First FAA Approved Flying Car Coming To USA In 2011 !

[Mohawk70]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... onomyId=12

[DarkDragon]

you know that you could already buy a flying car for 750000 dollar?

[GWarner]

The way people drive, that would be a disastrous development.

I think we need to develop cars that drive themselves before we put them in the air.

[Baldrick]

The way people drive, that would be a disastrous development.

Possibly except for the need to have a valid Sports aircraft pilots license to be allowed to fly these things, which would put a stop to most of the nonsense going on in the air that you see going on around the roads...

[DarkDragon]

Flying isn't that dangerous than driving, but beside this I'm thinking we need to develop cars that drive themselfes before letting humans control such a thing.

"asocial" means:
"4. Inconsiderate of others; self-centered."
( http://www.thefreedictionary.com/asocial )

Humans just have a 1-2 degree foveal view and the rest of the view is peripheral. They can recognize different colors different fast. Their brain is a neural network, so it saves no exact definition of anything and after 18 or 21 years the neurons are overfitted and nobody could ever tell you whether a person's brain is good enough for driving.

[Rook Zimbabwe]

People drive like they push their shopping carts in the grocery store... which meaans I would have to insist that my flying car be appointed with 50caliber machine guns to clear the sky of morons!!!

[Rook Zimbabwe]

Here is a dream shot:

[DarkDragon]

Here is a dream shot:

A flying van? I don't like vans. And how much money do you want to spend for each flight if your plane is a VW bus with wings?

[Vera]

Wings ? ~ yes wings !

Before they let cars take off they better get that thing with the planes solved first:



~ Vera

[Mohawk70]

@GWarner

The way people drive, that would be a disastrous development.
I think we need to develop cars that drive themselves before we put them in the air.

I would rather have cars that fly than this
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/04/prot ... um=twitter
on the same road as me !

I have nothing against the blind, but the idea seems to have some added dangers built in ...



There are already many under development - see these ...

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/04/12 ... es-itself/

http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/4_class/4 ... 2_car.html

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2006 ... ves-itself

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/14 ... etail.html

[Mohawk70]

People drive like they push their shopping carts in the grocery store... which meaans I would have to insist that my flying car be appointed with 50caliber machine guns to clear the sky of morons!!!

I can see the news headline already "FLY-BY SHOOTINGS IN AREA CAUSED BY SKY RAGE !!!"

[GWarner]

I would rather have cars that fly than this
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/04/prot ... um=twitter
on the same road as me !

I have nothing against the blind, but the idea seems to have some added dangers built in ...

I only partially agree with you. While I agree that people that are totally blind shouldn't drive at all unless the car can drive itself without human intervention, I disagree that this is a bad idea. Consider all those people, like me, that though not blind, don't have vision good enough to pass the vision test for driving. My vision is good enough that I can ride a bike sharing the street with cars, or walk crossing very busy streets safely, but at 20/60 can't pass the driving vision test which requires 20/40 or better. A car like this that could supplement their weak vision so that they could drive would be a huge help.

Flying cars may be a technical reality but I honestly don't see them ever becoming a social wo societal reality. Just consider the logistics of controlling the traffic. Air traffic control is a challenge now with only trained pilots in the air, just imagine adding a bunch of tiny little planes that can pop up anywhere on the radar into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. Even if only those with a pilots license could fly them it would still put a huge strain on the system. The only to have some kind of control would be to allow take offs and landing at an air strip and with that restriction why even bother?

[Mohawk70]

I would rather have cars that fly than this
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/04/prot ... um=twitter
on the same road as me !

I have nothing against the blind, but the idea seems to have some added dangers built in ...

]I only partially agree with you. While I agree that people that are totally blind shouldn't drive at all unless the car can drive itself without human intervention, I disagree that this is a bad idea. Consider all those people, like me, that though not blind, don't have vision good enough to pass the vision test for driving. My vision is good enough that I can ride a bike sharing the street with cars, or walk crossing very busy streets safely, but at 20/60 can't pass the driving vision test which requires 20/40 or better. A car like this that could supplement their weak vision so that they could drive would be a huge help..

My main point is that a machine is no replacement for the judgement of a human being ( as deficient as that may be at times).
Example - a vehicle is on a collision course with one of these from the left, another from the right, and a vehicle very close behind it.
Not only could it send conflicting data to the driver, but it may get 'confused' and not respond at all. Slam on the brakes, get hit from behind;
swerve right or left & get hit. Would it be tell you to floor it and possibly evade all three threats ?

Just consider the logistics of controlling the traffic. Air traffic control is a challenge now with only trained pilots in the air, just imagine adding a bunch of tiny little planes that can pop up anywhere on the radar into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. Even if only those with a pilots license could fly them it would still put a huge strain on the system. The only to have some kind of control would be to allow take offs and landing at an air strip and with that restriction why even bother?

The article does state that they can only take off & land at airstrips/airports, so they wouldn't just be running around all 'Jetsons' like (an American cartoon).

Why bother with that ?
1: Shorter trip times, convenient if you ARE going somewhere near an airport/private air strip ...
2: No need to wait for a taxi, bus, limo or other person to pick you up at the airport - or leave your vehicle in airport parking areas ...
I'm sure other people will have other reasons too.

Flying cars may be a technical reality but I honestly don't see them ever becoming a social wo societal reality.

These are not necessarily meant for everybody to have - just licensed pilots who would have a use for them.

[Baldrick]

These are not necessarily meant for everybody to have - just licensed pilots who would have a use for them.

I spent the best part of 10 years working in a role as technical service manager for a very large part of our state of NSW here in Australia. It was quite common for me to get called to jobs up to 500+ km from home. I would spend 6 or 7 hours driving to get to the job which in many cases I would have fixed in less than 1 hour on site. Then I would have to drive all the way back home again. A flying car like this would have turned a 12 to 14+ hour day into a job which would have seen me back home by lunch time. It was quite a good job with the exception that I was never able to have any real sort of personal life for myself & that made my life an absolute misery, which could have been totally different if I had access to technology like this.. .

Then again, I did try to talk the company I was working for into allowing me to get a pilots license to enable myself to charter planes to fly to these jobs, but they refused on the grounds of "insurance liability"

[Vera]

Hello,

to be bit serious, I don't see the point in flying 'cars'. They would only be another airflying facility, of which we already have various. The main advantage would be, that it's wings could be folded to become slim enough to just as well run along streets. (even planes are wheeled and can drive highspeed without the need to take off (if only those runways weren't so short ))

Another point is, that the direction of developing more individual transportation is contra-productive related to reducing the traffic density and the waste of natural resources. If we want to save our freedom and joy for personal means of transportation we need more easily sharing of vehicles (incl. free public transport) on the one hand. On the other there's a need for much better efficiency of automotives. ...

Btw - flying - I'd be pleased with a hoovercraft surfing an air cushion

@ Baldrick
it's a shame that your company didn't pay the expenses for hiring a privat flight and let you pay for it with your and your families lifetimes.

cheers ~ Vera