First off, How cool is this?! And the best part, is that it’s affordable and available within the year. Affordable is $50,000 and for a FLYING MACHINE, I’d say it’s affordable. And available within the year is according to the inventor on the radio this morning.
Anyway, on to my GQ:
NASA has developed “The Highway in the Sky” system to allow everyone to fly their personal flyers in the sky without crashing. According to the 60 Minutes piece, and again the radio interview this morning, He equates the system to a video game and all you have to do is avoid the other cars on your screen.
Um, does this concern anyone else? Assuming all hovercars equipped with this technology will show up on your screen, and it’s a clear day anyway, wouldn’t there be a number of vehicles where we will need something more? (maybe an infra-structure of where you can and can’t fly,like streets in the sky.)
Seems to me that unless there were some sort of highly-robust autonomous safety measures built in, the skies would rapidly turn into a scene of massive carnage, as well as raining holy terror on Earthbound unfortunates near the inevitable crashes. Living in the Boston area, I submit it’s frightening enough sharing highways where two dimensions of travel are all one needs to worry about most of the time. Adding a third would be a nightmare unless the sorts of controls Americans bridle under with righteous indignation were firmly established. Good gracious, imagine road-rage in the heavens, with vengeful drivers divebombing each other like angry (and rather massive) hornets overhead. Ergo, I conclude the aircraft as a generally-affordable consumer commodity is a menace to society, unless restricted to the point it would be no fun to own.
I’d just like to point out that under ideal circumstances, the third dimension is more of a godsend than an extra burden when it comes to the safety of travel. Given freedom to move in X, Y, and Z, the number of travellers that can get from their origins to their destinations without having to directly cross places goes up significantly. It does add to the complexity, though. Would definitely suggest having more traffic control regulation than seems necessary for hovercars, rather than less.
When I was a kid, the gee-whiz Popular Science articles said we’d all have our own helicopters by the time I was an adult. There were also Amphi-cars (a car/boat) and a couple of vehicles that transformed from car to airplane.
Do you fly your own helicopter from home to work? Me, neither.
Like weightlessness? Thing is, when somebody screws up hundreds or thousands of meters up, they fall. I’m sorry: I don’t want a roadway of my peers overhead. Uh-uh. The thought of Joe Sixpack-the-Maniac whipping around overhead in a bus-sized hovercar gives me the cold sweats. When he drunkenly plasters himself all over a roadside cut-away, that’s unfortunate, but mostly or him. Now I’ve gotta worry about that doofus plowing at 200 MPH into a school or an office building.
Personal flying vehicles have been just about to hit mass production for decades now. Let me know when someone is actually producing and selling the things in mass. (Then I’ll know to stay inside until enough crash for them to be outlawed.)
Well, first of all, there’s a lot of room in the sky, so you’re not going to have to worry about anything like gridlock, especially since there’s not going to be a lot of people buying those things (not at $50K a pop, anyway). And I don’t doubt that the aircraft will use the radar with which they’re equipped to keep the pilot/driver from slamming into building or other object.
Also, as Dean Kamen found out when he invented the Segway, there may, in fact, already be laws on the books, prohibiting the use of these vehicles in densely populated areas.
If this does pan out, one thing that I hope is done with them is that they are used by police and ambulance services. In many cities traffic is so bad that it’s difficult for emergency vehicles to get to where they’re needed even with the lights flashing and drivers trying to get out of their way. This technology could potentially save a lot of lives (since in many places within a city, you can’t land a helicopter because of the risk of wires catching in the rotors).
I don’t think people could afford the costs of professional maintenance and check-ups these things would need like actual aircraft do.
If you get a flat, run out of gas, electrical problem, engine overheats, etc. in a car you steer to the side of the road and call for a jump or tow.
Something like that happens in your flying car and you can kiss your ass goodbye.
I remember in the interview this morning that the inventor said, although designed to go 300 feet up, it would be used mostly at a much lower height, thereby minimizing danger from crashes (at least from deaths)
More information from the interview:
It runs on normal unleaded gas, and weighs only 250lbs qualifying it as some sort of ‘light-craft’ (I forget the actual term) which is already regulated.
Huh. From the OP’s link, Norris said his AirScooter would go up to 10,000 feet, and had a cruising speed of 55 MPH. Sure, if you stay below a few hundred feet you’re OK, but what’s stopping you from going ten times higher? And later on in the article is Paul Muller, whose SkyCar looks to be a two-seater, fully-enclosed cockpit with four pretty hefty-looking fans propelling it, ceiling of 20,000’ and cruising speed of 300MPH. It might do 400. That sucker is going to leave a divot.
Ultralight, which are prohibited by law from flying over densely populated areas like cities. Broomstick or one of our other flying Dopers can provide a link to the FAA regs, I’m sure.
