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Old 10-31-2018, 08:26 PM
 
Location: New Jersey and hating it
12,199 posts, read 7,227,282 times
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We were always lead to believe that one day, cars will fly but will that ever happen?
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Old 10-31-2018, 08:56 PM
 
17,308 posts, read 12,255,968 times
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There are some out there right now. Just gotta be rich and have a pilot's license.

Mass market? Not until they are also self-flying...and you probably won't own it, but call it to you Uber style.
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Old 10-31-2018, 08:56 PM
 
Location: Wyoming
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There are a few newer prototypes now, and if you've got a hundred grand or three you can probably order one. And there have been others available for decades, back into the '50s iirc. I think I remember seeing a couple different models at the Oskosh EAA Fly-In a couple decades back. At least one was an old classic from the 50s.

The reason they've never been popular is because they don't make very good planes, they don't make very good cars, and they don't make them cheap.

On a personal note, I can't imagine driving one around town at all. Would you park in a Walmart parking lot? Imagine the expensive dings you'd get. With most of them, new or old, a little tap from behind could cost tens of thousand$ to repair! Park on the street, even in front of your house? You'd find kids climbing on it! They'd be a fun toy but not very practical.
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Old 10-31-2018, 09:36 PM
 
Location: Cebu, Philippines
5,869 posts, read 4,211,939 times
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Yeah, like they promised hand-held videophones.

There will be flying cars as soon as they master the 100-foot safe stopping distance in million-car traffic enviroments.. So far, still a problem
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Old 11-01-2018, 04:56 AM
 
Location: Vermont
1,002 posts, read 918,487 times
Reputation: 2046
Probably not until we solve the "energy problem". Flying cars take a ton more energy to propel than one on wheels, making them many times as expensive to operate. Think fuel is expensive now? Maybe once we have effectively free energy from fusion reactors, or whatever the solution ends up being.

What many people want when they think of flying cars is to avoid traffic. But really, we can already do that. They're called overpasses and tunnels, and they allow movement in the 3rd dimension. We can make as many overpasses and tunnels as necessary to accommodate traffic flow, and this is exactly what Musk's Boring Company is about.
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Old 11-01-2018, 05:46 AM
 
Location: Floribama
18,949 posts, read 43,621,102 times
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All of those flying cars in sci-fi movies seemed to levitate on a magnetic field, not actually fly. I don’t think we will ever see those. We may see some drone type vehicles, but the problem with those is that they have to be so big and bulky in order make room for the propulsion.
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Old 11-01-2018, 07:46 AM
 
28,122 posts, read 12,603,511 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by antinimby View Post
We were always lead to believe that one day, cars will fly but will that ever happen?
When you say 'flying cars', do you mean, a car that can fly as high as a plane or helicopter, or more like the hovering cars, like Lukes landspeeder in star wars (hovers just a few inches or feet off the ground, but can go no higher).

The first type has been available for some time, the latter type is possible, but the technology is suppressed for the most part (antigravity, electromag induction, etc)
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Old 11-01-2018, 09:10 AM
 
Location: Riverside Ca
22,146 posts, read 33,544,925 times
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Christ I hope not. People can barely keep a car on the road now you want them flying?
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Old 11-01-2018, 09:17 AM
 
Location: Aurora Denveralis
8,712 posts, read 6,764,629 times
Reputation: 13503
Well, Paul Moller's not dead yet...
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Old 11-01-2018, 10:15 AM
 
Location: Frisco, TX
1,879 posts, read 1,555,364 times
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There aren’t even self-driving cars yet. I think that by the time the technology is there to make flying cars economically viable and safe, there’ll be something that will totally replace vehicular travel.
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