’ll trust the engineering of a $30 million plane over a $200k plane every time.
In the 1930s, a lot of things were “just around the corner.”
Its starting to look a lot like the 1930s, too.
It’s all worth it if Swing comes back! 
Well, those airplanes are maintained by guys who know what they’re doing, and they are built without worrying too much about cost. It doesn’t matter how expensive and complicated your fighter’s folding wings are, because when you’re the navy you can throw money and manpower at the problem until the risk becomes acceptable.
I’m not saying that folding or retractable wings are the kiss of death, just that they’re a weak point and an engineering compromise. A commuter aircraft has to be cheap and reliable. You can get a cheap and reliable aircraft right today. Which would you rather fly, the stock aircraft, or an aircaft where the wings have been sawn in half and put back together with a hinge? Folding wings add complexity and another point of failure.
I certainly agree it’s not likely to be in the next ten years.
But there’s a huge gulf between “never, except for magic” and “not in the next hundred years.”
Most of your objections deal with the difficulties involved in having a unicorn instead of a horse – whether it flies or not is beside the point – and there is nothing there that cannot be gotten around with the proper methods.
It could only be ridden by virgins. While technically true, it is also true that unicorns have a cultural definition of “virgin”, much as many young people today consider oral sex as “third base” whereas 50 years ago it wasn’t even a scoring option. By raising unicorns in an environment saturated with suitably kinky and depraved media, one could raise (or is it lower?) the bar so that anyone could befriend them who hasn’t had interspecies anal sex.
The alicorn adds too much weight to fly. Even for a non-flying unicorn, the horn is hollow and (possibly magically) effectively without mass. Otherwise its neck would have to have more muscles than its hindquarters just to be able to lift its head, swivel it around, etc.
The unicorn would be spoiled by little girls offering it treats. Possibly, but a unicorn who has been sufficiently perverted on the Virginity Scale to allow mainstream use would have a drooling leer so vicious that most little girls would be quite put off.
They are only available in Invisible Pink. Now that’s just silly. Making a case against the praticality of a flying unicorn is one thing, but presenting completely made-up fantasy as facts just cheapens your argument.
Most of the theoretical physics discussions I’ve seen on it might as well be “never, except for magic” category, however. (Not that I’ve read any of the really detailed discourses on the matter.)
Flying Car you say? Nonsense. Jetpacks son, the WAAAAAVE of the future!
I saw that (or something like it) on Slashdot back in 2003. Calling it a jetpack is stretching things pretty far - it’s more like an airplane that sucks and doesn’t go very high or fast and doesn’t have a cockpit and probably uses a ton of fuel and costs an arm and a leg.