Grab your L-plates, flying cars of sci-fi dreams have landed

great, flying carbombs.

In London, 50% of car trips are under 2 miles. There is only little/extortionate car parking (let alone helicopter) in zone 1, where most work. The energy usage of anything flying, but especially VTOL, is an order of magnitude larger than for ground transport. Helicopters are LOUD and inefficient.

For all these reasons flying cars are, unfortunately, a dream. In the meantime there are tried and tested solutions that do work and help with all those problems: congestion, parking, energy (fossil/electric), and pollution. Those solutions are unsexy but work, they are efficient public transport, cycling, car sharing and remote working. Shame the powers that be are so uninterested in them.

How bloody noisy?

How noisy would these things be? It would make a city and suburbs unbearable to work and live in, not to mention confusing the hell out the birds who use sound for communication.

That said, and in answer to the problem of using fuel to attain cruising altitude: I like the idea of jumping off the top of a skyscraper with a hang-glider at the end of each day, and gliding home. Going into work I wouldn't be in such a rush : D

Sounds like bullshit to me

"A MyCopter costs about as much as a flash top-end car, but this price could come down to the level of a mid-range motor by the time the project gets, er, off the ground."

Based on what data does a MyCopter "cost the same as a flash top-end car"? And is this a BMW M3 (55,000 GBP) or a Bugatti Veyron (1,000,000 GBP)?

Given the amount of certification required by aircraft and all the associated parts, I can't see the price getting much lower than a current low-end light aircraft (e.g. 110,000 USD for a Cessna 162).

Something like the M3 sells in relatively big numbers compared to aircraft; I can't see "flying cars" being as popular as the Prof thinks, mainly because they aren't very versatile - you couldn't tow a caravan/trailer (although this does seem like a benefit actually) or stick a bike rack on it or use it to pop down to the shops (the footprint will make parking a nightmare). So you'd need to have a ground car as well as a flying car. Who has that sort of money besides footballers (do you seriously want Wayne Rooney operating a flying machine) and bankers?

The flying car is a solution to a single problem: "I live out of the city, but i have to go there to work; and so do loads of other people". It doesn't solve the "going a long distance" problem particularly well because the speed/range of a flying car is not adequate for distances over a couple of hundred miles (may as well use a real aircraft and put up with the drive to/from the airport).

Kickstarter!

OK, if they are that sure of themselves, let the start a Kickstarter project!

(a battery driven helo making 100km - pull the other one, my ass is crooked.

And assuming this is true - why not use smaller batteries and something like a Capstone turbine generator - batteries for take-off power, turbine to make electricity for cruise. This is an aircraft: every kilo's sacred, every kilo's great, if a kilo's wasted, God get quite irate!)

Security problems

How much will it cost to upgrade security for every single military and business and private site that relies on a fence for security?

In fact how can they be upgraded? Anywhere with extensive grounds will have people dropping in for a look. Anywhere with a back garden will have burglars dropping in.

Not for the city anyway

Flying cars will never see use in the city. As others have pointed out, public transport/cycling is the answer for that particular problem. City centres are no place for aircraft, and only multi-engine types are allowed to fly over London anyway (safety reasons, SE helicopters allowed as an exception along the approved helicopter routes where you are always in auto-rotate range of somewhere landable). I presume other cities have similar rules, if they don't they should!

Here's a suggestion - maybe flying cars will nicely fill the role of long point to point journeys >200miles once we are all driving battery electric cars for our daily commutes and don't want to stop to recharge along the way? In other words, 2 cars: one electric for short journeys and city use, and one flying IC engined car for long journeys...

Bah!

Helicopters and fixed wing flying cars? Madness! An accident waiting to happen.

No, the safe flying car will be blimp-lifted, using post space-age kevlaresque envelope materials.

At least until the Spinner is available at a reasonable price.

PAL-V for the win, recently certified for RPL/PPL and roadable. Auto-rotation, so engine fail not a (n insurmountable) problem, light, efficient, small and practical.

(V)STOL runway required.

Just as Google's car is now certified road legal in Nevada, I expect collision avoidance to be sorted the moment flying cars become anything more than rich people's playthings.

It's not that difficult if you think about it, to create a virtual bubble around an aircraft with proximity sensors and to not allow the bubble to enter the airspace of any other bubble. Like Honda's lane guidance utility, only stricter.

How many people were fatally injured in the early days of motoring? There will be a few casualties getting flying cars off the ground, if you'll pardon the pun, however it won't be enough to stop us reaching for the skies.

The price will always be high when launching a new technology, but provided it's viable, the price always comes down as the demand increases. Same goes for the training. Whereas it might currently cost 5000 credits to gain RPL, were it to become popular, the price would fall substantially. There would also be more demand for small airfields (close to motorways I imagine) and business complexes would have runways and taxi strips to your buildings storage area.

Vehicle parachutes should be mandatory though.

I remember old pulp Science Fiction mags of the 40's and 50's with a blizzard of personal flying machines. It never happened, and it never will - unless we master gravity and planes can start and stop in the air like cars on a road. Forget helicopters, a dense mass of those would interfere with each others paths via the downwards prop wash. With no ability to deal with high density traffic, the same way we can with cars and roads. I recall seeing one of the star wars movies with a very high density of aerial traffic in "highways" in the air that criss-crossed in various directions and heights, and craft broke free and landed under automatic control.

So we may be able to make cars that fly - hybrids, can we make boat-planes? we have boat-cars, but very few are sold. How about a car-boat-rocket-plane - made in Taiwan.

Im sure if these things are about things would move on in a way that all homes will be making it own electricity so if your car flies home when you get to work the power use doesn't cost anyway due to the fact it will get charged using free power at home. So doesn't matter how much power it uses, as long it can do the trips and recharge quick enough what's the problem?

Don't forget one day they might find a way to be about to power a house on just moonlight