Is this the future of technology?

[Robert Maxwell]

On the contrary, I think flying makes a lot of sense in cities. What is the primary problem with driving in a city? It's traffic. The problem is that everyone going every direction shares the same plane and their routes intersect everywhere. Because of this, we have stop signs, stop lights, traffic circles, and so forth to decide who gets to use those places of intersection and when. That creates huge inefficiencies in travel because you are constantly stopping to give others a turn with that shared space, or taking your turn while others stop and wait for you. With more planes on which drivers could travel available, those going in each direction could be separated and would no longer have their routes intersect with that of others going in other directions. You would never have to stop except at your destination. All the roads would basically become freeways and every intersection would become a freeway interchange with ramps rather than stop signs, stop lights, or traffic circles.

Outside of cities, flying would probably increase your speed somewhat, shortening the travel time, but it's in cities where flying cars would really increase the efficiency of travel.

This would only work in large cities if you had 100% reliable computer controlled systems. Otherwise, imagine the nightmare of the typical city congestion in a 3-d environment from the viewpoint of the driver. Now add in the typical bad driving habits you see on the roads today. Driving slow in fast lanes, no use of turn signals, abrupt lane changes, crossing multiple lanes of traffic, etc.

I want no part of that.

Why does it have to be 100% reliable? Absolutely none of the transportation methods we have today are "100% reliable," so requiring that standard of any future methods is simply asinine. They just need to be better/safer than what we have now, not absolutely foolproof.

 

[infinix]

Why does it have to be 100% reliable? Absolutely none of the transportation methods we have today are "100% reliable," so requiring that standard of any future methods is simply asinine. They just need to be better/safer than what we have now, not absolutely foolproof.

The fact that in a urban environment, if a flying car crashed, it would likely kill additional pedestrians and bystanders. Even if flying cars were made as safe as airplanes, there would be so many flying cars that there will be that many more crashes and possible casualties.

 

[farmkid]

This would only work in large cities if you had 100% reliable computer controlled systems. Otherwise, imagine the nightmare of the typical city congestion in a 3-d environment from the viewpoint of the driver. Now add in the typical bad driving habits you see on the roads today. Driving slow in fast lanes, no use of turn signals, abrupt lane changes, crossing multiple lanes of traffic, etc.

I want no part of that.

It's certainly true that driving in such an environment would require more skill than what we currently have. Drivers would have to watch out in 3 dimensions, rather than in two dimensions as is the case now. That third dimension complicates things considerably. If it were to have any chance of working, there would have to be some sort of technological enhancement to aid drivers in being aware of what's going on around them.

That being said, my comment was directed more specifically at the idea that flying cars wouldn't really be useful in cities. The associated problems are really a separate question from that.

 

[Lindley]

If it were to have any chance of working, there would have to be some sort of technological enhancement to aid drivers in being aware of what's going on around them.

Well, in airplanes, there are now Mode S transponders available which can inform the pilot about nearby planes. One of the planes I rent has an alert system that will say "Traffic! 3 o'clock, same altitude" or something similar.

Of course, this system is always going off uselessly when I'm in the middle of landing. Yes, I know there's another plane waiting to take the runway....it's not perfect yet.

Such a system wouldn't be of much use when you're expecting to be in a congested environment, though. Which is sort of the problem. Take the average congested highway, stretch it a hundred times wider, and add a third dimension----usually, planes are pretty far apart from their neighbors even in a "busy" area. Trying to put all that into a city unavoidably eliminates that safety factor just due to the size of the space you're operating in.

Plus, any car that doesn't have a transponder wouldn't show up.

 

[JustAFriend]

Wow, everyone is still debating flying cars?
Your granddads had flying cars and a few still exist.
The fact there are no skies full of them speaks volumes....

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think it would be more realistic and achievable to shoot for universal, personal rapid (ground) transit, than to bother with flying cars.

If you've got personal transit that is instantly available, can take you anywhere automatically, and is safe to use, does it really matter if it FLIES? We have been conditioned to think that flying is cool, but that is a means to an end, nothing more. The end result is getting people where they want to go, when they want. That is what matters. If we can get there without having to bother with flying, then fine.

 

[Lindley]

Wow, everyone is still debating flying cars?
Your granddads had flying cars and a few still exist.
The fact there are no skies full of them speaks volumes....

The skies are full of similar airplanes. It's just trying to make the planes reasonable to use on the highway as well that's been the catch.

I'll be interested to see how well the Terrafugia Transition fares. Seems like a spiritual cousin to that car.

 

[farmkid]

Well, in airplanes, there are now Mode S transponders available which can inform the pilot about nearby planes. One of the planes I rent has an alert system that will say "Traffic! 3 o'clock, same altitude" or something similar.

Of course, this system is always going off uselessly when I'm in the middle of landing. Yes, I know there's another plane waiting to take the runway....it's not perfect yet.

Such a system wouldn't be of much use when you're expecting to be in a congested environment, though. Which is sort of the problem. Take the average congested highway, stretch it a hundred times wider, and add a third dimension----usually, planes are pretty far apart from their neighbors even in a "busy" area. Trying to put all that into a city unavoidably eliminates that safety factor just due to the size of the space you're operating in.

Plus, any car that doesn't have a transponder wouldn't show up.

Such a system as it currently exists probably wouldn't be much use for flying cars for the reasons you say. But, it might be a starting point to develop something that would work for flying cars.

However, considering the driving habits I see on the roads every day, I have to wonder if some sort of centrally coordinated system in which the cars will be mostly controlled by computer with minimal input from the driver might the only way to make it work without an unacceptably high death toll.

I think it would be more realistic and achievable to shoot for universal, personal rapid (ground) transit, than to bother with flying cars.

If you've got personal transit that is instantly available, can take you anywhere automatically, and is safe to use, does it really matter if it FLIES? We have been conditioned to think that flying is cool, but that is a means to an end, nothing more. The end result is getting people where they want to go, when they want. That is what matters. If we can get there without having to bother with flying, then fine.

No, it doesn't matter if it flies. But, if the goal is to get from A to B as fast as possible, the third dimension provided by flying vastly increases the capacity of transport systems. If sufficient capacity can be achieved by staying on the ground, fine. But that may not always be possible, and if that's the case,then going into the air may be the only way to keep the system efficient.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Even assuming that taking to the skies *does* increase capacity (which is probably not guaranteed), there are other issues to consider. To have a true flying car system would take a hundred years or more from now. A ground-based personal rapid transit system would be much more realistically achieved, given the level of technology that we have now. Indeed, in many communities, PRT systems already exist; it may take awhile before the entire country achieves a system like what I saw on Mega Engineering awhile back (all transit is achieved through PRT, and vehicles are available instantly, whenever you want them, with no more user effort required than taking an elevator today), but it won't take anywhere near as long to get that kind of a system as it would with flying cars.

(True, we don't yet have a simple, efficient, completely reliable system of remotely controlling all passenger vehicles, but we would also need that same system for flying cars as well.)

I am sticking with my view that the reason many people want flying cars is simply because it sounds cool and science fiction-y and fun. There's no hard evidence that it would be the most efficient system. If anything, quite the opposite - with all the dangers inherent in flying, any increases gained by flying cars might be outweighed by the drawbacks. If a ground-based PRT car malfunctions, it would simply stop, and other cars would be automatically routed around it. A flying car does that, and it plummets out of the sky - falling on God knows what. Nowhere would be safe from that.

Also: Lots of people are afraid of flying, but not too many are afraid of driving. Think about that. What good is a transit system that people are afraid to even use at all?

 

[sojourner]

Why does it have to be 100% reliable? Absolutely none of the transportation methods we have today are "100% reliable," so requiring that standard of any future methods is simply asinine. They just need to be better/safer than what we have now, not absolutely foolproof.

For the same reason that airplane incidents get much more media play than auto incidents. It may not actually have to be 100% reliable, but it will have to be perceived as such by the public.

 

[Talosian]

Why does it have to be 100% reliable? Absolutely none of the transportation methods we have today are "100% reliable," so requiring that standard of any future methods is simply asinine. They just need to be better/safer than what we have now, not absolutely foolproof.

For the same reason that airplane incidents get much more media play than auto incidents. It may not actually have to be 100% reliable, but it will have to be perceived as such by the public.

But that's a different matter entirely.

You're essentially admitting the public irrationally prioritizes and dramatizes some accidental deaths over others with no regards to their probability. Fine, but once we admit this to be the case we're essentially saying it's a question of saying how feasible it is considering our irrational, superficially risk-adverse, but in fact simply status quo biased, culture.

 

[sojourner]

You're essentially admitting the public irrationally prioritizes and dramatizes some accidental deaths over others with no regards to their probability. Fine, but once we admit this to be the case we're essentially saying it's a question of saying how feasible it is considering our irrational, superficially risk-adverse, but in fact simply status quo biased, culture.

Yes. true.

How many decades did children ride bicycles without safety helmets before the public suddenly decided a law was needed? Do you think kids really got dumber over that time? Or did public perception change?

 

[Lindley]

(True, we don't yet have a simple, efficient, completely reliable system of remotely controlling all passenger vehicles, but we would also need that same system for flying cars as well.)

I don't think remote control is the answer in either case. Central collaboration when available would be useful, and collaboration with nearby vehicles when that is out; but each vehicle (car or plane) needs to have the capability to make its own navigational decisions. Preferably with the option of driver/pilot override.

with all the dangers inherent in flying

Today, flying a small plane is about 100x safer than taking a road trip, and flying commercially is about 100x safer than flying your own plane. In this hypothetical flying-car world that may no longer hold, but let's assume no technology is used which would make it more dangerous than it is today, at least to the extent possible given the presumed increased congestion of the skies.

A flying car does that, and it plummets out of the sky - falling on God knows what. Nowhere would be safe from

One of the reasons why I am skeptical of the whole antigravity-powered-cars concept, and prefer to stick with rotors and wings. Both give you options and a degree of control even when you have no power.

 

[farmkid]

^ Even assuming that taking to the skies *does* increase capacity (which is probably not guaranteed), there are other issues to consider. To have a true flying car system would take a hundred years or more from now. A ground-based personal rapid transit system would be much more realistically achieved, given the level of technology that we have now. Indeed, in many communities, PRT systems already exist; it may take awhile before the entire country achieves a system like what I saw on Mega Engineering awhile back (all transit is achieved through PRT, and vehicles are available instantly, whenever you want them, with no more user effort required than taking an elevator today), but it won't take anywhere near as long to get that kind of a system as it would with flying cars.

(True, we don't yet have a simple, efficient, completely reliable system of remotely controlling all passenger vehicles, but we would also need that same system for flying cars as well.)

I am sticking with my view that the reason many people want flying cars is simply because it sounds cool and science fiction-y and fun. There's no hard evidence that it would be the most efficient system. If anything, quite the opposite - with all the dangers inherent in flying, any increases gained by flying cars might be outweighed by the drawbacks. If a ground-based PRT car malfunctions, it would simply stop, and other cars would be automatically routed around it. A flying car does that, and it plummets out of the sky - falling on God knows what. Nowhere would be safe from that.

Also: Lots of people are afraid of flying, but not too many are afraid of driving. Think about that. What good is a transit system that people are afraid to even use at all?

Oh, adding a third dimension would increase capacity tremendously. When everyone is using the same plane, people going in different directions have to share space. People going north get in a line and go north, while people going west get in a line and go west. At some point, those two lines intersect, and the two groups of people have to take turns using that point of intersection. We we even call those places "intersections". But, if you separate those two groups and put them on separate planes so that they never intersect, they never have to take turns using any space and they never have to stop. Not only that, they can spread out and use the whole plane if they want. That increase in capacity is huge.

We already use this concept in a limited fashion--we call such roads freeways. We build overpasses to separate people going in different directions where roads meet so that the cars don't have to share space and take turns. That also allows us to build roads with as many as 12 lanes (the widest I've seen, maybe there's wider somewhere?) of traffic in one direction. Freeways only get congested and slow down when people have to change lanes to get on or off. If we could truly travel in 3 dimensions, you would never have to change lanes; you would simply go up or down, turn, and merge into traffic going another direction. Imagine the capacity of freeways that were 100 lanes wide--well, make it 500 lanes, just for fun--with on- and off-ramps for each lane so no one ever had to change lanes. Now compare that to your average metropolitan downtown. Yeah, I think that's an increase in capacity.

As for the rest of your post, yeah, you're right. We're a LONG way from every being able to build such a system, if it's even possible at all. A centrally controlled system, or as Lindley suggests, vehicles which can collaborate together to coordinate movements, is much more realistic and likely. Man has been fascinated with the idea of flying cars for a long time, and it would certainly make travel faster, a system like what you suggest is much more likely. The capacity available in such a system is huge, but I have a hard time seeing such a large capacity for travelers ever being needed. I imagine we should be able to design a ground-based system that will provide enough capacity for society's needs without needing to tackle the hurdles associated with flying cars.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I don't think there's as much a need for increased capacity as people think. We know what traffic jams are like, and we know that traffic is a problem, but the solution is not so much to flat-out increase capacity as it is to make EFFICIENT use of capacity. Sheer volume isn't the answer, more intelligent use is.

Unfortunately, I can't find a link to that Mega Engineering episode I mentioned - the one that turned me on to the concept of ground-based Personal Rapid Transit - but it explained things very well. The problem isn't capacity, it's the efficient use of space and time that would normally be wasted via things like waiting for a car or cab, inefficient distribution of traffic flow, that type of thing.

In the show, it posited a system where you could literally have a PRT cab waiting for you when you walk out your front door, or whenever else you wanted it - no waiting would ever be necessary (unlike, say, a subway system, where you get crowds of people waiting on a platform for a train to arrive). The cabs on the road would be efficiently scheduled via the central computer system. Once you leave, the cab's instantly available for someone else. And if there's a problem (like a mechanical failure or other such blockage in the road), all traffic is immediately routed around it. Things like this would do much more to improve traffic flow than to simply make the roads bigger.

 

[sojourner]

Oh, adding a third dimension would increase capacity tremendously. When everyone is using the same plane, people going in different directions have to share space. People going north get in a line and go north, while people going west get in a line and go west. At some point, those two lines intersect, and the two groups of people have to take turns using that point of intersection. We we even call those places "intersections". But, if you separate those two groups and put them on separate planes so that they never intersect, they never have to take turns using any space and they never have to stop. Not only that, they can spread out and use the whole plane if they want. That increase in capacity is huge.

We already use this concept in a limited fashion--we call such roads freeways. We build overpasses to separate people going in different directions where roads meet so that the cars don't have to share space and take turns. That also allows us to build roads with as many as 12 lanes (the widest I've seen, maybe there's wider somewhere?) of traffic in one direction. Freeways only get congested and slow down when people have to change lanes to get on or off. If we could truly travel in 3 dimensions, you would never have to change lanes; you would simply go up or down, turn, and merge into traffic going another direction. Imagine the capacity of freeways that were 100 lanes wide--well, make it 500 lanes, just for fun--with on- and off-ramps for each lane so no one ever had to change lanes. Now compare that to your average metropolitan downtown. Yeah, I think that's an increase in capacity.

Imagine the increase in chaos of this. The top most "lane" would be the safest lane of travel. Everything below it would be in the path of falling debris from accidents in lanes above it. Talk about the probability of "pile ups". ouch.

 

[Lindley]

It keeps coming back to the same problem. You can have flying vehicles, or you can have lots of vehicles, but you can't have lots of flying vehicles all in the same place.

Perhaps what we need isn't so much flying cars as flying busses.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I doubt there will ever be true flying cars as we understand it from sci-fi. Unless we find some magic unobtanium that would allow cars to simply hover, it won't work. I don't even know how SUPERMAN does it.

 

[Shazam!]

I don't even know how SUPERMAN does it.

Self-telekinesis.

 

[Lindley]

I doubt there will ever be true flying cars as we understand it from sci-fi. Unless we find some magic unobtanium that would allow cars to simply hover, it won't work.

Which brings me back to my original argument----today's small planes essentially are flying cars. As close as we're likely to get, anyway. It's just that you park them a bit further away than your garage (usually).