back to article FLYING CAR, full hover, fairly quiet, offered to US Marines

Who remembers the "Transformer TX" flying-car project, intended to equip the US Marines with a small four-seat vehicle able to drive about on the ground like a jeep, hover like a helicopter, or fly like a plane? The first team to publicly offer a contending design has now stepped forward. The Tyrannos flying car concept. …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    It can even be used for Recon missions!

    That'd make it a Tyrannos-saw-us, wouldn't it? :D

    1. Veldan
      Joke

      Don't forget

      You'd need a pilot named Rex.

    2. Andus McCoatThen
      Coat

      Recon missions...

      You - Coat - Door... NOW.

      I can't believe you went there.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      but when it crashes it will be...

      That'd make it a Tyrannos-saw-us-wreck

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Badgers

      Depends on pronunciation, surely.

      If he spare is in the back, it may simply be a tyre-anus.

  2. shearne
    Thumb Down

    Yeah right

    I'm sure a more US military-esque approach such as giant rocket boosters would not only be more exciting, but be more feasible, cheaper and easier to maintain. Can you imagine 'driving' a vehicle of this size over rough terrain with sand and other large objects of FOD?!

    DARPA are a bunch of immensely talented guys and I'm sure this would never "fly" with them!

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Neoc

    I've said it before and I'll say it again...

    While the idea of a flying car *sounds* good, one quick look at the number of idiots driving cars on the *road* and I shudder at the concept of having them able to *fly* anywhere near my house. Let alone the concept of joyriding Darwin award wannabes.

    You'd have a hard time selling me the idea without a decent set of controls over the flights zones the flycar is able to take.

    1. ian 22

      @Neoc

      +1

      Bad enough having diamond encrusted iPhone 4's falling from the sky, but worse are the falling bodies of their fule owners.

  4. Dalen

    Will Games Workshop sue DARPA for copyright infringement?

    Powered armor, 40m rocket-assisted firearms, now a frikkin' landspeeder. All they need is some genetic engineering, and we've got a WH40K Space Marine.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Dalen: Will Games Workshop sue DARPA for copyright infringement?

      No, but Dyson might

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It ain't green, but it looks keen...

    http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/technology/article/831047--every-commuter-s-fantasy-the-flying-car-lands-in-2011

    " The company Terrafugia says it plans to deliver its car-plane, the Transition, to customers by the end of 2011. It recently cleared a major hurdle when the Federal Aviation Administration granted a special weight limit exemption to the Transition."

    Military? No. Good enough for the Green Machine? I doubt it. But there's a picture there, and it sure looks like it's flying to me...

    And here's the video...

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/yahoocanada/100630/canada/flying_car_a_step_closer_to_reality

  6. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Armour?

    If I recall correctly, one of the problems with sending a flying car to Afghanistan or Iraq is that it would get shot at. Adding the specified amount of armour should make this a suitable DARPA project.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Flame

      By the time it is finished it will be clone of IL-2

      Add the armour, add the armament and it suddenly starts looking like IL-2 aka the flying tank.

      We might as well start manufacturing them. The blueprints are widely available so no need to import it from Russia. It should not be a problem to mount new engine and new weapons on it. The original could take off from 300m of dirt track, withstand machine gun, small arms and anything short of a 37mm AA cannon from point blank range for half an hour. It can also fly low enough and fast enough to be difficult for most shoulder launched missiles and its only problem has always been the bombing accuracy.

      The accuracy problem is trivial to fix. It was also very easy to fly so making an unmanned version or computer assisted version should not be that difficult.

      The reality is that warfare against armed tribes does not require ultra-modern superweapons. WW2 era kit with modern guidance systems grafted on can provide MUCH better value for the money most of the time.

      1. Jean-Luc

        hardware $ is not the end-all of saving $

        "WW2 era kit with modern guidance systems grafted on can provide MUCH better value for the money most of the time."

        Keep in mind that some of the $ involved relates to the actual soldiers. You can save money on a $50K kit, instead of spending $100K. Great, but what happens if that results in 50% increased lethality to the your $500K-to-train soldiers?

        Not to mention that those pesky soldiers may not fully appreciate accountants saving taxpayer money at the cost to their life & limb.

        i.e. there is a trade-off between cheap & efficient-enough vs. cheap & too-dangerous.

        An IL-2 may sit somewhere on one extreme and a Raptor on the other.

  7. Eddy Ito

    Love the concept

    I really do and it all seems quite clever, but... it seems to me that the Marines are frequently the ones deployed toward the front. You know, where the blokes working for the other side are prone to shoot at them. If the flying jeep is so light, it can't have much armor and no mention was made as to any countermeasures that might be employed on it. Mind you, a fair portion of pilot training in the military is learning how to shoot the other guy whilst not to getting shot in return. It seems to me that it should at least have an "oh shit!" button that would be available should one of the passengers happen to notice an inbound RPG that isn't automatically detected. Said "oh shit!" button would naturally bypass the imposed limitations on "climb, dive, roll, pitch, accelerate and decelerate" placed for the ease of operation and allow for a full tilt boogey escape which may be automated or not.

  8. MarkieMark1
    Happy

    Armour?

    Sounds as though Armour would be too heavy for it? Even so, as a civilian flying car it sounds brilliant! Put my name on the waiting list :)

  9. baswell
    FAIL

    I call bullpoo

    We've heard it all before: some developer comes up with some idea of a super efficient aircraft that on paper looks to outdo anything else out there...

    ...indeed, on paper. Further into the development process, engine power needs to go up, speeds go down, payload goes down. Oh, and vertical take-offs are not possible at full loads.

    I am sure the fans are efficient, but a Robinson R44 helicopter needs just about all of its 245HP to hover in ground effect with full load. And that's 4 small people, not 4 big-ass marines with survival and zap-o-kill equipment.

    I doubt it'll go straight up at FL110 as advertised, certainly not fully loaded.

    Oh, and that "turbo-charged racecar engine"? Not too many racecar engines I know run on diesel fuel, which is what JP-8 is, just a more refined version suitable for jet engines.

    I am not holding my breath.

    1. MrT

      Diesel racecar?

      Audi and Peugeot would beg to differ - Le Mans racers do fine running diesel.

      Superchargers (instead of turbos) suit low-revs, high torque applications. Only thing against diesel derivatives is the relative high weight.

      1. Blake St. Claire
        Thumb Down

        Re: Diesel and JP8

        JP8 is closer to kerosene than diesel. See wikipedia or any number of other web sites that describe the differences between various fuels.

        1. MrT
          Stop

          From Wikipedia...

          "Jet fuel is very similar to diesel fuel, and in some cases, may be burned in diesel engines."

          "Jet fuel is often used in ground support vehicles at airports, instead of diesel. The United States military makes heavy use of JP-8, for instance. However, jet fuel tends to have poor lubricating ability in comparison to diesel, thereby increasing wear on fuel pumps and other related engine parts."

          I know that last section ends with [citation needed], but that's the beauty of Wikipedia.

          Either way, it's a compression-ignition fuel.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        jet fuel racing

        Don't forget the bruaha(sp) last year or the year before with the Toyota NASCAR team getting penalized for having traces of jet fuel in their tanks....

        1. cmaurand

          I would doubt that jet fuel would be helpful in a

          gasoline engine. The compression ratios aren't high enough to ignite it. Jet fuel detracts from performance in a gasoline engine. It doesn't burn fast enough.

  10. Ivan Slavkov
    Flame

    Stinger bait

    "In general the sky-Hummer would operate at around 1,000 to 2,000 feet above ground, keeping it clear of most normal aircraft" _AND_ making it the perfect Stinger bait.

    1. MrT

      Agree

      only way to avoid would be to fly reeeeeally low at high speed and hope they're not already pointing the missile skyward ready to fire at very short notice - but maybe that needs a bit more skill with the controls.

    2. The First Dave
      Boffin

      @Ivan

      The first thing I though when I was that remark was that most sensible military craft will be running an awful lot _lower_ than that. Mind you, imagine the fun if you are meandering along in one of these at 100MPH and a flight of fast-jets slip beneath you. Lets see how good the attitude-control works in the jet-wash from a Typhoon or similar!

      On the other hand, the entire spec sounds like someone has taken a basic idea, had it thrown back at him as impractical, and he has simply re-submitted it on the basis of doing every single bit of it much better than anyone else does at the moment - lets wait till they build it, and even one item fails to meet the required spec.

    3. cmaurand

      re: stinger baid

      "In general the sky-Hummer would operate at around 1,000 to 2,000 feet above ground, keeping it clear of most normal aircraft" _AND_ making it the perfect Stinger bait.

      not really. most light attack aircraft (British Tornado, American F16 F/A18 Warthog) all run at tree top level (<100 ft over treetops). 1000 to 2000 feet puts it directly in the way.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Want!

    <finds God><starts praying>

  12. Disco-Legend-Zeke
    Boffin

    A Highly Turbocharged...

    ...race car engine would more likely want high octaine gasoline rather than JP8.

    1. Intractable Potsherd
      Boffin

      Engines

      The article states that it is *supercharged*, not *turbocharged*. There is a significant difference. A supercharger is generally (1) takes its power from the crankshaft of the engine, using some of the available power to drive an air compressor (2). They tend to operate best at low to medium engine revs, and are very responsive to changes in said revs. A turbocharger, on the other hand, uses waste power (3) from the engine's exhaust to drive a turbine compressor, work best at high revs, and are not very responsive to changes (i.e. turbo-lag). Superchargers work very well on diesels because of their low-rev performance. A great way to get the best out of an engine is to combine the two types - see some of Lancia's rally cars for how to do it!!

      Regarding race engines - have a look at the winners of Le Mans for the last few years. Audi and Peugeot have been wiping the floor with every other manufacturer in cars powered by .... yep, diesels.

      I do have some problems with the use of a "racecar engine" developing "185hp". Firstly, "racecar engines" tend to be built with a very short rebuild time in mind (less than a couple of races, in some cases). They also tend to fail catastrophically when not maintained properly. Does anyone really want a mission critical vehicle that will fall out of the sky because it wasn't serviced bang on time? Secondly, a "185hp supercharged racecar engine" is either not a racecar engine, just something mildly tweaked, or it is a very small engine (less than 2 litres) tweaked quite heavily. So, either it is a "racecar engine" in the sense that my totally unmodified Corsa used for trackdays and rallies is a "racecar engine", or it underlines that it is a highly stressed piece of kit that needs the very best, very cleanest, conditions for rebuilding it after every 500 or so miles.

      Overall, I like the concept, but the engine bit sounds like pie-in-the-sky.

      (1) I have recently read about about a company marketing an electrically powered subercharger that can be fitted to any car. I'm saving my pennies!

      (2) Unlike turbochargers, there are many types of supercharger compressors.

      (3) This is oversimplified, but a turbo makes energy that would otherwise be sent out via the exhaust do some useful work.

  13. Mips
    Jobs Horns

    It still looks like a model aircraft to me...

    ...and they claim it will do 40mpg. As a model aircraft I believe it but with all that gear and 4 marines, no. What's the date? Oh! I see, must be April first again.

  14. MrT

    Decent off-road performance...

    I should hope so, for a flying car...

    First thoughts - looks lke a bunch of kids messing with Google SketchUp models.

  15. Filippo Silver badge

    pretty nice, even if it turns out not to fly

    It sounds light years ahead of the Terrafugia thing - almost too good to be true. Hopefully it will get funded. Even if it doesn't work exactly as projected, there's enough interesting technology in there to make it worthwhile.

  16. Peter Ford

    Not a very good engine then...

    if it only makes 185bhp out of a supercharged race-car engine!

    Given that BMW can get 150bhp out of a 2-litre *diesel* turbo (which still does 60mpg), Suzuki can get over 200bhp out of 1.3-litre bike engine, and Renault F1 engines went up to about 1300bhp from a 1.5-litre turbo

    I reckon you got the digits in the wrong order - a US race car engine would make 851bhp with a s/c, although it would be 6-litres-plus and weight about a tonne...

    1. Daniel Wilkie

      Er, in the 90s maybe

      The 2010 320d is 181 bhp :p

    2. James Hughes 1

      Or..

      It could just be a very small capacity engine.

      The trouble with the very high horsepowers you quote is a reductions in engine life( the Renault engine in 1300HP qualy trim might last qualifying, just)

      You need reliability first and foremost, then horsepower, then weight. 185 may be conservative, but its very reliable, and probably light.

      And you can get 500hp out of a 1300 Hyabusa engine with a turbo.

    3. MrT
      Thumb Up

      Needs light weight and compact dimensions for this design

      I'd go with something like the Hyabusa unit - bike engines can generate a lot of power, even if they are a bit peaky - they also last a bit longer than the typical very-high-tune racer. They've been used in pocket-rocket racing cars like Westfield for ages now.

      If it has to be compression ignition (diesel) because of the fuel, then something like the latest 1.3CDTi units in supermini/small family categories might be a goer. A remap would be needed from what's in the average Corsa, but even my 1.9CDTi Vectra's got 194bhp after a BSR remap so it's within reach to get 185bhp from something smaller (BSR claim 185bhp minimum, but the latest updates have improved that).

  17. Richard Jukes

    Well

    Flying cars? Thats old hat, we were meant to have them in the 60's. And the 70's. And the 80's. And the 90's. And every other decade since then! I will see it, when I believe it!

    1. cmaurand

      Looks like there will be one next year.

      http://terrafugia.com/

  18. James Hughes 1

    Have these guys watched Avatar? (I think they have..)

    And in other news :

    http://www.terrafugia.com/index.html

    A flying car - already flight and road tested!

  19. handle

    "half as loud"

    I bet that means half the noise power - 3dB down - which is barely noticeable to our logarithmic ears...

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Screw the car

    i would like the jet pack style flying thing from page 2 :D

    1. stu 4
      Boffin

      :-p I've got one matey

      More or less... and had a great flight over sunny Ipswich last saturday.

      u wanna get yerself a nice wee paramotor.

      all terrain ? sure - I can even take off in 2 feet of snow!

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgnHQQ9CNh8

      fits in the boot of the car.

      stu

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Thumb Up

        @stu 4

        Watched video.

        Part terrifying, part awesome. Such a light and compact rig as well.

    2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      AC@09:13

      Fewer people are certified to fly a jet (actually its normally a rocket) pack than have landed on the Moon. Sean Connery isn't one of them.

      Max flight time is c15mins, there's no parachute and AFAIK the 1960's era had no autohover to throttle down to compensate for the (rapidly) falling mass, which must have made learning to fly it in the first place quite interesting.

      The lunar landing simulator built by Armadillo Aerospace (and the guy behind Castle Wolfstein 3d) is rather safer, lasts longer and runs on Linux, but I'm not sure it's available for er private test flights.

      Just remember. You break it. You buy it.

  21. Yesnomaybe
    Thumb Up

    Flying CAR

    Moaning about lack of armor would indicate that what you want is not so much a flying car, as a flying tank. Probably just need to beef up the air-frame (And horse-power) a bit, it's already made from composites. Might be pretty easy to make the floor-pan able to withstand small-arms fire.

    I hope this thing makes it to production, and also, that the price stays high enough so that the average car driver around my way never EVER get their hands on one. Now, what I want DARPA to work on next, would be a hover-bike. Perhaps starting with a Y2K, and adding some fans to that...

  22. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Very impressive systems thinking, if it works.

    And what a big if that is.

    The duct thing sounds like an application of the "ejector" principle, a bit like the Dyson air mover, treating the shroud as not just a pit of safety screening to stop meatsacks walking into the props but a subtle integral part of the airflow management.

    This problem was so enormously tricky and complex that only by considering *everything* working together would it be solved in anything like an affordable way. That includes the whole making a chopper handle with near car like controls.

    Thumbs up if it works.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Collision avoidance

    Better than a beacon (or as well as) would be to broadcast the flight path of each car. You could then project other flying-car's paths onto the heads-up. Simple.

    1. Chad H.

      Flarm

      FLARM does something similar. It sends out your GPS position and listens for other units doing the same, and beeps at you if you think you're at risk of hitting someone.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLARM

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    but..

    does it have woofers and an ipod dock? Add a passenger seat mirror for the missus and this might fly off the shelves in no time ;)

  25. Marvin the Martian
    Paris Hilton

    "need half as much thrust disc area"

    Don't you mean diameter? If it gives you about 4x more lift per area ("about 50% instead of usual 10%," rounded down), then you'd need 1/4th the area or 1/2 the diameter. Or am I confusing something?

  26. RISC OS
    Thumb Down

    Flaying cars my arse

    Every 2 years since the 1960 we were supposed to have flying cars and live in houses that could double as a Doctor Who set. I believe it when I see it.

    Plus if this is intended for the American Army it's going to have to be able to lift considerable more weight then it currently does... especially if it ever has to carry those ex-gamers, I mean the people who now control all the drones.

    1. cmaurand

      re: Flaying cars my ars

      Next year. Looks like they're approved $194,000 US

      http://terrafugia.com/

  27. A J Stiles
    Coat

    One slight problem

    You select "fly" with the gear lever, yes?

    Hands up who *hasn't* ever tried to put a borrowed car in reverse and missed because reverse gear is in a different place in your own car -- left and away from you as opposed to right and towards you, or vice versa, or much less commonly one of the other two corners. (Left and away and having to pull the knob up is especially bad when you're not used to it because if you don't pull the knob up, you'll instead go straight into the thing you were trying to reverse away from.)

    Mistakenly selecting "fly" as opposed to reverse, or vice-versa, creates a whole new class of failure modes .....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Grenade

      Re: One slight problem

      "... reverse gear is in a different place in your own car ..."

      You are assuming, of course, that this is a stick. Would more likely be an automatic ('natch), and have the "F" gear at the bottom, after the "1".

      Icon? It needs to be as easy to work as one of these babies. :)

  28. AndrewG
    Stop

    Love the control idea but dont belive the rest of it

    I thought the control system idea was actually quite bright and the kinda thing you need a flying car to have. On the other hand. The new duct idea sounds retarded - if your using wing shapes then yeah you get lift...pushing the duct outward all around, not up. And assume you make "slanty ducts" the geometry suggests more than 80% of the lift is still wasted based on the piccys.

    Also, for Marine use...I can just picture it as a morale building excercise in Afghanistan, bringing back the manly sport of clay pigeon shooting to a country that has sadly been shooting everythign else for years. It could even give the marines a cool new nickname (The clay pigeons).

    And last thought...cool wings...picture trying to pass that on the freeway on your way to work in the morning.

  29. Nigel 11
    Thumb Up

    30 miles in the air on battery?

    It said, 30 miles in the air on battery. If it can really do that, this is a serious breakthrough in aeronautics. Flying cars may never catch on because of pilot training and sky crowding issues, but the day of flying taxis for when you have to get somewhere really fast, has just got a lot closer.

    If this hardware actually exists and is performing anywhere near as well as stated, the guys behind it are geniuses.

    If it can take off on battery, then we even have a contender for zero CO2 air transport, when it's charged from appropriately generated electricity

    Could the principles behind those fan things be used to create an efficient, very quiet, conventional take-off short-haul aircraft (battery powered or ottherwise)? There would surely be a market for such a craft.

  30. ewan 3
    Black Helicopters

    About to stall and has lost oil pressure.

    The mock up is about to stall and has lost oil pressure - i'd land if I were him...

  31. Alex King

    Thought I'd seen something like this before...

    And I have. Had a poster of the cover of this single on my wall once, and spent ages staring at it, trying to figure if something like this could work:

    http://img.maniadb.com/images/album/326/326111_1_f.jpg

    Okay, so there are some differences, in that the side fans are bigger and do the forward propulsion too, but I think it's basically the same idea.

    Do you think if send a cutout of the car from this picture to DARPA with some made-up performance numbers they'd give me a pile of cash?

    Oh, and for the small engine performance doubters, the 1000cc motor in a BMW S1000RR makes 190bhp (at the wheel) with no 'charger. Even 600c bikes are making upwards of 130bhp these days, which you should be able to bring up to 180+ with a charger. Or you could try a small rotary...

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've seen flying cars you people wouldn't believe!

    That control system and in particular the heads-up guidance tunnel effect is clearly inspired by an LAPD Spinner vehicle circa 2019.

  33. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD

    I hope they succeed...

    I hope they succeed in getting this to fly as projected.

    I don't believe we are ready for flying cars in the mainstream for many reasons frequently already discussed elsewhere but as a proof-of-concept that it can be done so easily, I hope they succeed.

    I wouldn't want to be the poor jarhead driving it though...

    I suspect a Hyundai Getz would be safer to be in under fire than that.

  34. The elephant in the room
    Alert

    They talk a good game

    But the Logi website

    http://www.logiaerospace.com/

    somehow just doesnt look credible.

    Where is the engine, transmission, battery, avionics & fuel going to fit in this thing, while still providing room for say 2 crew & 2 strechers? How is the power transmitted to the props? I need cutaway diagrams to convince me they have answers to these questions!

  35. Stevie

    Bah!

    Great. Just Effing Great! Now, not only will my commute be accompanied by thunderous "music" from people with more money than sense and a subwoofer store near them only too willing to convert their Ford Escort equivalent into a mobile nuclear test range, I'll be buzzed by rich gits in their unaffordable-to-the-masses skycars.

    I reiterate: Scientists! Where's *MY* flying car you useless bunch of spare parts?

    1. A J Stiles
      Happy

      Obvious solution

      If people have got obnoxiously loud car stereos that can be heard outside the vehicle, they need a public performance licence.

      Shop them to the PRS!

  36. Marcel Esser
    FAIL

    SAM target practice

    This thing is basically a target-practice drone for man-portale surface-to-air missiles. Except, that it doesn't allow you to do fancy maneuvers to evade the missile after it's been launched at you. Way to go.

  37. drewsup
    Coat

    So they managed to..

    Find a use for the Dyson air Multiplier then?

  38. TWB

    Engine power

    I thought that these high powered engines in F1 cars motorbikes and similar can peak several hundred hp, but you run them for long periods at full power and they overheat, fall apart etc - otherwise surely lorries/trucks/buses would not bother with 8 litre, 250 hp engines?????

  39. Steve May 1
    Black Helicopters

    Pretty picture

    Since there does not seem to be any mechanical connection between the wingtip fans, as in the Osprey, a single engne failure will result is some "interesting" flight characteristics. This, I suppose, is where the parachute comes in.

    It may also work better when they add some fan support, as in the rendering shown the fans appear to magically suspended in space.

    And as for "off-road"... With that front overhang it won't be able GET off most roads, the kerbs being too high.

    By the time this thing is properly engineered for safety and reliability, it will weigh so much it will be able to move on roads, letalone fly. The laws of physics and engineering are not subject to wishful thinking. If it was this simple, the major aerospace playets would be churning them out by the shedload.

    If I had a pound for every flying car "just around the corner", I'd have several pounds.

  40. Eddie Johnson
    Grenade

    More Stupidity from US Military

    To fly this thing can't be heavily armored. That means I don't need a roadside bomb to take it out, probably just a .50 caliber round fired from the shoulder.

    Classic jack of all trades compromise, won't be GOOD for anything. But billions will be spent anyway.

    No matter what happens in Iraq and Whereever-stan the US loses because the enemy continues to attack $1M vehicles with $25 bombs, then the US retaliates with a $1M guided missile to take out a worthless mud hut containing 3 guys fighting for free armed with $100 AK-47s.

    Cost actually DOES matter. Its what wins wars.

  41. Captain Thyratron

    See, I like things as they are now.

    To drive a car, you need a driver's license. To fly an aircraft, you need a pilot's license. At first, I started writing up a long list of good reasons why we do things that way, and why this business of "flying cars for the everyman" is foolish and doomed to fail, but it's been done to death and there's very little I can add that hasn't been repeated ad nauseam. I will append one thing, though: If you don't like the price of fuel now, you're in for a rude suprise if enough people start flying their cars to work instead of driving them. Let's not forget that flying is harder than moving on the ground. It just requires more energy to push enough air to stay aloft, unless you have some kind of lighter-than-air craft that just likes to be up there. (Everybody's got garage space for that, right?)

    But let's remember that this is a military vehicle. In fact, it's a pretty neat one. Unfortunately, the article seems to spend most of its time playing around with this silly fantasy of flying cars being feasible and popular when, for several reasons (most, if not all of which, ought to be covered elsewhere), that's a stupid idea. Military hardware is not cheap to operate. The purpose of this thing isn't to provide you a good and convenient way to get to work. It's to give soldiers more mobility. They don't care if this thing is any good for getting to Burger King or whatever, nor should they. That's not what it's for. That's what your car is for, and your car is /better at it/. Using a flying vehicle for the things we do with cars is a wasteful, inefficient, and probably dangerous thing to do. Yeah, I know it's cool and all, but that's really the only merit of it.

  42. Joe User
    Flame

    Re: Stinger bait

    Who needs a Stinger? I'll bet that a few .50 caliber / 12.7mm rounds would make it drop like a rock, not to mention what they would do the passengers.

  43. Mr Young
    Happy

    185hp?

    I do agree with the humorous comments throughout - maybe they mean 185hp for each of the fans? Even then this wee graphic looks like it would just about manage to wobble about the ground making lots of noise! I think it would probably take about 2000hp and big rotors to get this in the air - Helicopter would do maybe?

  44. Martin Huizing
    FAIL

    First one to say it:

    Where is my flying car!?

  45. Parsifal
    Black Helicopters

    Road Use?

    I suppose there's gonna be a lot of money in widening road lanes by 400% to 500% to support these 'Flying' Cars. Gonna rush to a stockbroker and buy shares in road construction Companies. (NOT)

    Wheres the point in calling it a car when it obviously has no viable use on a road?

  46. Magnus_Pym

    Third most dangerous profession in the US?

    Pilot. Small aircraft mainly. After lumberjack and deap sea fisherman.

    Flying cars are just a quicker way of getting from A to dead.

    1. Galidron
      Stop

      Alaska

      If your references are accurate and Pilot is the third most dangerous profession, then it is most likely because of Alaskan brush pilots. They fly under much more dangerous conditions then most, maybe even more dangerous the Navy carrier pilots.

  47. BossHog

    Homes and cars and phones

    Off topic, but it appears to me that the technology in homes, cars and phones, has been ramping up at quite different rates.

    Phones are massively high tech compared to the ABS ring-diallers of the 1980s - they have no wires, they have touch screens and on-board computers with hours of battery life in a few hundred grams. Similarly, cars have come a long way - they are now snug cocoons of comfort and safety, with a great deal of self-tuning intelligence & environmental control on board.

    On the other hand, houses haven't really moved forward at the same pace. Which is a bit poor really, when you consider how much they cost.

    My house has sash-windows for "environmental control", and the "self-tuning intelligence" is a thermostat (and even that is a bit faulty). The boiler clatters and bangs. The drain is a plastic pipe, and, er.. there isn't any other technology to talk about.

    OK, so my washing machine kicks ass, but that's not really part of the house, right? And it's not networked :)

    Why do you think this has happened this way? Wouldn't it make more sense to have our homes as a cocoon of comfort and safety (not that I'm advocating having 1980s cars again :).

    Are we viscerally opposed to this kind of interference in our "cave"... or is it just that we want to have somewhere we can go were things won't "go wrong".

    Did the Victorians feel this way too, and turn down amazing advances in the 1860s? Like the Electrochronotransmotivator - a device which sets the colour of your wallpaper to soothe your mood.

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