Moller M400, the perfect transportation for a super-villain
Picture borrowed from: http://www.impactlab.net/2010/09/26/history-of-the-flying-car-part-five-the-moller-skycar/
I was absolutely amazed ...... amazed that anybody over the age of five took this idea seriously. For me, this idea ranks in the same category as the water fountains that dispense orange soda. Nice to have? Sure. Practical in any way shape or form? No No No nope not even close!
The idea of the flying car is as old as the car itself. There were predictions that the model T ford was going to be replaced with them.
The ideas for the flying cars seem to fall in to two basic categories and both of them are ridiculous:
First you have planes that are modified to drive on the road.
Look, it’s the future!
Pic borrowed from: http://www.autoevolution.com/news-image/flying-cars-we-ll-never-live-to-see-them-15356-5.html
As a car then as a plane
Pic borrowed from: http://www.notplanejane.com/sensenich.htm
These tend to be awful cars. The idea is that they don’t have to be very good at driving because you are going to cover most of your distance in the air.The other method is to start with a car and you bolt airplane stuff to it. This tends to make a plane with weird aerodynamic principles.
Live and Let Fly?
Pic borrowed from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1292460.stm
The idea of the flying car tends to look like a good idea when we are sitting in that traffic jam. What we tend to envision is pushing a button and taking to the sky, leaving the miles and miles of slowly moving traffic behind. It is a good dream. It gets even more tempting when you start thinking of the distance between locations in straight lines, rather than following roads. On top of that there are no stop signs or read lights in the sky. How could there possibly be a problem?
Well, very few of the flying car ideas involve technology where you can take off or land vertically. Without that technology, you would have to travel to some sort of airport or take off area, fly to another airport closer to your location, land and then drive to your destination. Any time you save by flying is spent traveling to and from the airports. The more popular the flying car becomes, the busier these airports would be. Why not build more airports? Look at the controversy when they have tried to expand airports like Heathrow in London and Pearson in Toronto. Just imagine the outcry when they tried to build dozens of new airports.
This does not even address the issue of storing the aircraft wings. Some models have the wings folding up and moving with the vehicle on the ground. This adds nothing to the driveability.
Look it is an ugly car and an ugly plane
Pic borrowed from: http://www.inquisitr.com/20269/flying-car-video/
Most of them see the wings being shed and stored somewhere while you are driving. I am picturing some sort of giant parking lot filled with wings.
If they are using vertical takeoff and landing technology the challenge of flying them becomes more complex. I have had some people suggest that computers would take care of the more difficult aspects of flying. The computer in your vehicle could tie in to some sort of master air traffic control computer. This super computer would keep everybody at different altitudes. This is an interesting prospect, especially for anybody who has experienced the wonderful and famous computer “blue screen of death”.
Would you like to restart in safe mode, at 1000 feet?
Pic borrowed from: http://fourquestions.us/personal/fun/bluescreen.php
Turning complete control over to our fine microchiped friends is a daunting prospect. Just think about the countless stories of dolts who have driven in to rivers or other stupid places by doing exactly what their GPS told them to. There would be people in these vehicles to take control if anything goes wrong.
This brings us to the most compelling reason that we should not have flying cars:
Think about the last car trip you took. How many people did you see doing incredibly stupid things? Speeding through residential neighbourhoods, rolling through stop signs and not signalling are all pretty standard stupid things. We also see the ridiculous people applying make-up, reading newspapers and getting changed while driving. These are all things that they do while moving 2 tonnes of glass and steel at deadly speeds on the ground. On the ground you can only hit things that are on the same level as you. Flying allows you the luxury of hitting things above or below you as well. There is also an added bonus. If you are flying and you hit something you will also have very good odds of hitting the ground as well.
So we would have a whole new threat of things falling from the sky.
And this happened without flying cars
Pic borrowed from: http://www.guzer.com/pictures/car-attic.php
I can understand the fantasy of the flying car. Speedy travel that avoids traffic jams, lets us take the most direct route and gives us fantastic views is appealing. It is a Jetsons, everybody in a silver jumpsuit, utopia.
The reality is just too depressing. It has vehicles that do two things, neither of them very well. It brings complexities that we can’t even envision at this point. It brings vehicular carnage beyond belief.
On the ground you exchange insurance information
Pic borrowed from: http://road-safety.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
In the air your relatives fight over your belongings
Pic borrowed from: http://jalopnik.com/5536172/small-plane-crashes-into-suv-during-british-drag-race
The thing that really makes me shake my head is that people are still investing millions of dollars in to this. Nobody can tell at this point how many of the existing flying car ventures are serious and how many are outright scams. But if somebody comes along with the investment opportunity of a lifetime, where you can get in on the ground floor of the next great leap in transportation ........ RUN AWAY!
