The Flying Car

[Lindley]

Pretty much the same as the advantages of a small plane, without the downsides (no runway required), I would imagine.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Lindley wrote:

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The notion that something flying would care less about the weather than something driving is a bit too ridiculous for me to get past.

I was just saying that since flying cars, by definition, don't touch the surface of the road, then things like icy, snowy or slick roads can logically never be a problem.

OTOH: If it's a blizzard or windstorm or something like that, then yes, that would be a problem.

[Lindley]

Traditionally, the two biggest threats to aircraft from weather are thunderstorms (airframe-damaging turbulence, and low level wind shear near the ground, not to mention downbursts) and icing.

It's not clear whether these magical flying cars would care about icing. Presumably they would have some form of instrument-linked autopilot to make clouds a non-issue.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Might as well get this one over with:

[gturner]

I don't see many advantages. If you're only letting them stack three levels deep, you could've done the same thing with a wider road. Some other issues are that people can't see underneath or behind,or really overhead, so when someone blows past them from below or above they'll probably find it disconcerting. Our visual system evolved primarily to track threat motion in the horizontal plane. We'd probably get used to it, though. We can get used to almost anything.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There are other things we can, and should, put forth, that are actually realistic. True, universal, personal rapid transit, for example. Something like that would be much more useful (not to mention safer) than any concept of a flying car.

[gturner]

Would that look anything like the Atlanta Airport?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I was thinking more of a Personal rapid transit system. The one in ATL is basically the same as a subway car, with dozens of people in it at any given time. Ideally, a truly personal system would have a car available whenever anyone, even one person at at a time, wanted to use it. Since the whole thing would be controlled by computer anyway (as would any flying car system), it would be intelligent enough to have a car waiting for you when you needed one, and return it to the 'pool' when you're done. No waiting.

[gturner]

The problem there is cleaning the car out after each use, which is usually done by a rental company. Otherwise you have peanuts, cat hairs, and beer cans rolling around the floorboards.

[Lindley]

gturner wrote:

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The problem there is cleaning the car out after each use, which is usually done by a rental company. Otherwise you have peanuts, cat hairs, and beer cans rolling around the floorboards.

"Autowash."

[publiusr]

When people think of flying cars, they think of the spinner. When people think spaceships to LEO, they think Orion III from 2001.

Yet spacecraft don't need wings in a vacuum, but craft need wings to fly in an atmosphere. This is why we have airplanes and capsules, not flying cars and SSTO spaceplanes. Here's hoping for anti-gravity. Not holding my breath though.

[JustAFriend]

Your grandfather could have bought a flying car in 1946.

The fact there are none around except in museums says a lot.



http://www.airventuremuseum.org/coll...%20Aerocar.asp

....and as far as weather, try going up in a Cessna in ANY weather. You can drive your car through far worse than would ground a 747...

[Trekker4747]

That's not a flying car. Not even a roadable airplane. It's just an airplane with a car-like body.

[Robert Maxwell]

If it's a car and it can fly, it's a flying car. QED.

[T'Girl]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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you could th erotically fly safely across the Grand Canyon

A spelling error I know, but for a moment there ...

The flying car without a elaborate air traffic control system would be the main problem as i see it. Having tens of millions of people in the their individual flying cars operating completely by VFR would be a horror story.