Comment by tahw
8 years ago
I don't understand why so many people are hung up on flying cars. It's a huge increase in the energy it takes to get from point A to point B, and for what reason? What do they hope to gain by wasting so much more fuel?
8 years ago
I don't understand why so many people are hung up on flying cars. It's a huge increase in the energy it takes to get from point A to point B, and for what reason? What do they hope to gain by wasting so much more fuel?
Flying cars are a terrible idea. People can't be trusted to not drive into things or run out of gas while driving _on land_. I wouldn't want the average person flying their car anywhere near me or my property.
The only conceivable way I could see flying cars being a 'thing' is if we carved out 'air roads' for them that didn't cross over buildings or other cars. At that point, what's the benefit?
Maybe a big part of the solution is self-driving flying cars? Of course they would use Tesla batteries. And let's not forget to use Fuschia, while we're at it.
In a sense air roads could be safer. You have more flexibility for avoiding obstacles. I think it only makes sense if the vehicles on them are fully automated and operate in a highly regulated environment.
There's not much stuff to crash into in the air other than other air traffic which is far less densely distributed than things one shouldn't drive a car onto/into are on the earth's surface.
What about self-driving flying cars? If people aren't driving the flying cars and they just navigate automatically then most of these sort of issues go away.
Well, a) shifting traffic patterns from 2D to 3D has potential to reduce congestion, and b) straight lines ares shorter.
Also, if we do get flying cars, it'll probably be in part because of a drastic reduction in energy use of flying over driving (e.g. reducing the energy gap between flying and driving).
I think however, in most regards, making almost all cars self-driving will bring most of the benefits
So would bundling large numbers of people into a single vehicle for the bulk of the journey and finding other ways to tackle the last-mile problem. Just imagine: transportation for the masses!
Like a bus? Or is that the joke?
A Cessna 172 gets about 12-13 mpg at about 120 mph. [1] That may not be an unreasonable tradeoff of performance versus cost per mile if considerations other than fuel consumption are in play.
On the other hand, you'll never get a flying car because FAA regulations form a moat around widespread cheap aircraft. A 40 year old Cessna 172 can only have an engine provided by Lycoming, can only be overhauled or repaired with Lycoming and Cessna parts, and can only be serviced by FAA certified mechanics (even though the design is only slightly more sophisticated than a VW aircooled engine and is based on 1930's technology).
[1]: https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-per-gallon-mpg-does-a-C...
My Bonanza A36TN gets that mpg at over 200mph, with 6 total seats as well. Boston to Myrtle Beach area in 3.5 hours and ~60 gallons avgas vs 15 hours and 35 gallons of car gas; I find that tradeoff to be very much worth it.
FAA regulations for certified aircraft are indeed a huge hurdle on progress, but are not at all a hurdle for experimental aircraft (which is where flying cars are today). (Side note: private aircraft owners flying under part 91 [roughly: not charter, not airline] are allowed to produce or cause to be produced "owner produced parts", so not all parts need to come from the OEM. It plays out that most engine parts do, but many airframe, interior, etc parts do not.)
For me the flying car is a solution in search of a problem. When I fly somewhere, there are almost always rental cars (or rideshares) widely and easily available. I don't want to take my lightweight, expensive, and somewhat damage-sensitive airplane into traffic 600 miles from home where a fender bender leaves me unable to fly home. That's what a rental car is for.
Would it be nice to land in my own "car" and immediately drive to my ground-bound destination without having to unpack/repack? Sure.
Am I willing to accept the inherent compromises, expenses, and risks implied by that? Absolutely not.
Do I think the market is? Nope.
It might be that the flying car appears the way it does because you have access to a private plane. I mean the functionality of the flying car is ubiquitous flying vehicles. There are ~250,000 general aviation aircraft in the US. [1] Or about the same number of general aviation aircraft in service as the number of model year 2015 and 2016 Kia Sorrentos sold in the US. [2]
[1]: https://www.aopa.org/about/general-aviation-statistics/activ...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Sorento#Sales
Personally, I always assumed a "flying car" is something like a quadcopter, which does not have to drive at all. Just take off from your roof and land on the roof of where you want to be.
3 replies →
Probably Jetsons nostalgia.
I don't get it either. We have no technology in view that would not produce a lot more noise and energy usage over current cars. It may work once energy costs almost nothing and can be produced in abundance (fusion?).
Totally agree. The biggest gain aside from novelty would be increased speed/avoiding traffic, but if that's going to double or triple the cost of a trip, I'm sure most people would chose to sit in traffic.
I'm sure fuel consumption isn't a concern, after all it didn't come up in Back to the Future, it just looked cool.
And I imagine people like the idea of going as the crow flies, shorter travel times, no traffic congestion and not having to fuss over road construction.
And since it's just a flight of fancy they don't have to consider the risks of falling out of the sky, mid air collisions, noise pollution, increased energy consumption, severe weather, running out of fuel, running out of fuel over Lack Michigan or the Atlantic Ocean or the human factor of letting people who can barely handle X and Y also deal with Z.
Maybe some people just have general optimism that the imagined benefits outweigh the obvious problems.
I'm guessing its been a while since you've seen Back to the Future, since it totally did come up: http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Fusion