Or you’d be Philo Farnsworth or John Logie Baird.
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/story085.htm
Am I being whooshed? We’ve had ambulance helicopters (trauma helis, or however you want to call them) here in cities in the Netherlands for years (with certain restrictions though, because of the noise and possibly cost). I always assumed that they would exist in every major city in the industrialized countries. Isn’t that the case?
Didja read the rest of Bosda’s post? He lists the problems that ambulance helicopters do have, and then theorizes (though admittedly because of a typo on his part it looks like he’s saying the opposite) that flying cars wouldn’t have these kinds of problems.
Ah, sorry, Tuckerfan, I misread that later bit. Carry on.
This is why, I (technology lover that I am) never get too excited over stories about developments about flying cars because whoop-de-do here is another technological wonder for the rich that I will never be affected by or even come within a hundred yards of.
Now, if Moller really wanted to make something for the general public he would just take one of those engine nacelles off his flying car and stick a seat, fuel tank, and handlebars on it and make a badass flying motorcycle. Seeing people race something like that would seriously rule.
Just curious, do you have a reference where I can read more about the shuttle being subject to ATC just like everyone else? Seems unlikely to me, but I’m willing to be educated. I just can’t imagine NASA calling FSS to file an IFR flight plan for the Class A transition. Is the shuttle expected to see and avoid like everyone else?
I was also wondering how you legally made this flight without working fuel gauges. Or were the fuel gauges not electric in this airplane?
You need fuel gauges like my Grumman AA1’s - sight tubes in the cockpit. Which, after about 5 years of flying I never looked at once. Horrible things. Never trusted them.
Tuckerfan is correct. I am a good speller, but a terrible typist.
The corrected text is above.
I don’t have a direct cite at this moment in time. However, when Columbia blew up a number of media outlets made reference to this in a low key way. The FAR’s do make mention of space shuttle by name in several places, but due to the size of the darn book it would take me a bit to find every single reference. It might be easier to go to www.faa.gov and perform a search.
Yes, NASA does file a flight plan - civilian pilots are warned out of areas where the shuttle will be operating through the use of various restrictions, which are disseminated in advance. The precise manner in which the flight plan is filed may differ from how I do it, but the shuttle does not come plunging down out of the sky and scattering aircraft left and right without warning.
Also, please remember than by the time the shuttle enters controlled airspace it’s a glider. A really big, fast glider, but an unpowered aircraft nontheless. It thus has right of way over all powered aircraft. The flight restrictions in effect at the time of descent serve to limit surronding traffic to a minimum, and it’s up to any pursuit craft to stay out of the shuttle’s way.
Oh, the fuel gauges were most certainly electric and not operating - but you don’t specifically need fuel gauges, you need a means of determining the fuel on board. And that’s real basic - open the tank, look inside, note quantity of fuel. You then have fuel available at take off. While flying, use quantity of fuel available at takeoff, the rate of fuel burn per hour, and the time in flight to determine how much has been used, and how much is left. Since an airplane fuel gauge is only required to be accurate when on “empty”, timing the fuel burn is more accurate than relying on the gauges during any flight.
Likewise, radios are only required for Class D airspace and above - and the flight was conducted in Class E and G, to and from non-towered airports so therefore radios were not required.
Transponders are not required in Class E or G either, thus that was not an issue.
As I said, I did take a few minutes to review the minimums required for VFR flight and found that, despite the non-working electrical systems, the plane did conform to the minimum required for that flight. Had it not, I would have called South Bend FSDO and inquired about a ferry permit. This would have left me with the problem of getting my passenger home (you can’t take passengers on ferry flights) but the home base said that if it came to that they’d send someone out to pick him up. Please don’t think I launched the plane on a lark - I took the time to make sure the flight home wouldn’t be a problem.
I bought a hang glider at a yard sale once. fixed it up, already had my Hang 3 license, and took it for a test ride.
Seriously, I’m not talking about right now having flying cars… I’m talking about in 50 years hypothetically, what regulations would be in place if we had cars like in Back to the Future or Jetsons.
Not :rolleyes: right now of course!
Wow that sounded grouchy…
walks over to get another cup of coffee
I love you all…I feel better now.
Ahem! Where were we?