The Unexpected Rebirth of the Flying Car

October 29, 2010

How the 21st-century military may make one of our wildest and longest-held dreams come true.

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This new millennium sucks! It's exactly the same as the old millennium! You know why? No flying cars!" – Lewis Black

Of all the far-out visions for the future provided us by popular culture (indeed, by this very magazine above almost all else), perhaps none is so conspicuously absent today as the flying car. Other sci-fi fantasies – the invisibility cloak, laser weapons, universal translators, 3-D printers – exist to some degree, if only on a lab bench somewhere. But the flying car, once considered the next logical step in personal transit, simply never took flight.

But now, for the first time since the age of Henry Ford, the flying car has a serious patron. And it’s not some eccentric millionaire or overzealous garage inventor. It’s the United States Department of Defense.

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Agreed that the new millennium sucks, as you can see below that we were going to have a flying car in 1924, wonder if it will ever happen. We still don't have laser weapons, universal translators, 3-D printers, will they exist to some degree.

Eddie Rickenbacker's Flying Autos: July 1924

We aren't the only ones who are impatient to graduate from the streets to the skies. Celebrated pilot Eddie Rickenbacker predicted that people would zip around in flying cars by the year 1944. The machine would be equipped with collapsible wings spanning 25 feet, a front-end propeller, and even pontoons for water travel

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Eddie Rickenbacker had the right idea in 1924, I cannot imagine us all flying around in our own cars today, we can't seem to manage traffic on the ground. They would need air control towers on every corner, least it would create jobs, just don't think it's going to happen any time soon but great concept.

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I dunno, flying cars means idiots flying instead of just driving. In the air they could come down on anyone. The wreckage of a collision would fall down upon a wide area injuring many ppl causing lots of damage. Best to let trained pilots fly and rest of us stay on the ground.

reply to post by Dantas


Thank god there is people like you out here...Its bad enough having grandma behind the wheel doing 20 on the interstate. Imagine being out side watching grandma come in for a landing and over shoots right into your living room. First things first take the driver out then we can talk about flying.

Originally posted by Dantas
I dunno, flying cars means idiots flying instead of just driving. In the air they could come down on anyone. The wreckage of a collision would fall down upon a wide area injuring many ppl causing lots of damage. Best to let trained pilots fly and rest of us stay on the ground.

Absolutely this is the reason that the invention hasnt been implemented.

Originally posted by Dantas
I dunno, flying cars means idiots flying instead of just driving. In the air they could come down on anyone.

As an aside comment -- any mechanical failure in an aircraft is vastly more serious a problem than it is in a car. I was driving a Saab on a freeway, on a dark stormy night, and I lost all power. Which also meant I was barely able to steer, brake and didn't see jack at 70 mph. Miraculously, I was able to spot a lamp post in a distance and "landed" on the curb, avoiding a fast moving 18-wheeler and a pair of smaller cars (piloted by good drivers who probably noticed I was in distress).

I'm glad I'm still around, and I'm glad I wasn't flying on that day

Originally posted by Dantas
I dunno, flying cars means idiots flying instead of just driving. In the air they could come down on anyone. The wreckage of a collision would fall down upon a wide area injuring many ppl causing lots of damage. Best to let trained pilots fly and rest of us stay on the ground.

I think it would hard put to find anyone who would think that it a good idea to have flying cars, you are so right about the damage collisions would cause, we all have seen what planes do to the gound when they crash, even small single engine planes.

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by buddhasystem

I'm glad I'm still around, and I'm glad I wasn't flying on that day

I am also glad you're around and weren't flying that day, never mind thinking about flying cars, when are they going to develop the technology that you can steer and brake your automobile when all power is lost, I don't want to even think about how many accidents are caused by this.

I have lost my power a few times driving through water that accumulated from heavy downpours, the good news is I wasn't driving fast and it happened on local suburban roads where the speed limit is low. Driving through water you can still lose your breaks if the linings get wet..

Thanks for posting.

Originally posted by Dantas
I dunno, flying cars means idiots flying instead of just driving. In the air they could come down on anyone. The wreckage of a collision would fall down upon a wide area injuring many ppl causing lots of damage. Best to let trained pilots fly and rest of us stay on the ground.

I don't know. After all, we're getting to the point where computers are good enough to monitor when something bad happens to a car that requires pulling over to the curb or heading to the nearest service station. And in a few years, cars will be able to drive themselves in traffic much more crowded and complicated that you'd find in the big sky. With better sensing equipment, a person could just get in a flying car of some kind, tell it where you want to go, and it will take care of all the rest. Most large airliners can literally "fly themselves." It's just a matter of adapting the technology for consumer use.

My biggest concern is not idiots falling out of the sky on me. The computers would handle that potential problem. My concern is the increased noise. Flying things seem to be about 1,000 times noisier than rolling around things. But if somebody can come up with a flying car that doesn't sound like a howling banshee, then I wouldn't have any problem with it.

reply to post by Blue Shift

My biggest concern is not idiots falling out of the sky on me. The computers would handle that potential problem. My concern is the increased noise. Flying things seem to be about 1,000 times noisier than rolling around things. But if somebody can come up with a flying car that doesn't sound like a howling banshee, then I wouldn't have any problem with it.

That would be a big concern of mine also, we already live in a noisy world, especially if you live in a large city, guess we will have figure out the technology that those pesky flying saucers use who some keep seeing and report there isn't any detectable sound.

Thanks

My personal favorite is still the moller M400x Skycar

Moller M400X

I"ve been waiting for 25 years for that one.

We'd be so much better off developing clean, reliable and fast public transport in the first place.
Second line.

Place your orders now...

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reply to post by Dantas


Flying is not hard... at all....

And what may surprise you is neither is landing.