Flying Cars Are Now Here

I was watching the Wednesday edition of 60 minutes last week and as soon as I had flipped it on, they began interviewing Jesse James. I have heard about this guy but did not know exactly what he does. Apparently he has a company called West Coast Choppers, a television show on TLC called "Monster Garage", and a few more related things. He mentioned a secret project for the season finale of his show called Monster Garage which will air sometime in June, I believe. The secret project was a flying car and his reason for doing this was because a long time ago people always said that by the year 2000 we are going to have flying cars and since we do not, he is going to build one. I was really excited to hear this and I guess the vehicle has already been built and it's test flight was last Friday. I would really appreciate it if anyone had any further information on this. (Who built it?, How is it powered?, Was the test flight successful?, etc.)
Thanks,

Matt

This is what I found.....

home.hamptonroads.com...

The "SkyCar" has been in development for some time. It uses 4-8 turbines mounted on pivots. There are many prototypes in development but nothing is practical yet. I dont have any links but a google on "skycar" should turn up something.

wow that got all my hopes up. im sorry but that design looks horrible. no originality what so ever. thanks for the link though.

Interesting to hear that he is attempting to build this vehicle. Jesse James sold West Coast Chopper last I heard of and has focused more on his Monster Garage show. Unfortunately, because this show is focused on building vehicles within a very limited amount of time and budget, I fear it won't be at its full possible potential. I would love to have a flying car though. I have seen a few posted in popular science (still in testing I presume) over the years.

Here are a few websites that I found about flying cars. Seems like people have been touting with the idea for a very long time.

www.retrofuture.com...
vintagecars.about.com...

For a helicopter pilot to call something knutty, it has to be way knutty. These gizmos are way beyond knutty. We all refuse to test fly this junk. That should tell you something. Granny is not going to be flying one of these things over the express lane any time soon. Talk about whizzing in the face of the laws of physics! No thanks.

I personally like the limited road capable Moller Skycar. Rumors are flying about the first untethered test flight may happen this summer. Hope Moller doesn't crash and burn, what a waste of a life long project that would be.

This may not make sense but it seems that all the those links have cars just with a plane or wings attached. I know there is a totally flying car that isn't just two things slammed together. Its like a new design not a volkswagen with a P-51 on it.

i like the idea of these flying cars, but i think the regular cars are here to stay for a while now.

You have got to start off somewhere. Major props to him for trying. Sure, its not "Back to the Future" style but it does work. Crude designs always form the basis of new projects.

I found a commercial car site that has a flying car, Taero.
www.aerospectives.com...

There have been fkying car desiigns and ideas on how to build them for the last fifty years.

Here's a related post. It wasn't the easiest one to find though. There are links to pics of some flying cars within the link.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was far faster than light,
She went out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned the previous night.

IIIIIIIIIIIIII Like It!

Um, thank you, I'm supposing you understand what it means, than?

I cannot figure out why we have cars instead of hovercraft. Much easier to build than skycars and much higher mileage than automobiles. I know some wise donkey will ask how you stop them and the answer is ....How do you stop your automobile? A hovercraft will stop the same way.

[edit on 3-1-2005 by groingrinder]

this is what i think of when i think of flying cars.....
and it looks oh so sexy ta boot

www.moller.com...

I agree with groingrinder, we should have hovercraft, we could go anywhere.

Do we really need flying cars? (Think of the petrol consumption, the price of production, and the availability)

It is totally uneccessasry, though it's about time we made a breakthrough with inventions, so all credit to Jesse James.

The issue of availability is widely discussed at:

www.speculist.com...

Originally posted by groingrinder
I cannot figure out why we have cars instead of hovercraft. Much easier to build than skycars and much higher mileage than automobiles. I know some wise donkey will ask how you stop them and the answer is ....How do you stop your automobile? A hovercraft will stop the same way.

[edit on 3-1-2005 by groingrinder]

That makes no sense groingrinder. A car stops by using the frinction between the tire and road to bleed off knetic energy, a hovercraft moves on a cushon of air which is for the most part frictionless. Unless you have wheels which extend beneath the skrt to stop the hovercraft it can not, by nature of the fact that a car and hovercraft are two completly different designs, with different modes of propulsion, be stopped the same way as a car.

I agree mwm!

Stopping on air takes a lot longer than on a friction surface, but hovercrafts are just plain darn cool!