A flying juanty jalopy

[Hurricane Annie]

 Imagine owning one of these to play with. Will this be the way of the future?{article contains video}


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/flying-car-completes-successful-intercity-flight-between-airports-in-slovakia/J27VU2Y2RXRQJ6SU6I7ON3TA5Q/

[J. Wilhelm]

 Imagine owning one of these to play with. Will this be the way of the future?{article contains video}


https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/flying-car-completes-successful-intercity-flight-between-airports-in-slovakia/J27VU2Y2RXRQJ6SU6I7ON3TA5Q/

Ha! When they said flying car, they meant it! None of this quadcopter, drone mumbo jumbo. Just take a 1990s aero styles concept show car, and attach a propeller and folding wings. Et voilà ! You have an airplane

Though I'm not sure why it's got a ceiling of 7800 ft, but it will still take you to most airports, including (just barely) CDMX - you might have to raze some houses, though, and forget about entering the valley through the southern half). At 190km/h or 118mph, it will take you from San Diego CA to Las Cruces NM in 5 hours, instead of the 9 hour drive time. That's about halfway from San Diego to Austin. The good thing is that it folds its wings so you can fuel at a local gas station, and should you be tired, shop at the local convenience store, or pull up to a diner before parking at the Motel 6.

[maduncle]

If only Henry Ford had built a flying car in 1940, instead of asking us to mark his words.

[J. Wilhelm]

The only downside I see is the obvious one. You need a landing strip. Population density and local regulations mean you really don't have a flying car. You have a small airplane with 4 wheels. The range is much better than any helicopter though. But I wonder how far we could get with a hybrid gas drone. The energy density of batteries is still too poor for significant ranges. The only thing heli/quad copters can do now is fly for 30 minutes or less. Good for a Dubai taxi or vehicle in Singapore.

A petrol electric hybrid offers you lightweight engines, and because of the low weight, you can use as many motors as you want. The effectiveness of a rotor /propeller goes down with size, though that's probably something you can field with counter rotating rotors in a quad configuration. Similar to a petrol hybrid car it should have a longer range than a petrol-only vehicle. For Australia and America that will be vital for the project to be viable. Petrol electric, or better, diésel electric seems to me the only realistic option at this point. There's a plethora of other very nice projects (see the Guild of Icarus thread at the meta clubs section in metaphysical section), but they're all short range because they insist on being electric only.

[Hez]

Extremely cool (I want my own Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) but however real the car part of this is fantasy:

But we think that by the latter part of this decade certainly, urban air mobility will offer great opportunity to free up congestion in cities, to help with emissions, whether that's intra-city mobility in the air or whether it's even between cities.

As JWilhelm said... landing strips.
I can't see cities providing sufficient landing strips but the end of the decade to reduce congestion.  Ours takes that long to build subways.
The other issue is "help with emissions."  I simply don't believe that a flying anything has a lower carbon footprint than the same motor doing the same distance without having to provide lift.

[J. Wilhelm]

Extremely cool (I want my own Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) but however real the car part of this is fantasy:

But we think that by the latter part of this decade certainly, urban air mobility will offer great opportunity to free up congestion in cities, to help with emissions, whether that's intra-city mobility in the air or whether it's even between cities.

As JWilhelm said... landing strips.
I can't see cities providing sufficient landing strips but the end of the decade to reduce congestion.  Ours takes that long to build subways.
The other issue is "help with emissions."  I simply don't believe that a flying anything has a lower carbon footprint than the same motor doing the same distance without having to provide lift.

(sorry, I inadvertently placed my answer inside you're message - moderator privilege   I corrected that below )



That's true. My observation does not take carbon emissions into consideration. It's merely a thermodynamic assessment. How much of the combustible energy can you convert into kinetic energy. And the hybrid engine always wins against a purely electric or purely combustion engine. The reason is that the batteries are only temporary accumulators, and they don't have to store too much energy for too long. They're oversized capacitors. Also, the batteries allow the petrol engine to take a rest when it's not needed. Though the combination was never adopted strongly for automobiles, and electric cars took over, I think that for flying machines that's our only option until we find something *muc* better than the batteries we have today.  For aircraft (of any kind) its a more difficult proposition to go all electric.