New "flying car"

[Rolling-Thunder]

Check out this "flying car"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/15/60minutes/main688454.shtml

 

[garf12]

I saw that on 60 minutes last night, pretty fun looking.

 

[vclean]

It's difficult enough for the average driver to keep their 2 dimensional vehicle within the painted lines and not hit one another at 35 mph.

 

[mayday1]

i saw the 60 minutes special on these last night... interesting, and some good inventions (i suppose).. but, contrary to what the inventors think, I seriously doubt we'll be seeing these as common transports, replacing cars anytime in the forseeable future.

 

[bssthound]

Agreed. As we watched the program I explained to my nephews that should the average idiot mount up in one of those things the overpopulation problem would get corrected pretty quick. You think product liability is bad for conventional aircraft, wait 'til those things are mass produced.

 

[getonit]

They have a picture of the moller skycar, I think popular mechanics has been talking about that thing for 30 years and it still doesn't fly, I think it has been flying remotely attached to a tether. The developer is on crack, I think the projections were 350 mph and 28, it takes lots of power to go fast and the way to do that is burn lots of fuel and 28 mpg isn't much fuel. I will believe it when he has it done, which will probably be about the time my boss gets all of the shiny new jet airplanes he has promised us.

 

[yzf6]

sure, they talk about it twice a month in popular mechanics, but this time they're for real! there will be one in every garage in 2 years! AND it says you don't need a license to fly it if you stay under 400 ft. start cleaning out the garage, deliveries should start any day and you don't wanto be the last one on your block to get a skycar.

 

[RampTower]

Does it have a fluxcapicator?

 

[SiuDude]

He's also a mathematics genius:

"That's a big market. But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars."

 

[Ralgha]

Look at it this way, the traffic congestion would be non-existant after a couple months because all the morons on the road would have killed themselves trying one of these!

 

[Andy Neill]

Take a look at a hover test a couple of years ago.

http://media.moller.com/Flight030111-240WebStamp.mp4

 

[TDTURBO]

He's also a mathematics genius:

"That's a big market. But if we sold say a couple thousand, $50,000 a piece, that's a billion dollars."

I saw that also, I was drinking a Pepsi at the time and almost spit it out laughing so hard.

If A guy is that bad with simple multilication, I doubt I would have confidence in his engineering skills.

 

[A Squared]

I'm disgusted that 60 minutes gave any time at all to the Paul Moller and his "SkyCar" except perhaps as an investigative report. He's been "developing" the sky car for 40 years and all he's ever been able to do is hover in ground effect, and that was accomplished back in the 1960's ....3 decades and no actual progress.. but it's going to be going 350 mph in a couple of years ... mmmmm right. Seems that CBS might have mentioned that moller is currenty being preosecuted by the Securities Exchange Commission for stock fraud related to the sky car.

 

[Fury220]

Norris says you won’t need a pilot’s license if you fly it under 400 feet in non-restricted air space.

Oh man, people are going to be hitting towers like CRAZY.


If this actually happens, I'm going to build a bunker underground and live there until Darwinism has taken full effect.



Maybe we should just call them "yuppie coffins" instead of Skycars?

 

[bobbysamd]

Flying cars, etc.

I saw it on 60 Minutes last night, also. The helicopter/motorcycle looked like fun but the 300-knot, 20,000-MSL, four-fan vehicle was a little hard to believe. However, when these guys start predicting hoardes of these vehicles on the NASA-created "Highway in the Sky," it makes me think they have watched too many Jetsons episodes.

Depending on your point of view, the Aerocar was way ahead of its time, just like the Northrop Flying Wing (which, curiously, looked a lot like the B-2 Stealth), or everything old is new again.

My wife even commented about how dangerous the skies would become if motorists of today got wings. She's right.

 

[Blue]

Ditto what everyone's said about the Moller Skycar. That guy is a sham.

I went to a "Flying Car" forum at Oshkosh '99. What a bunch of crackpots! There was a lot of "Yeah, we're almost there, we just need some more engineeering/work/money."

IMHO, I think NASA is on the right track with their "Highway In the Sky." However, I hope and imagine that it will never be as easy to get a pilot licesne as it is a driver's license.

 

[cforst513]

man, i hope flying cars stay as science fiction and not reality...