As best I can tell, none of today’s “flying cars” is any more useful than the home designed, home built one that flew at Wittman Field and drove into Oshkosh in the early 1970’s.
BJC
BJC
And yet, cars had fins for decades and somehow never turned into rocket ships . . .or fish.The hottest car GMA T.50 has propeller in the rear.
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I mean you take enough real aeroplane features and blend them successfully into a flying car....and voila you are airborne in a touch of a button.
Adding the requirement to make it legally operated on public roadways I see it as a waste of engineering and resources, and the end result cannot be other than a technical compromise. The real use case of the vehicle is to provide door to door transportation, but as an aircraft, in current legislation, it cannot take off and land except airfields, so for the roadable aircraft, you drive it to the local airport, fly it from there to another local airport, close to your destination and drive it the last leg. This is only to make it fit the current legislation. So much time can be saved by flying directly to your destination. Adapt the legislation and build inexpensive vertipads at every "door" and there is no need for the vehicle to be roadable. The aircraft would have much better performance as the design is unburdened with the roadable requirement. Call it whatever you want, personal helicopter, rotorcraft, or as media "passenger drone", but as the vehicle use is "car replacement", I'm ok people calling it a flying car.Here's the rub. If you accept the following definition..."Flying Car: any non-ballistic, human carrying flying machine able to function out of ground effect that can also be legally operated on public roadways as a powered, wheeled vehicle" then most of what is on this string are not flying cars, they are flying "things" that may be better defined as personal helicopters or rotorcraft.
Depends on the mission. In many places/times the weather eliminates the possibility of travel in the air when ground transport on existing highways is still quite practical.Adding the requirement to make it legally operated on public roadways I see it as a waste of engineering and resources
For sure, but I recommend working from home or taking the car when the weather doesn't cooperate.Depends on the mission. In many places/times the weather eliminates the possibility of travel in the air when ground transport on existing highways is still quite practical.
In my part of the world with ground blizards and white out conditions the opposite is often true.
You haven't tried to work from home with a technology challenged wife doing the same due to the virus and is working for a company that needs a COO and more than the one IT guy that can't understand why you can't turn off a computer at the office he has you remoted through to do your work?For sure, but I recommend working from home or taking the car when the weather doesn't cooperate.
Wishful thinking never flew anything. Not even a paper airplane. Until one flies every day, all day, at Oshkosh, it's just wishful thinking.The hottest car GMA T.50 has propeller in the rear.
There cannot be a long road from these kinda designs to a perfect flying car.
I mean you take enough real aeroplane features and blend them successfully into a flying car....and voila you are airborne in a touch of a button.
More correctly, "Been there, tried that."Any actual or proposed flight test of a maned AV Drone/Taxi is unique big news and makes the press while an actual flying roadable aircraft is old news and a thing of the past. It is the "Been there done that" routine.
Here's the rub. If you accept the following definition..."Flying Car: any non-ballistic, human carrying flying machine able to function out of ground effect that can also be legally operated on public roadways as a powered, wheeled vehicle" then most of what is on this string are not flying cars, they are flying "things" that may be better defined as personal helicopters or rotorcraft.
People inadvertently hit the gear retract switch while on the ground. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the guy who inadvertently hits the wing fold switch while in the air.Flying car should be able to deploy the wings at speed...therefore a typical highway should have a lane for flying car take off and landing ( always near big cities )....when things progress. Typical GA airports are often too far from the city centres.