Comment by brudgers
8 years ago
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.
What happens when you want to have a barbeque and have 10 of your friends over? What happens in a high-rise building? Other circumstances where available roof space is less (to much less) than demand for quad-copter parking?
And quad copters are pretty dang inefficient (as are helicopters in hover mode), making the energy hurdle higher than fixed wing (or translational helicopter) flight.
Quads might end up being part of the solution (and I admit I hadn't considered them before, so thanks!), but I don't think they're well suited for covering significant distances, which is presumably where the appeal of a flying car is strongest.
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