Flying Cars!

The concept of flying cars has been around for a long time. And my opinion on the matter is that its a useless idea. From what I understand, a flying car is a vehicle that is both airworthy to be flying in the NAS and also street legal so it can be driven on a road (you can taxi around your C172 on the airport taxiways all day to practice taxing but you cannot taxi that C172 on the street even if it is wide enough, unless you landed there in an emergency and are going to takeoff.

From an engineering perspective the flying care is not an issue but from a practical point of view it is more complicated than owing your own airplane.

Your vehicle now must comply with both the FAA Regs and your local state DMV. If you get violated busting Class B in flight and your certificate is suspended for a month, can you still drive it around on the streets and vice versa with major traffic violation. What if you get into a car accident? Does the NTSB come in and investigate....

Quite frankly, flying cars are not that attractive as a stand alone airplane or a sand along car, whatever the make and model. When you mix the two it looks ugly.

Anyways, what is your opinion?

I'm still waiting for my promised jet-pack! ;)

I'm still waiting for my promised jet-pack! ;)

Here you are, Charlie.

Here you are, Charlie.

Thanks, Larry, but I think I like mine better.

You can buy a Moller 400 on EBay right now for $1 Mil. Or buy one of these 4 from $94K to $150 K- Link: https://youtu.be/VRZNLBL7Px4. The Maveric LSA (sailplane) does not require a license. The PAL-V1 is a gyrocopter so is safer.

Chuck B

Napamule

You're over simplifying the concept and not applying foresight. As of right now, any flying car will probably evolve out of the drone idea using blades for VTOL, and may run on gasoline or natural gas. Though, all electric powertrains are possible but you have weight considerations. There will be no head on collisions or any of that as the car, or flying car in this instance will be fully automated with a wealth of sensors. GPS will be its primary navigation system with an INS for augmentation. There will be invisible roads in the air much like how planes follow a flight plan waypoint to waypoint. This is what is coming withen the next 30 years. And in 30 years time I shall be 70 years old. Unreal.

Beyond that is a little something called anti-gravity and I truly believe we know how to use it. I'm sure at the famed Area-51 they have the technology. The concept is all there in Einstein's field equations. I'm pretty sure if he was still around today we'd already have the technology. I've been of the opinion going back some 25 years now that fire is old tech. Fire was discovered during the Pleistocene epoch and to this very day fire is STILL used for planes, trains, automobiles, missiles and power plants. When anti-gravity rolls around things will change like you never thought possible. I'm sure once the quantum computers roll out we'll be able to solve massive engineering, scientific, medical science, chemistry and everything in between problems to achieve it. Can you even imagine what a cluster of quantum computers would be capable of? :eek: Kiss AES 256 good bye. It'll brute force that in about 10 minutes if that. This is why I think it's very important we teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) from grade school on up as this is what life in the foreseeable future will require. AI and robotics will be a massive part of it as well and my Amazon Echo Dot (spy tap) agrees.