Posted on 07/15/2018 4:28:17 PM PDT by Windflier
BlackFly is a flying car that anyone can 'drive'.
These vehicles perform amazingly. I'd fly one any day.
ha, I’m just heading over to my neighbor’s house. 6 mile drive but 1 mile as the crow flies. Sure would be handy to have that thing.
It is cool but it’s not a car.
How do they get the propellers to make all that energetic violin music? It would be worth it just to go for a spin and hear the symphonic notes.
Never saw it on the road. Between the FAA and federal safety standards this ain’t ever gonna be a thang
And here I was thinking how cool it would be if that thing played the theme song to Jonny Quest. If I had one, that’s the music I would be hearing when I flew.
Peach
There are some limitations, however. Its range is limited to 25 miles and speed to 62 mph in the U.S. Without restrictions, the specs call for 40-plus hours at 80 mph or more. Flying requires good weather with dry conditions, temperatures above freezing and minimal winds for take-off and landing. Its classification as an ultralight vehicle also means it can’t fly at night or over urban areas in the U.S.
Just back from Gillespie Field
..
Working on a 1940’s Tailwind.
Blackfly is next.
Where do you put the wife and kids?
Checked their web page and could not find information about price. “Similar to a sports car” could be anything from $30k (Mazda Miata) to a cool $ million and a half (Ferrari). But would love to take one out for a test flight.
Aside from the fact that, like almost all flying vehicles, it uses about 12 gallons of gas, or its equivalent, for just 10 minutes of flight, it’s cool.
I’m not going to buy a machine that costs about $50 bucks for 10 minutes of flying. I’m not that flush.
Does it have air conditioning? Looks hot with your head in that bubble.
Someone do that
The ones you sold to afford this machine?
Seeing that it’s a youtube and Larry Page (google etc) is somehow involved, I’m reserving judgment.
That said, the FAA has ruled on ultralights and on pilots who choose not to be pilots. Read the rules at faa.gov if you are truly interested. Ignore pop lit sites. I’m a five decade licensed pilot with one and a half airplanes and two hangars, and I’m trying to figure out my end game to keep flying.
Factors in ultralights include gross weight, pax, fuel on board, speed, and airspace limitations. Get informed if you are interested. Guess where.
This youtube may be advertising hype. It may become real some day. Bring it on. I like the concept.
A Cessna 152, a two passenger airplane, uses about 6 gallons of gasoline per hour. At about 90 mph.
Except that it doesn’t use gas. It’s all-electric.
I showed the video to my wife. She thought it was a great concept, but then spoke of the reality associated with it.
She said to imagine what traffic might be like with a whole lot of these Black Flys in the air. It’d look like the skies above Coruscant from the Star Wars films.
Not only that, but if it’s going to be used as a personal transportation vehicle, where would you park it?
Just a thought.
Unless they can come up with a battery design that is far advanced of what we think is capable for electrical storage, this is still a pie in the sky concept. Batteries are just not dense, energy wise. That’s why I used the term equivalent when I said how much energy it used. In practical terms, based on current battery designs, this machine wouldn’t be much good beyond thirty minutes in the air. Then you have to land and park it until it can recharge.
Yes, humans not being able to process information in constant 3-D would probably lead to a lot of traffic accident. If this were to ever become a reality, it would have to be completely computer controlled until you are almost at your driveway.
That’s 24 bucks an hour, for an hour and a half of drivetime.
That’s still a lot of money.
Most average,(or below average) people have a tough enough time negotiating a wally-world parking lot let alone trying to cope with urban air traffic. I worked at a private jet charter company for twelve years in Charlevoix Michigan, and I can say from those thousands of hours around light aircraft and high performance jets as the hangar manager, that ninety-nine percent of people are totally incapable of the highly intelligent, multi-tasking thought processes it takes to fly an aircraft.
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