God I hope not. Think about how bad people are at driving regular cars. Now picture collisions over houses, hospitals, schools, etc. Add to that the lack of maintenance that too many cars have and you have flying cars falling out of the sky left and right. Think about how many cars you’ve passed on the side of the road. All those would have gone crashing out of the sky, mostly in populated areas
I had the dreams of flying cars growing up; 1500 horsepower turbine screamers, or contra-grav landspeeders, but then I got exposed to coastal drivers. Boston drivers and L.A drivers specifically, and the concept of them having to deal with 3 dimensions instead of 2.5 (counting frequently used sidewalks and curbs) makes the success of flying vehicles unlikely.
That said there might very well be a way but only if we get the sci-fi fully autonomous mesh-networked traffic control system where the coastal drivers (and everyone else) are excused from the responsibility of vaguely controlling their vehicles, leaving such responsibilities to a google-apple traffic control matrix that learns where you go, why you’re going, and how to sell you as much stuff as possible at every opportunity while the state, county, unincorporated county, municipality, and park and school taxing districts all take out their ‘little bite’ for every tenth of a mile you fly, while almost certainly stripping the ability to get get in your own car and drive around randomly…
@duodec
Good point about monetization. MIght be a way to pay for it all, assuming most of the bugs could be worked out. We have shown ourselves to be willing to hand over info in exchange for freebies on a mass scale.
while almost certainly stripping the ability to get get in your own car and drive around randomly…
That would cause a hubbub. Unless we were in a 1984-style police state, i think it would cause a resurgence of bicycling, homebuilt cars, motorcycles, and other powered wheeled creations. The western and rural US might become hotbeds of outlaw lifestyles.
If “the great they took away all the roads”, I would foresee horses and creative powered ground vehicles become “the thing” to own.
@f00l I expect that in most places, especially heavy population areas, both fully autonomous cars as well as autonomous flying cars (when available) will end up being mostly ‘community’ things, not personally owned. Flying cars won’t be cheap to buy or insure. Nothing wrong with that so long as TPTB don’t try to shut down private cars and ownership (but they will… its the nature of the beast).
In any case every vehicle will be tracked all the time; its the nature of the ‘mesh’ networking they’re talking about using. It should be possible for a vehicle to use a randomized ID but including accurate information about type and capabilities when working in the mesh, but that probably won’t be allowed; every vehicle will probably be required to have a permanent unique identifier used even during transient communications during motion.
The only way to retain some measure of privacy with autonomous vehicles (ground or air) using a mesh is if there’s a hard disconnect between the passenger identification and the vehicle ID and travel path. But I doubt TPTB will allow any such. Google and Apple and… could still keep track of you by your mobile unless you power it down but .gov has too many interests, good and bad, in knowing as much as possible about everyone’s activities. And taxing same.
And taxing will be the driving force behind .gov making efforts to prevent private individuals having or keeping cars if autonomous gets mandated; safety will be the ‘public reason’ but taxes will be the actual issue. No rural town or western enclave too small to avoid the gaze of the ‘revenuers’. Only the car daring to move untaxed on roads, rather than its trunk full of shine will be the object of their attention.
BTW I can’t see roads going away ever, unless we do get contragrav. It just won’t be cost effecive, even if its technically feasible for heavier loads, large trucks, etc to get off the ground
Agree about the roads not going away. I was just following my political fantasy wherever it led me for that one.
I agree that private autos will likely become accessories rather than necessities in the future in urban areas. If there is a reliable transportation grid that will (in a timely way) take you wherever you want to go, why bother with the expense of a private vehicle unless you are rich, a hobbyist, or have special uses?
In rural areas, I expect private vehicles will stay. Too few up both grid vehicles available, distances too long to make it human-time efficient. Also rural vehicles are often often used in different ways and patterns than that urban vehicles; many of them have dual private and commercial purposes and need to pretty much be locally available quickly and be able to carry or haul payloads.
Yes, all will be monitored constantly, both as a tech and safety thing, and because governments do that.
In rural areas there are many who are tech competent to remove onboard monitoring from their vehicles. Even with cell batteries removed and zero monitoring tech onboard, I think there government will likely still know where everyone is. Increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring by all possible means. They will likely know where every vehicle is. They may know where every person is.
I sincerely hope this doesn’t become a full n blown police state. But it may. The tech will be there.
As it is, there are too many folks that can barely handle the mostly two-dimensional aspect of driving a wheeled vehicle. Handling the three dimensions of flying should be mostly automated to keep accidents to a minimum. Other issues include the amount of fuel\power that will be needed to run them, necessary redundancies to prevent a breakdown from becoming a fatal incident, and hazards of trash\birds\debris when dealing with low-altitude flight.
@AdmiralDave
Am thinking of the differing requirements in education, training, background, and experience to drive a commercial passenger ground vehicle (taxi, bus, uber, basically any adult with a driver’s license) vs the requirements to fly a commercial passenger aircraft. There is a reason why commercial pilots make better money than bus drivers. And it’s not just the relative scarcity of skills.
Even if the population became education- and training- and competence-centric, so that a majority of persons were well trained and intellectually competent to fly; the distractions of stress, life, fatigue, emotions etc, plus the added incredible congestion would make this insanely dangerous for the population at large to operate their own commuter flying vehicles. Let alone the issues of precision maintenance.
If human-operated commuter aviation comes to pass, I foresee a jump in popularity for underground residences.
They have existed since the 60s. I’ve seen the functional prototypes in flight museums. Guess what? You ain’t flying that thing without a pilots license, and you are only landing it at airports, paying landing fees etc. That’s why they have never been mass produced. The only benefit it provides over a small plane is that you can drive your shitty, crampt, death trap of a plane on the surface streets after landing at your regional airport.
I barely trust most of the asshats on the road with ground based cars. Can you imagine the number of accidents we would have to deal with when drunk drivers are airborne? No thank you. I’d rather pin my futurist hopes on self driving cars.
Yeah… they already exist but like many pointed out… the masses are not ready for it. Neither is the FAA. Just like cars that can drive themselves. Already exist but still some bugs and people are not at the point of acceptance. They are slowly creeping in tho with some of the functions… self parallel parking, transponders, etc. Soon.
@lseeber The FAA is ready for roadable aircraft - in fact, they have even approved of certain LSA exemptions to be applied to the Terrafugia Transition. But the aircraft (and pilot) must be certified just the same as any other plane.
@rpstrong Ok… I was going by what was going on when hubby retired from the FAA a few yrs ago. At that time they were holding off on a lot of it saying the general population (and they at the time) just weren’t ready. How is this different from simply having a pilot license and a small aircraft? (you know, Jetson’s style) Hope I asked that correctly. (Hubby just now told me that he did know that but hadn’t mentioned to me… so I’m in the dark… but he did say that the FAA actually has been trying to encourage such a thing for a while now, yes?)
@lseeber From the FAA’s point of view, there isn’t a difference. The fact that it can be legally driven on the highway is immaterial. But there is a reason that the term ‘roadable aircraft’ is used instead of ‘flying car’ - these are airplanes first and foremost, and are marketed to the same market. The ‘flying car’ concept - a device which can be used where you’d normally drive, and which would be autonomous enough for a basic driver to handle -
is a whole different idea.
Although the estimated number of General Lees used varies from different sources, according to former cast member Ben Jones (“Cooter” in the show), as well as builders involved with the show, 325 General Lees were used to film the series. Others claim about 255 were used in the series. Approximately 17 still exist in various states of repair. On average, more than one General Lee was used up per show. When filming a jump, anywhere from 500 to 1,000 pounds (230 to 450 kg) of sand bags or concrete ballast was placed in the trunk to prevent the car from nosing over. Later in the series the mechanics would raise the front end of the car to keep it from scraping against the ramp causing it to lose speed, thereby providing a cushion for the driver upon landing. Stunt drivers report enjoying the flights but hating the landings. Despite the ballast, the landing attitude of the car was somewhat unpredictable, resulting in moderate to extremely violent forces, depending on how it landed. On many of the jumps the cars bent upon impact. All cars used in large jumps were immediately retired due to structural damage.
Chargers from model-years 1968 & 1969 (no 1970 Chargers were used until the 2005 movie) were sourced and converted to General Lee specifications (taillights, grills, etc.). Despite popular belief, according to all builders involved over the years, obtaining cars was not a problem until later years. By that time, the car was the star of the show and Warner Bros. (WB) moved building of the cars in-house to keep the cars consistent in appearance. Later in the show’s run, when it got too hard and/or expensive to continue procuring more Chargers, the producers started using more “jump footage” from previous episodes. In the final season radio-controlled miniatures were occasionally used to the chagrin of several cast members.
It’s almost impossible to buy vintage chargers from those years now. Of someone wants to, they’re gonna spend some $. The show went through so many of them. And the remainder were picked up by hobbyists who converted and restored them to the General Lee look.
We already have flying cars, they’re called “airplanes”.
Helicopters are my go to example of a flying car, but yeah.
@infornography
@awk
Have watched someone take a short hop in an open-air homebuilt ultralight.
It was powered by a lawnmower engine.
There he was, soaring over the roadside electric and phone grid wires. It did look like fun.
Can I wax ecstatic instead?
/youtube Sponge Wax Ecstatic
@RiotDemon
Gotta commend your waxing procedures to the shaving thread.
God I hope not. Think about how bad people are at driving regular cars. Now picture collisions over houses, hospitals, schools, etc. Add to that the lack of maintenance that too many cars have and you have flying cars falling out of the sky left and right. Think about how many cars you’ve passed on the side of the road. All those would have gone crashing out of the sky, mostly in populated areas
@TheGreatNico
Hopefully autonomous vehicles will become mainstream long before flying cars do.
Umm… this is awkward…
http://m.ebay.com/itm/152609103202?_mwBanner=1#viTabs_0
@Drunkenalien why is it awkward? There have been flying cars since 1953.
@Drunkenalien But awesome and cool too.
@cranky1950 exactly my point. Questionnaire for when will we have flying cars and here’s one for sale.
@Drunkenalien probably never, traffic jams are the problem. as you get to the choke points they happen and a flying car has to move.
@Drunkenalien One is flying CAR, multiple would be flying CARS. Both have to be flying at the same time to qualify
I had the dreams of flying cars growing up; 1500 horsepower turbine screamers, or contra-grav landspeeders, but then I got exposed to coastal drivers. Boston drivers and L.A drivers specifically, and the concept of them having to deal with 3 dimensions instead of 2.5 (counting frequently used sidewalks and curbs) makes the success of flying vehicles unlikely.
That said there might very well be a way but only if we get the sci-fi fully autonomous mesh-networked traffic control system where the coastal drivers (and everyone else) are excused from the responsibility of vaguely controlling their vehicles, leaving such responsibilities to a google-apple traffic control matrix that learns where you go, why you’re going, and how to sell you as much stuff as possible at every opportunity while the state, county, unincorporated county, municipality, and park and school taxing districts all take out their ‘little bite’ for every tenth of a mile you fly, while almost certainly stripping the ability to get get in your own car and drive around randomly…
@duodec
Good point about monetization. MIght be a way to pay for it all, assuming most of the bugs could be worked out. We have shown ourselves to be willing to hand over info in exchange for freebies on a mass scale.
That would cause a hubbub. Unless we were in a 1984-style police state, i think it would cause a resurgence of bicycling, homebuilt cars, motorcycles, and other powered wheeled creations. The western and rural US might become hotbeds of outlaw lifestyles.
If “the great they took away all the roads”, I would foresee horses and creative powered ground vehicles become “the thing” to own.
@f00l I expect that in most places, especially heavy population areas, both fully autonomous cars as well as autonomous flying cars (when available) will end up being mostly ‘community’ things, not personally owned. Flying cars won’t be cheap to buy or insure. Nothing wrong with that so long as TPTB don’t try to shut down private cars and ownership (but they will… its the nature of the beast).
In any case every vehicle will be tracked all the time; its the nature of the ‘mesh’ networking they’re talking about using. It should be possible for a vehicle to use a randomized ID but including accurate information about type and capabilities when working in the mesh, but that probably won’t be allowed; every vehicle will probably be required to have a permanent unique identifier used even during transient communications during motion.
The only way to retain some measure of privacy with autonomous vehicles (ground or air) using a mesh is if there’s a hard disconnect between the passenger identification and the vehicle ID and travel path. But I doubt TPTB will allow any such. Google and Apple and… could still keep track of you by your mobile unless you power it down but .gov has too many interests, good and bad, in knowing as much as possible about everyone’s activities. And taxing same.
And taxing will be the driving force behind .gov making efforts to prevent private individuals having or keeping cars if autonomous gets mandated; safety will be the ‘public reason’ but taxes will be the actual issue. No rural town or western enclave too small to avoid the gaze of the ‘revenuers’. Only the car daring to move untaxed on roads, rather than its trunk full of shine will be the object of their attention.
BTW I can’t see roads going away ever, unless we do get contragrav. It just won’t be cost effecive, even if its technically feasible for heavier loads, large trucks, etc to get off the ground
@duodec
Agree about the roads not going away. I was just following my political fantasy wherever it led me for that one.
I agree that private autos will likely become accessories rather than necessities in the future in urban areas. If there is a reliable transportation grid that will (in a timely way) take you wherever you want to go, why bother with the expense of a private vehicle unless you are rich, a hobbyist, or have special uses?
In rural areas, I expect private vehicles will stay. Too few up both grid vehicles available, distances too long to make it human-time efficient. Also rural vehicles are often often used in different ways and patterns than that urban vehicles; many of them have dual private and commercial purposes and need to pretty much be locally available quickly and be able to carry or haul payloads.
Yes, all will be monitored constantly, both as a tech and safety thing, and because governments do that.
In rural areas there are many who are tech competent to remove onboard monitoring from their vehicles. Even with cell batteries removed and zero monitoring tech onboard, I think there government will likely still know where everyone is. Increasingly sophisticated forms of monitoring by all possible means. They will likely know where every vehicle is. They may know where every person is.
I sincerely hope this doesn’t become a full n blown police state. But it may. The tech will be there.
Today may be a golden age in comparison.
As it is, there are too many folks that can barely handle the mostly two-dimensional aspect of driving a wheeled vehicle. Handling the three dimensions of flying should be mostly automated to keep accidents to a minimum. Other issues include the amount of fuel\power that will be needed to run them, necessary redundancies to prevent a breakdown from becoming a fatal incident, and hazards of trash\birds\debris when dealing with low-altitude flight.
@AdmiralDave
Am thinking of the differing requirements in education, training, background, and experience to drive a commercial passenger ground vehicle (taxi, bus, uber, basically any adult with a driver’s license) vs the requirements to fly a commercial passenger aircraft. There is a reason why commercial pilots make better money than bus drivers. And it’s not just the relative scarcity of skills.
Even if the population became education- and training- and competence-centric, so that a majority of persons were well trained and intellectually competent to fly; the distractions of stress, life, fatigue, emotions etc, plus the added incredible congestion would make this insanely dangerous for the population at large to operate their own commuter flying vehicles. Let alone the issues of precision maintenance.
If human-operated commuter aviation comes to pass, I foresee a jump in popularity for underground residences.
Not until it can be more thoroughly automated, and made far cheaper, yet simultaneously far safer. In short, no time soon.
They have existed since the 60s. I’ve seen the functional prototypes in flight museums. Guess what? You ain’t flying that thing without a pilots license, and you are only landing it at airports, paying landing fees etc. That’s why they have never been mass produced. The only benefit it provides over a small plane is that you can drive your shitty, crampt, death trap of a plane on the surface streets after landing at your regional airport.
@givemeyoursoul A second major advantage is that you can drive home if weather settles in unexpectedly.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/6/15930812/moller-skycar-flying-car-for-sale-ebay
I barely trust most of the asshats on the road with ground based cars. Can you imagine the number of accidents we would have to deal with when drunk drivers are airborne? No thank you. I’d rather pin my futurist hopes on self driving cars.
Yeah… they already exist but like many pointed out… the masses are not ready for it. Neither is the FAA. Just like cars that can drive themselves. Already exist but still some bugs and people are not at the point of acceptance. They are slowly creeping in tho with some of the functions… self parallel parking, transponders, etc. Soon.
@lseeber The FAA is ready for roadable aircraft - in fact, they have even approved of certain LSA exemptions to be applied to the Terrafugia Transition. But the aircraft (and pilot) must be certified just the same as any other plane.
@rpstrong Ok… I was going by what was going on when hubby retired from the FAA a few yrs ago. At that time they were holding off on a lot of it saying the general population (and they at the time) just weren’t ready. How is this different from simply having a pilot license and a small aircraft? (you know, Jetson’s style) Hope I asked that correctly. (Hubby just now told me that he did know that but hadn’t mentioned to me… so I’m in the dark… but he did say that the FAA actually has been trying to encourage such a thing for a while now, yes?)
@lseeber From the FAA’s point of view, there isn’t a difference. The fact that it can be legally driven on the highway is immaterial. But there is a reason that the term ‘roadable aircraft’ is used instead of ‘flying car’ - these are airplanes first and foremost, and are marketed to the same market. The ‘flying car’ concept - a device which can be used where you’d normally drive, and which would be autonomous enough for a basic driver to handle -
is a whole different idea.
@rpstrong Ah… ok. I did have the ‘flying car’ concept in mind rather than the other way around. Thanks for the clarification.
I was in a car that rolled down a hill and flew over a fence!
@lisaviolet
Like this, I hope:
@f00l My landing wasn’t that smooth. lol
@lisaviolet
Neither was theirs.
It’s almost impossible to buy vintage chargers from those years now. Of someone wants to, they’re gonna spend some $. The show went through so many of them. And the remainder were picked up by hobbyists who converted and restored them to the General Lee look.
If we’re talking about a vehicle that can be used by a person without a pilots license, not in my lifetime.
There will be a prototype 15-20 years before it hits the market.
@number51 I believe they already have a prototype.
Wouldn’t work in really congested areas. Which seems to be everywhere.
It’s definitely going to be after self-driving electric vehicles are commonplace. Safety and fuel efficiency are pretty big problems for them.
I’d expect automated cars to go the way of Minority Report long before flying cars becomes the norm.