Joe pointed to this. The Transition seems to me to be one of the most desirable of the various "flying car" varieties I've seen so far. Little, cute, simple, workable. Not super-economical though in purchase, "anticipated purchase price" is $194,000. Amazingly specific given that it'll be two years before they can deliver. Maybe it'll be $193,000 or $196,000. :-)
I have a strong feeling this thing can take off from almost any road with a 100m stretch. I also have a feeling the authorities really wouldn't like that! And I have a feeling it would be a hard temptation to resist.
Joe said:
This is a attempt to get the best of two worlds. Ground transportation and flying.
You can think of a airplane as a time machine. It can compress the time required to travel.
I can fly to Ocracoke NC in about two and a half hours. The drive time to it is eight hours.
Flying I can treat this as a day trip, go down in the morning and back home the same afternoon. This would not be possible in a car.
The draw back in doing this is there is no transportation available when you get there.
I have done this trip with my wife and taken bicycles. This limits the sight seeing to how good your physical condition is.
The flying car is a dream for now but someday who knows...
(Look at this article. He actually claims that the Transition will take off vertically with thrusters. How lazy and careless can a reporter be?)
10 comments:
I really don't "get" this flying car thing. A car that can fly? Well, you still need everything about an aeroplane (certification, flying skills, etc) so what's the big deal? An aeroplane that can taxi along the road? OK, but that can't be too hard, can it?
In my limited experience (averaging approx one 25 minute flight every other day for 18 years - mostly spread across a few dozen types of gliders and single piston engine aeroplanes but with brief experiences of a paraglider, small helicopter and single engine jet) I have to say it's usually the aircraft which are compromises which are in anyway a problem to fly.
Straightforward aeroplanes are so easy to fly (give or take a bit of paperwork) that I don't understand why anybody who could be even slightly serious about using a flying car wouldn't already be flying.
What am I missing?
I think this kind of vehicle has less to do with practical transportation than with our long-held fantasy of a future where cars fly. (The same kind of futuristic fantasies fueled the early part of the microcomputer revolution, and look where that got us.)
The "article" seems to be little more than a re-written press release. The idea of taking off vertically may have come from someone inside the company, possibly as a joke that the "reporter" didn't get.
You both have good points, and together I think it adds up to this: flying cars will only be a big deal when they can be totally automated. When I can go out into my car park, enter the vehicle, say "take me to Uncle Ron's house", and lay down and take a nap while that happens.
Yeah...I had put that up on the same blog. I started to write, yesterday, how cool it would be if this company could combine the straight-up take-off feature of the *Faery Rotodyne* that Eric mentioned w/the sleek looks of the *Transition* in 2- and 4-seaters, first and then, eventually, going to an 8-seater (the capacity of a van) and realized that...that is basically a helicopter, now, no?! lol! :-) Only...a person can't drive off in a helicopter, after landing! ;-)
And...yes...as you mention, hangar...they would ALL still need paperwork, in the end, and...what's stopping us, now? I think the practicality of being able to hop into ONE vehicle and continue on, at destination...not having to dig around for transportation @ the other end.
That and...I also wonder about the logistics of it all: If a person could be able to land and take-off from wherever they liked, that would be cool but...again...people who are careless might not make that as practical as that could be; so...we would probably still have to go to an airport. Which brings us back around to this concept being a very practical vehicle, afterwards: one vehicle...rather than having to deal with that issue...on both ends of a trip...w/the air transportation that now exists.
Hangar wonders why those people aren't flying already. Price for one thing, and skills for another perhaps. Just because we can buy something doesn't always mean we can operate intelligently or safely.
If people can't drive their cars without bending fenders imagine how long they'd last in the air. And how many supermarkets have room for landings and take-offs? Even if they did, all it takes is one nitwit's carelessly abandoned shopping cart to end your return flight before it gets started.
Yep, if it could be made somehow fool-proof then maybe. Perhaps we can have a fool-proof ground car first and save the three and however many thousand people killed in the UK in a year.
It's a fantasy and will be for quite a while. We simply don't have the development skills to put together a system which would be acceptably safe.
On commercial airliners the most difficult landings (requiring the greatest level of crew skill and qualification) are autolands because of the all ways it has to be set up carefully and monitored for various failure modes.
hanger said..
"I really don't "get" this flying car thing."
This is a attempt to get the best of two worlds. Ground transportation and flying.
You can think of a airplane as a time machine. It can compress the time required to travel.
I can fly to Ocracoke NC in about two and a half hours. The drive time to it is eight hours.
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Ocracoke+&state=NC
Flying I can treat this as a day trip, go down in the morning and back home the same afternoon. This would not be possible in a car.
The draw back in doing this is there is no transportation available when you get there.
I have done this trip with my wife and taken bicycles. This limits the sight seeing to how good your physical condition is.
The flying car is a dream for now but someday who knows...
Joe
This just in. STILL a year off! I think it's pretty cool in that you wouldn't have to spend all that time reserving an airplane, especially if you were a spontaneous type of person who just wanted to fly to the coast for the weekend, after the weatherman missed the mark, again! ;-) It would save TIME on BOTH ends and...the time from Point A to B! COOL! :-D
(My birthday's in August, in case anyone is wondering! ;-)
Huh.
thanks.
thanks.
Sure. (Forgot to mention one con: looks quite silly and distracting...going down the road!
And...let's not forget: how are bad drivers identified; now, they're going to be flying overhead us, as well?! YIKES! :-(
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