Wait no more: Flying cars are finally coming! (Tech news.)

[Daikun]

Have you ever dreamt about the day you can buzz around in your very own flying machine? Well, that day may be sooner than you think.

The folks at NASA have built something called “The Highway in the Sky.” It's a computer system designed to let millions of people fly whenever they please, and take off and land from wherever they please, in their very own vehicles.

And here’s the good news -- a lot of people are building machines you’ll be able to buy.

One of those people is an inventor named Woody Norris. This week, he will receive America’s top prize for invention. It’s called the Lemelson-MIT award -- a half-million dollar cash prize to honor his life’s work, which includes a brand new personal flying machine. That's just a short excerpt. The full article (4 pages long) can be read at CBS News.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/15/60minutes/main688454.shtml

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2005/04/15/image688553x.jpg

[sun]

In a l956 issue of something called Mechanics Illustrated, the cover had a picture of a flying car..I remember it cause I read the article and it said that by the year 2000, we would all be flying around in these cars..sure. I wondered if I would live that long.(I was 10)..It is the year 2005, and we are not flying around in these cars, instead driving internal combustion engines, some of which get less gas millage than they did in l956....Good Luck Flying Cars...Stu:D

[Rafeal v1.0]

Wow, thats pretty Neat :)

[Bubblegum Girl]

Cool. :D

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

As cool as flying cars are, people these days can barely handle driving in two dimensions. I believe I'm surrounded by some of the worst drivers in the country (I won't say on the planet, since I've seen the drivers in China). The idea that any of these idiots will do their stupid stuff in flying cars kind of frightens me.

Rest assured, though -- the ones flying the BMW cars will inevitably be the biggets jerks in the sky.

-- Ed/Ace

[Conekiller]

Howdy,

As cool as flying cars are, people these days can barely handle driving in two dimensions. I believe I'm surrounded by some of the worst drivers in the country (I won't say on the planet, since I've seen the drivers in China). The idea that any of these idiots will do their stupid stuff in flying cars kind of frightens me.

Rest assured, though -- the ones flying the BMW cars will inevitably be the biggets jerks in the sky.

-- Ed/Ace
A buddy of mine had a serious discussion like this one day and came to the same conclusion. It's not just idiot drivers tho. What about a crash?! if a genuine accident happens you now have the extra addition of gravity and whatever poor soul might be below you as your wrecked vehicle plummets to the ground. (this is assuming flying cars ever get so widespread that EVERYONE has them, like in Back to the Future 2 or Fifth Element) unless they can find some way to keep the vehicles airborne evena fter they've been totalled then this is a serious problem.

and what about traffic? you can't just have cars flying all over the place willy nilly. You need structure, you need..lanes. the benefeit of being able to fly would obviosuly be the limited distance one would have to travel to reach a destination (shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line, after all) but this won't be feazible if anyone is flying at what ever vector they're heading toward. So we'll get lanes, and things will be no different than driving on the ground...acept for the whole gravity thing again.

I guess these cars could ahve pre-programmed altitudes so that lanes would intersect rarely, but these wold have to be chosen at the beginnig of the trip and must be adhered to or else you become a danger to every other flying car in your vicinity.

[Cogliostro]

What would be really great is flying cars that don't run on gas :p

[Aquadementia]

I was so sick of seeing stories about that guy at the turn of the millennium.
At least he has finally gotten it off the ground, even if it is only a few feet.


I'm betting that thing is vary noisy and I'm sure it's a gas guzzler because hovering just burns up the fuel and by the look of it, it probably has a vary high stall speed.
Really, it's just another type of air craft. People have too high of expectations for VTOL air vehicles.

If it does live up to it's promise...
One flying vehicle like this is a marvel.
A hundred, they are still cool, and will turn heads.
Thousands, if you have one you think you're the coolest person on the planet, if you don't it's getting to the point where you don't want those jerks flying over your house.
A million make the sky into the new mall parking lot, cluttered and ugly.


Reminds me of another project from about half a century ago.

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/mufonontario/avro/avro6.jpgOn February 11, 1953 The Toronto Star reported that a new flying saucer was being developed at the Avro-Canada plant in Malton, Ontario.

On 16 February the Minister for Defense Production informed the House of Commons, in Ottawa, that Avro-Canada was working on a 'mock-up model' of a flying saucer, capable of flying at 1500 miles per hour (2400 km/h) and climbing vertically.


What would be even cooler is something like this.
http://www.samuelsdesign.com/comics/big/speed36.jpg

[shoujoaifan]

While this is the first I've heard of NASA coming up with this plan and the first I've seen of this car, there has been kit flying cars (forget if they're roadworthy or not) around for years.

But I'm glad we're getting closer to it being mainstream :D Now we just need to wait until anti-gravity is developed in a few centuries so I can a flying Delorean! Time travel you say? Oh please, be reasonable now.....

[Wanted]

unless they can find some way to keep the vehicles airborne evena fter they've been totalled then this is a serious problem.

and what about traffic? you can't just have cars flying all over the place willy nilly. You need structure, you need..lanes. the benefeit of being able to fly would obviosuly be the limited distance one would have to travel to reach a destination (shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line, after all) but this won't be feazible if anyone is flying at what ever vector they're heading toward. So we'll get lanes, and things will be no different than driving on the ground...acept for the whole gravity thing again.That's a problem that can be solved. The cars in the future (as I see them) could just hover off the ground, 'cause there's no real reason to have cars floating 10,000 kilometers up in the sky (that's why we have airplanes). If the cars were made to hover off the ground, then less problems would be caused. But, if this were to be, of course ground roads would still exist (as guidelines).

And, by the way, this:

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2005/04/15/image688553x.jpg

People are going to be fascinated by this. People nowadays seem to like any kind of tech news.

And, I wouldn't necessarily call that a 'car.'

car - n. - an automobile
au to mo bile - n.- a self-propelled land vehicle, especially a four-wheeled passenger car powered by an internal-combustion engine

[Conekiller]

That's a problem that can be solved. The cars in the future (as I see them) could just hover off the ground, 'cause there's no real reason to have cars floating 10,000 kilometers up in the sky (that's why we have airplanes). If the cars were made to hover off the ground, then less problems would be caused. But, if this were to be, of course ground roads would still exist (as guidelines).


then what's the point of making them "hover" in the first place?

[Chris Wood]

Will they have machine guns? Think of the excitement if every commute to work was a white-knuckled dogfight. Now that would be living! You'd scratch another kill on your cockpit and go into the office totally pumped.

[EinBebop]

Good. I can cause more damage that way.

[Artimus Gigan]

Will they have machine guns? Think of the excitement if every commute to work was a white-knuckled dogfight. Now that would be living! You'd scratch another kill on your cockpit and go into the office totally pumped.You can do that in a regular car

or has Twisted Metal taught the world nothing?