What happened to the flying car?

-Before there will be flying cars there will need to be full automation.

People would be driving over fences and into restricted/private places and everyone would be zipping around along the shortest path to their destination and it would be madness...madness I tell you.

BUT... The cost would (IMO) be far less given enough time to make the transfer complete- Think about the money which will be saved ion road repair? (we would still need roads and highways for local travel and trucks, BUT the cost of repairing/maintaining would be incredibly cheap- I have personal experience with this).

We will probably never see this and surely not in our lifetimes- Maybe prototypes or some crazy "toys" for the rich- But in our day to day lives.

Until we create some sort of automated guiding system for city flying, it would be way too dangerous... imagine a drunk flyer crash landing into your bedroom.

Originally posted by luciddream
Until we create some sort of automated guiding system for city flying, it would be way too dangerous... imagine a drunk flyer crash landing into your bedroom.

They have been working on this forever. It was supposed to already be complete a long time ago.

Off memory (I saw a documentary YEARS ago) they were mapping a "virtual" highway and road system which you would automatically connect with and it would then control the flying car.

Was pretty cool stuff actually- I wish I could remember when and where I saw the documentary because it went heavily into all this discussion and made some interesting and thought provoking points.
EDIT/ADD- Tjhe documentary (from my memory) was of the opinion that the highway needed to be made and intact first and then 'the cars will come"- Parts (or most?) of this "highway" were supposedly either completed or close to completion and according to the Doc we should already be seeing these cars for sale to the public by...Years ago.

-Also the documentary actually showed working flying cars which would connect with the parts of the "highway which were complete-
Obviously they are not here. And honestly I think it will never happen (in our lives)

Originally posted by James1982
There are a few reasons I could think of, why a flying car isn't going to be very common anytime soon:............

You could of just said, People are Stupid.

Could a "Skyway" be achieved through use of a superconductor? I remember hearing about that years ago as a possibility. However, would people be able to live in areas where Superconductors are? What are the drawbacks? I know I should've done some research first, but maybe someone here on ATS knows about that.

reply to post by luciddream

Until we create some sort of automated guiding system for city flying, it would be way too dangerous... imagine a drunk flyer crash landing into your bedroom.

Flying cars will not fly ,they will float(hover) at the same level from the ground as a normal car because everything will be regulated to work as normal cars,so no rules will be changed.

But it is a little more complicated because of the operating principle to be applied to the current rules of conduct road.

What happened to the amphicarAmphicar




I remember when my father-in-law had one of these, never rode in it though. Why don't they come up with a Hover Car, that would be something, it could glide right over those sink holes and floods. Flying is too dangerous unless your name is Jetson.

People are distracted and can't think right when driving, even pilots seem to be running into each other on the runways. Would it be a mess if people were flying these cars all around. They'd be texting while flying or trying to fix their GPS and run into the Statue of Liberty or some skyscraper. We'd have small 911s everyday accidently.

On the bright side, we would have a lot more to discuss on ATS

When I was a kid in the 60's we were promised a flying car.
Didn't happen.

In the 40's they were promised a car that drove itself.
Didn't happen.

Youth today mistakenly think that tech advances rapidly.
Sadly not.

Cars have had 4 wheels on the road and the driver behind another for 100 years.
We've had telephones for 100 years.
We've had radio for 100 years.
We've had TV for 70 years.
We've had personal computers for 33 years.

Sometimes we combine two different techs.

In the big picture you might say "It's the same thing only different".

I barley trust the masses to drive safely in the cars currently out there. Almost daily some idiot nearly runs me off the road or is distracted/in their own world. I swear everyone is becoming autistic or something.

Can you only imagine the mass carnage that would happen if we opened up the skies to just anyone with enough money to buy a flying car? Oh god it would be horrible. People would be crashing into each other and buildings...people on the ground would be hit with debris...

No, we as a society are not responsible enough to handle flying cars. The masses for the most part are all idiots. This is why we can't have nice things.

Imagine the devastation one of these things would cause if it fell out of the sky into a building/school or what have you. Even the damage it would cause going down onto a street where it will encounter pedestrians, traffic, shops or what have you. By some miracle if there was no fatalities, your still talking considerable damage that will force the street to be closed while the debris gets cleared + the road patched up etc, etc.

Until anti-gravity or something along the same lines gets developed, then they won't be allowed to become mainstream & for good reason!