Training?

The additional licenses for flying cars better be pretty strict (though ideally not expensive). Otherwise, there's going to be a lot of power cuts/toasted cows when pylons start getting hit, and maybe a few new 10ft sq skylights in people's roofs.

To all then greenies and lefties above....

Mwhahahahaha .. you all make me laugh!

You blantantly didn't even read the bloody article properly.

I love the article, I love the idea.... I LOVE GLOBAL WARMING!

I don't trust most drivers in two dimensions...

...give them three and I'll be staying at home.

Rubbish

Flying cars will remove the need for expensive roads?

Bulls**t.

So do we get the flying 40 tonne truck, the flying milkfloat, the flying white van with all it's tools on board, the flying dustbin lorry, the flying jcb, the flying lowloader, the flying mincab to take you mates to the pub?

People who belive this will replace the need for roads, clearly have their head shoved so far up their own arse, they are high on methane!

PS

can I have FoTW please, or do I need more capitals?

From A Green Leftie

Mwhahahahaha I also love global warming! I get a fat grant whenever I dream up a research project that I can link to global warming (however tenuous the link). And I can assure you I'm ludicrously minted!!!

Not out to spoil your gas guzzling techno fuelled shallow life though I've got one of my own.....but just pause for a moment and think what underlies your lifestyle, your life even - cheap food! What does that depend on - oh, same as mine, the environment! Know it's a simple argument but you might fail to understand anything more intellectually demanding!!!

Mine's the green anorak!

@Mark_T:

"The technical difficulties will never go away either no matter what level of technology is applied."

Shome Mishtake Shurely?

A fuel-efficient VTOL 'hands-off' system would clearly work. It could even be publicly owned (as in the 'automated taxi' idea above). We can't build one at the moment, but are you really saying we never could?

Flying round in circles

Just going with it, for a moment... what happened to the good old autogyro? Cheap, not very fast, v. low take off and landing distances. The only thing really needed is the very clever software to navigate and control the whole package to keep `Joe/Jane Moron's' hands off the controls!

Crap Crap and Crap on top

@Mark "200mph minimum?"

Crap (how many glider air frames have you seen that could survive at this speed? 0)

"You'll need ILS or similar to get them to land the same direction."

Crap. What about landing them 1 way on one side and another on the other side. Colour coded, with lights. Kinda like we have on roads. Also at lower speeds SIGHT is usually a good indicator if someone is approaching the wrong way, mandatory GPS system could help to mark other air users too, or a centralised RADAR station that feeds data to all in range. NO technological obstacles.

"A stationary electric car uses whatever number of watts you're expending on the radio, AC and lights. So the stationary traffic is a load of bollocks too."

True, but CRAP argument. When MOVING which is their job they do not have the efficiency when penciling in the energy cost to build the roads into remote locations, not drive as the crow flies etc as mentioned in the article.

@ B.B.

"Think of an automated taxi."

Crap. How do you get it to pull over when you need to pee. where are they parked, how do they get to you in the first place, or do they travel until hailed? not very efficient in that case. Stil no crow flying direct travel.

"They can daisychain on motorways........"

Crap. And how do they respond to little Timmy running in front of the PRICT's. It stops them ALL, or mows him down with no regard. IF they cannot due to the laws of physics stop do they try anyway to limit the damage done? Technology has no answer yet.

"Move the jobs nearer the people (ie. get your companies out of the cities) which would help reduce emissions AND costs for most companies. Not only that but us workers would not have to waste 3 hours every day travelling in and out of a stinking, noisy, overcrowded city."

GRAND FINALE CRAP. Nearer the PEOPLE, OUT of the CITIES????? Heres is a clue, though I am sure you will just stick it up your arse. PEOPLE LIVE IN CITIES YOU FUCKWAD. I am glad you spend 3 hours a day driving to work, it keeps you away from SANE PEOPLE.

Broken comparison

After setting the stage for comparing flying cars to ground cars in rural areas, you then go on to say: "Often the ground cars sit in traffic jams..."

You don't drive much in rural areas, do you?

Of course if you compare fuel efficiency between a rural air car solution and an urban ground car solution, the air car will win mile-for-mile. For a rural-to-rural comparison, once you factor in the costs of building the road (which by the way, can be less than you think in rural areas -- they often use just the dirt that's already there), you might still come out ahead with an air car. But if you have to rely on rural "traffic jams" to make your case, then you've got no case.

Be Quiet

I don't care about green or not green, safe or not safe, licenses or training. Al very important stuff I'm certain, but they all miss the point.

I was promised a damn flying car when I were little by all the TV programmes around at the time, and damn it, I want my bloody flying car.

I don't care if I fly it the once, crash into some idiot (or it could be me being the idiot) and die in a firey ball of er, fire, I want my flying car.

Oh and a jet pack, and laser cannons, and a robot / monkey butler (delete according to personal taste)

Mines the one with 'my other cars stuck in orbit' on the back

Railways.

A discussion such as this is a nonsense if it doesn't include adequate consideration of a decent rail-based system*.

£Xbn is to be squandered on unwinnable fights, a glofied membership card and accompanying database, X-amount of buildings to be subsequently demolished in the name of an international school sports day based vanity project under the guise of re-generation, etc, etc...

But for all that wasted dosh we could quite easily fit the country up with a spanking new rail-based system, linking up every UK connurbation with 200k plus population. We could also integrate a decent urban mass-transit system** for each connurbation. And worthwhile Park&Rides*** could be linked in too, for reaching out into the more rural areas.

This'd reduce the need for roads _and_ flight. Especially in the UK. That we do so much internal flying here is an utterly disgraceful absurdity that shows a chronic lack of ambition.

It takes as long to get around on the train as it did 100 years ago, FFS!!!

But instead of actually trying to even come close to attempting grand Engineering schemes for the good of the whole population, we'll carry on dreaming of the Jetsons made real. And fighting overseas. And printing cards & implementing dodgy IT projects. And building & knocking down gymnasiums in run-down cities.

Priorities innit? But we seem happy to subscribe to Sky TV (+sport+movies) as an essential, and then complain about the relatively insignificat variations in the price of fresh food. So why am I surprised?

* Not necessarily Maglev, but I'm thinking of that level of performance.

** Not necessarily trams or subways. Heave Monorails been given a truly fair chance?

*** Worthwhile, as in better than a shady old piece of waste land-cum-designated as car park) and each of those, and also include

RE: Colin Jackson

"A fuel-efficient VTOL 'hands-off' system would clearly work. It could even be publicly owned (as in the 'automated taxi' idea above). We can't build one at the moment, but are you really saying we never could?"

I said difficulties not impossibilities. In actual fact we could do it now but it's just not worth the effort or the cost.

Technology gives more options in achieving something but it never affects the problems which need to be overcome to do it. The sky will always be wet, windy, cloudy and cold at times. Gravity will always make stuff heavy.

Re: Cable Cars

You're not really serious, right?

Are you planning on building redundant lines of towers so that you don't have to shut the entire "road" down when you need to do maintenance on one "lane"? What about when emergency services need to get through? Or are you going to build these AND roads?

As an in-city solution, where you can (possibly!) require all new high-rise construction to include cable-hanging attachments, this MIGHT work (although zoning and historic preservation districts would doubtless make planning and building one of these an absolute bear there, too), but outside of cities it's a pretty clear non-starter.

A sure case of identity theft here

Amanfromarse has stolen Lewis's account; Lewis's stuff has never been this rubbish before, whereas Graham's usually is.

I'm not an aeromotive engineer...

..but I read recently that less than 1% of an auto engine's fuel is actually used to move the passengers, and that 99% is used by the engine in getting out of its own way (overcoming friction, sucking in oxygen, heating the atmosphere, etc.). I'd rather more research were put into correcting the internal combustion engine's terrible inefficiency than providing another Darwinian death trap for our specie's less adapted members.

@Sam

Working from home is great for most IT people and some others but not much use for most factory workers and other "hands on" workers. Even then some IT people will be needed in an office unless you know of a way to hard-boot a server or rewire a network by remote.

As for the problem of home workers not socialising and all going mad, hey, at least they'd be at home and not in a 1.5ton 4 wheeled steel battering ram driving like a selfish lunatic on London's roads!

haha flying cars eh

whatever next this is back to the future alright all we need is a hover board as your replacement skateboard haha lol although could it really be possible for a flying car hum you never know put it this way if it does happen then good by to congesting and congesting charges :)

you obviously aren't a greenie

"Move the jobs nearer the people (ie. get your companies out of the cities) which would help reduce emissions AND costs for most companies. Not only that but us workers would not have to waste 3 hours every day travelling in and out of a stinking, noisy, overcrowded city."

this is just the opposite of what the eco-greenie-control freaks want. They practically demand that everyone live in a bloody city stacked one on top of another in beautiful car-free efficiency where everything you could ever want is just short walk or bike ride away and that mass transit (bus/train/?) is just a short block away.

Great if you like living in the city; sucks for everyone else. I live in the country where I'm not on top of my neighbors and they're not looking in my front door every time it opens. Yes, it's nice to not work and be forced to live in some stinking city on top of 4 billion other people i don't want to see or be near every day....get over it. I still want my flying car!

Personally

I feel we're being short-changed by the lefty PC insanity which prevents Star Trek-style instant transportation, that would be way more green but if you demand this from your local car dealership they tell you they'll phone the police if you come back again. That's the level of conspiracy we're talking about here people!

I also blame Greenpeace for the lack of levitation units.

Mike Moyle

"What about when emergency services need to get through?"

Well, *they'd* get to use the flying cars, of course!

I'm surprised no-one pointed out the essential absurdity of this post yet, though: it relies on the idea that NASA gives a flying stuff about the environment. Yes, NASA, the agency whose purpose is to launch gigantic rockets into space at a fuel efficiency of approximately 0.000000000000000000000000001mpg*.

* - estimated by holding down the zero key for half a second. HIGHLY SCIENTIFIC METHOD ALERT.

Reading the whole thing?

Seems a few people are forgetting that these PAVs would be fully automated, the only flying on the part of the 'driver' would be in case of emergency.

On the other hand I doubt there would be much time to mess around with the manual controls if there was an emergency.

Perhaps a PAV license should simply be something along the lines of successfully parachuting from the vehicle in a staged emergency. Those that survive get the license, those that die don't. What could be greener than pushing up daisies? The way I see it, that'd be win/win on both scores.

Crashing into each other because of BSOD? That's the gamble, and no different from praying that your Linux Car will come with all relevant 'drivers'. No surfing porn sites while you're driving seems to be the order of the day, malware might make you late for work.

Flames because most people will probably end up in them.

PAVs and turbulence

Merging with 2D traffic at 60mph is relatively easy with cars because cars have good responsive braking, acceleration and steering.

Merging with 2D traffic on water is a lot harder because boats/ships have poorer braking and steering.

Any flying vehicle has even less braking and steering. On top of that there's the problem of turbulence which makes control many times more difficult. You'd need 20 or more seconds between PAVs to regain effective control.

Sure, with 3D you could make more lanes, but think of all the noise complaints and problems setting up the lanes.

It seems to me that an effective rail network is a good way to break the 32mph effective speed of motor vehicles.

Andy

"Seems a few people are forgetting that these PAVs would be fully automated, the only flying on the part of the 'driver' would be in case of emergency."

This is a bit like saying "those opposed to nuclear power on safety grounds are forgetting that future nuclear power stations will be 100% safe thanks to future Super Awesome Nuclear Safety Technology". You can make *anything* make sense by, not to put too fine a point on it, making shit up.

We can't build fully automated PAVs and there's not really an obvious roadmap to it which will let us be reasonably confident of being able to build them in the short term future. You can't really argue for the reasonably near-term viability of PAVs (and hence the validity of running a large-scale development effort to build them) if it involves assuming the existence of a technology which we have no clear timescale for the introduction of. Solve the automatic navigation system problem and then get back to us.

The Ugly Factor

"Practical, light-weight composite cars could aspire to better than 100mpg equivalent, and maybe much better if a practical methods of storing electricity (or fuel cells) can be found."

Maybe.

There is however the physical law to overcome that All Electric Vehicles Must Be As UGLY AS SIN.

You can't get around that. Ever.

Aircraft are fun -- but ---

You take this thing weighing a tonne and you lift it into the air a kilometer or two or three. You then move it along in such a way that the power supplied counters it falling. You then drop the thing to the ground, dissipating the energy needed to lift it. You then claim its a really efficient way of getting around.

You have to be kidding.

Rail is a very economical way to move people and things around. Lowish rolling resistance and potential for energy capture and reuse.

Okay, El Reg...

I will give you this image concerning aircars.

Imagine US Interstate 495 - the DC Beltway - in rush hour, in three dimensions. It'd make George Lucas' vision of Coruscant look deserted by comparison.

You also mentioned that there would be some form of uniform traffic control. Well, put it this way, if someone were to hack the Wi-Fi-GPS traffic control system, and force everyone to land at once...well...it'd make the famous car pileup in the original "Blues Brothers" movie look really tiny. Once.

Me, I'd love to fly at exceedingly low altitude (like in Beggar's Canyon back home), but there's only one problem:

The other idiots.

Instead of deer running out in front of your car, there would be "Baby on Board" idiots who pay more attention to their kids than the road in front of them, and also the cell-phone yakker-drivers who should have their licenses stripped permanently. Then there's the people who'd cut you off (and ram you into a tree or cliff ledge), then the news would read "42nd driver of the year loses control of aircar and dies in a explosion - cell-phone video at 11. Suicide has not been ruled out." [Yes, the news media assume the stupid stuff first to grab headlines, as a rule.]

There is some chaos in the universe that you can't tame. Stupid and inane drivers are one of those chaotic things you can't fix (except by pulling their licenses).

And don't get me started on drunk drivers or student drivers in aircars...

Downing street, August 3rd 2023

Rookie: "Skies are clear sir. The terrorists seem to be waiting for something..."

General: "For what? Ah, damn it! It's been too long I've been without coffee. I am losing it"

Rookie slaps general in the face.

"Keep it together sir."

General: "Damn! Whose idea was it to have flying cars in the first place!?"

Rookie: "That would be 'The Register', sir."

General: "The who?"

Rookie: "No sir, that was a progressive rock band from the 70's. I mean The Register, an IT related online magazine from the late 20th century. Generally good stuff."

General: "Why couldn't they just stick to computers... *Sigh*"

Rookie: "*Sigh*"

Not safe

So now I have to worry about auto parts, cigarette butts trash and other debris falling on my home and property from flying cars?

I have to worry about an accident occuring overy my house and dropping on me?

Great system!