Flying Cars Are Here!

if flying cars happen, i will move into a bomb shelter. people already crash into all kinds of things moving in two dimensions...
 
Bit late to the party...Moller, while probably the biggest physical vaporware out there, at least had real units that could hover and fly, something all these other "flying car" companies have never done. And Moller was doing this long time ago, back in the late 90's early 2000's, pretty sure the company has gone under now. But it seems every few years a new "flying car" comes up.

Moller SkyCar.
 
This tickles me. Such a bad idea on a lot of levels. Where's my laser at?
 
Would be a nice fit for self driving I imagine. Navigating through the sky is a much easier problem than driving on land, so I could see this as a marriage made in heaven.
 
The Osprey style twin rotor is inherently dangerous and will NEVER be suitable for a flying car.

And the maintenance of anything that flies 200mph and has a 500 mile range is not something that an average person will be able to keep in their garage and keep functional.

And way beyond that, is the take-off requirements. You'd have to have the equivalent of safety zones the size of heliports with clear areas on the arrival and departing sides because you are still an aircraft and taking off or landing over dwellings or building in populated areas will never be acceptable. It isn't now, and won't be in the future. It's common sense. If something goes wrong during the most vulnerable moments lifting off or touching down you have to keep others around you safe and the give the occupants of the aircraft a good chance of setting down hard somewhere clear of obstructions.

Perhaps some type of small VTOL that can lift straight up and commute people between places could become common. Something that will move relatively slowly (100mph) and can be computer controlled to line up like roads in the sky. Think a more sane version of Coruscant from Star Wars... lanes of traffic streaming through the sky.

But it will all have to be a grid of electronically controlled airspace.

None of which is going to make people feel safe. Or be safe with technology from now or the near future.
 
They seem to have left out something important.. How the hell do you get in/out of the thing?
 
Seeing the moller skycar in popular science around 2 decades ago and coming to nothing has soured me on the enterprise.


And even if we got one working, I want more.

My dream machine would be able to travel on the roads, through the air, on the water, under the water, into space, and phase through solid matter so I could pass through asteroids, have some hyper drive equivalent so I could travel throughout the galaxy and beyond... and that's good for now.
 
A megawatt of power? That's Bugatti Veyron territory, and that can only run for a matter of minutes at full throttle.
 
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