An Aircar in Every Garage? The fantasy of a personal flying machine is lurching toward reality -

Technology Review ^ | May 23, 2003 | David Louis Dreier

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[aimhigh]

I'm now in my fifties and remember reading about the "coming" air cars as a teenager. I'll beleive it when I see it.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

I want one!

[AlaskaErik]

Sorry, but I don't see it happening any time soon, if ever. Most people can barely drive, and now we want to put them in the air?!!! Then there is the cost factor. As an airplane owner, I can tell you it's damn expensive. If nothing else, the cost of insurance will ensure this will never happen.

[Welsh Rabbit]

I was disappointed when new milennium came around and there weren't any flying cars yet...

[annyokie]

I want one of those suitcase air cars that George Jetson had. ; )

[Age of Reason]

LOL.


Fifty years ago, a version of this prophecy was supposed to be fulfilled by personal autogiros.

(One of which was still around to appear in a movie around 1980.)

Benson Copters, one brand was called, in which you could propeller your way down a street or--by unlocking its horizontal blades--take to the air.

Anyway . . .

We could largely eliminate complicating our lives with machines that fly over traffic jams, if we stop importing gazillions of immigrants, which leads to highway overcrowding and bumper to bumper traffic.

[LibKill]

Ernest, I have a really bad feeling about this one.

Given the way that most idiots drive in two dimensions, do we really want to make it 3-D?

Let us back away from this madness.

[Grim]

I used to live in Davis, CA where these are being built. Can't wait to get mine!

[Brian Mosely]

[Jeff Chandler]

Can't you just see the seasoned citizens meandering across the sky at 30MPH with their left turn signals on?

[Mark17]

As an airplane owner, I can tell you it's damn expensive. If nothing else, the cost of insurance will ensure this will never happen.

Can you imagine the morning commute in one of these things? I can't either. You own an airplane, I used to be an air traffic controller. I just don't feel this will ever happen on anything more than a very limited scale.

[nathanbedford]

I want one too but I don't want you to have one, I don't want anybody else to have one, expecially my mother who could not even parallel park.

As a half-assed amature pilot, I can just image 80 million air vehicles launching off into snow storms or other IFR conditions at night.

Please.

[MinuteGal]

This will never come about except as toys for some rich guys flying aircars around their Caribbean island remote estates (where their cash is also stashed).

Leni

[LibKill]

Can't you just see the seasoned citizens meandering across the sky at 30MPH with their left turn signals on?

I can, and it ain't pretty. Add an up and a down signal to those tail lights.

Please, make it stop!

[gnarledmaw]

I remember Moller giving an "any day now" type promise in about '76...Im not holding my breath (anymore)...

[stubernx98]

As an airplane owner you know there is a significant percentage of the populance that will not get in an airplane or get off the ground. John Maddan comes to mind.

I got a 310P what do you have?

BTW anybody bought one of those Segways yet?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I didn't think I wanted one till I saw the picture!

Now I want one too!

I have me a Turbo car, but this would make long drives a lot less tedious!

[Incorrigible]

Rush
Moving Pictures (1981)
Red Barchetta

My uncle has a country place
That no one knows about.
He says it used to be a farm,
Before the Motor Law.
And on Sundays I elude the Eyes,
And hop the Turbine Freight
To far outside the Wire,
Where my white-haired uncle waits.

Jump to the ground
As the Turbo slows to cross the Borderline.
Run like the wind,
As excitement shivers up and down my spine.
Down in his barn,
My uncle preserved for me an old machine,
For fifty-odd years.
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream.

I strip away the old debris
That hides a shining car.
A brilliant red Barchetta
From a better, vanished time.
I fire up the willing engine,
Responding with a roar.
Tires spitting gravel,
I commit my weekly crime...

Wind-
In my hair-
Shifting and drifting-
Mechanical music-
Adrenalin surge...

Well-weathered leather,
Hot metal and oil,
The scented country air.
Sunlight on chrome,
The blur of the landscape,
Every nerve aware.

Suddenly ahead of me,
Across the mountainside,
A gleaming alloy air-car
Shoots towards me, two lanes wide.
I spin around with shrieking tires,
To run the deadly race,
Go screaming through the valley
As another joins the chase.

Drive like the wind,
Straining the limits of machine and man.
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, I've got a desperate plan.
At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded at the riverside.
Race back to the farm, to dream with my uncle at the fireside.