Flying car: A real object in the near future or a dream creation from sci-fi literature?
Thursday, 6. November 2008, 18:35:30
Hey y'all,Firstly, I want to introduce to you a web page I'm reading constantly for few months now. It's called Gizmodo. I've found it when I was looking for some information about iPhones, because I got one of them few months ago. So anyway, the site is kinda interesting and different from other similar pages. I found it interesting because you can find not only news about real and relevant technologies but also about absurdities that often make you laugh.
Let's get to the point now. One of article was named "Moller Says flying Ferraris taking off in two years" but it was taken off the site after few hours (I suggest reading the article first; it's given below my blog). Also I've accidentally found similar article under the same topic in LiveScience.com and you can read it here but my thoughts and interpretations will mostly be under the article from Gizmodo.
Well, maybe it's only me, but when I read something about flying I read the whole thing because it often has something to do with the air and I'm going to be a meteorologist after all (In a simple way – everything interests me that has something to do with atmosphere). So this article caught my eye not only because of car development but also because of flying.
The article gave me some food for thought: will car development especially into flying vehicles affect our atmosphere in some unknown or unexpected way? What effect will it have to us not only in meteorological way? Is it economic and/or ecologic?
The author of the article states that "the car features a specially designed hybrid fuel and electric power system for the thrusters". Let's assume the flying car exists and is common in our society which is not equal talking about wealth. We will have the rich part of people that will buy the Ferrari car from the article. On other hand there will be people that won't even afford a flying car and stick to the old one but let's make these two parts of society not so common. The most common people will afford a flying car but will have to find a halfway between price and quality. This leads to wide assortment of flying vehicle's models and engines, of course. There will be not only hybrid ones which are more expensive but also ran by fuel. This leads to pollution. The traffic will pollute not only lower atmosphere and the more polluted layer of atmosphere sooner or later will get thicker (I'm not the one that supports the idea of global warming but I'm against pollution anyway, we have to find a way how rationally use our resources and treasure the environment we live in) and I don't think that sounds very attractive, doesn't it?
Now let's talk about traffic. The government would be in an urgent need to change the whole infrastructure, the technologies would have to evolve more and more and fast. This is because we would need some kind of traffic lights in the air; I don't think it would be very thoughtful to let everyone do what they want up there. Skycar accidents would get common and just think of the consequences – there would be damage done not only to cars but also to buildings that lie beneath the sky-highways. Sounds not very nicely… Even the Skycar pluses like the avoidance of traffic jams don't counterbalance everything. The only plus I totally agree with is the usage of skycar in emergency situations (one of them is shown in a video which you can find in LiveScience article).
And to sum up, skycars still seem to look like a dream creation from sci-fi literature for me, neither economic nor practical use of them for regular people. So let's all regular people stick to regular cars and make them more environment friendly!
P.S. Due to the delete of the article in Gizmodo, I'm pasting it here, so you could read it (I was clever enough to save it
).
Moller Says Flying Ferraris Taking Off In Two Years
Moller International, creators of the first flying car ever made, has said it'll be able to bring a flying Ferrari into driveways in roughly two years. The "Autovolantor," based on the Ferrari 599 GTB, will use eight thrusters to take off vertically, hover, and fly forward at 150mph.
The designer, Bruce Calkins, says the car features a specially designed hybrid fuel and electric power system for the thrusters, and will be able to fly up to altitudes of 5,000 feet and go about 75 miles in the air before running empty. The cost for shooting out of traffic will be about $787,000, Calkins said.
Call me a skeptic, but the whole thing sounds like a load of hot air. The article and a search of Moller's site revealed almost no information about the mechanics of the project. Unless someone actually shows me how they plan on lifting two tons of metal off the ground using “thrusters,” I'm going to file this under the “I'll believe it when I see it” folder.
And I want to paste some interesting comments from Gizmodo readers that cracked me up:
because a stainless steel DeLorean is HEAVY !!!! and...... there is gonna have to be a WHOLE new set of rules for this thing. I would be pissed to wake up to a drunk driver having had crashed into my attic. Ha
now back to Batman LEGO
Nerdtastic.
I'm waiting for the flying Honda Civic Hatchback. The resale value should be better than most comparable flying cars. That's one of the most important things you have to think about when buying a flying car, the resale value.
It will wave wings?
~NC
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