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Old 01-22-2019, 07:57 AM
 
28,122 posts, read 12,449,365 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by burdell View Post
Yeah, I guess the alternate laws of physics leading to things like teletransporters MUST be kept secret to keep transportation industries afloat. Who'd wanna sit on an airplane for 19 hours on the way to Singapore when you could just go online and say 'beam me down Scotty' ?
Yeah, thats basically the jist.
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Old 01-22-2019, 09:25 AM
 
Location: Wyoming
9,724 posts, read 21,152,402 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ciceropolo View Post
They already exist and are in use in Dubai - probably not as most people would think of them....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude View Post
No, that's exactly as most people think of them - a one-off prototype that can't possibly survive into a real market, in Dubai or Dubuque or anywhere else. Great score, though.

Wow, that's what most people think of as a flying car? A car without wheels that can never travel on roads? Looks more to me like a cute little helicopter. To me, a flying car is just that, a car that can navigate the roads and streets of the world, then can take to the air for a cross-country flight.

My dad was born in 1913, just a decade after the Wright Brothers' first successful flight and just 5 years after the first Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line. It was an exciting time for private mechanized travel, the first time in the history of our world for anything like it. Sure, cars had been around for years, but until Henry Ford made them on an assembly line, they were a little like flying cars are today -- toys for the rich, experiments for the semi-crazy inventors.

Anyway, Dad told me that when he was a kid, he figured cars would soon be replaced by airplanes. Now, a century later, no dice. Both have matured side-by-side; we put men on the moon a half century ago, but we still use cars for most private travel. I expect that'll still be true in another century.

My own thoughts on private travel when I was a little kid in the early 50s was that cars would evolve with more-or-less auto-pilots, but I figured they'd be tied into some kind of electronic/mechanical strip built into highways that cars would connect to.

Point is, nobody really knows what will be transporting our descendants 100 years from now, but it'll probably still be closer to what Henry Ford gave us than what we envisioned while watching the Jetsons.
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Old 01-22-2019, 09:34 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,703 posts, read 79,429,689 times
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I think the first step in flying cars will be hovercraft type vehicles. A car that travels a few inches above the roads. Roads will not need as much work to maintain them, and you will massively reduce friction. You can also cross water as easily as land and cut across any smooth surface like a lawn without leaving a mark. We could sod our roads!

The problem will be making them stop and making them turn. Stopping could be accomplished by cutting the lift motor and dropping the vehicle to the ground. turning might also require touching the ground for the turn. Maybe a strut could drop to the ground to provide the friction on one side to allow the turn.

This avoids the problems inherent with free ranger actual flying, but still provides a lot of advantages over cars.

Biggest remaining problems are noise and efficiency. Technology will address those eventually if someone find the reason to invest in the development of such technology.
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Old 01-22-2019, 10:20 AM
 
28,122 posts, read 12,449,365 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
I think the first step in flying cars will be hovercraft type vehicles. A car that travels a few inches above the roads. Roads will not need as much work to maintain them, and you will massively reduce friction. You can also cross water as easily as land and cut across any smooth surface like a lawn without leaving a mark. We could sod our roads!

The problem will be making them stop and making them turn. Stopping could be accomplished by cutting the lift motor and dropping the vehicle to the ground. turning might also require touching the ground for the turn. Maybe a strut could drop to the ground to provide the friction on one side to allow the turn.

This avoids the problems inherent with free ranger actual flying, but still provides a lot of advantages over cars.

Biggest remaining problems are noise and efficiency. Technology will address those eventually if someone find the reason to invest in the development of such technology.
Anti gravity/ gravity control, is what you are describing.


Ive mentioned this before, back in high school physics class (1991), we did an experiment with 2 counter-rotating magnetic rings, we used a small electric motor to spin them, once we got a certain RPM, you could drop a paper clip in the center and it would remain suspended in mid air. Whats interesting, the 'anti-grav' effect was toroidal.



I believe we have anti-gravity/ gravity control technology, but it is suppressed for the most part.


All those older 'this is what the future will look like' predictions of the 50s and 60s, they were right about the technology, but they didnt consider that the general public may not be privy to it or even knowing it exists.
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Old 01-22-2019, 10:32 AM
 
Location: Aurora Denveralis
8,712 posts, read 6,679,772 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WyoNewk View Post
Wow, that's what most people think of as a flying car? A car without wheels that can never travel on roads? Looks more to me like a cute little helicopter.
The exact tech is irrelevant. That it's a little "car" you can get into and "fly" anywhere you want to go is what people think of as a "flying car." It's fundamentally similar to most of Moller's more recent designs, for example. Never mind that, regardless of tech or implementation or anything, these things rarely get past a ratchety prototype that can only "fly" in the builder's wheat field under certain optimal conditions. And in recent times, it's more likely to be a scale model (which is what I suspect this Dubai iteration is) or even just renderings and CGI.

Like all such examples, the Dubai'er Fly'er can't possibly hold enough fuel for a meaningful trip, and is unlikely to be flyable in the hands of any but an extremely practiced operator - go look up the lunar landing trainer of the mid-1960s, for example.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
I think the first step in flying cars will be hovercraft type vehicles. A car that travels a few inches above the roads. Roads will not need as much work to maintain them, and you will massively reduce friction. You can also cross water as easily as land and cut across any smooth surface like a lawn without leaving a mark. We could sod our roads!
O deer ghod, it's 1970 all over again. Anyone else remember when personal hovercraft were all over the covers of PopMech and Weekly Reader?

Nearly all the problems of a "flying car," with no real advantage. In the end, it takes far more energy to make something fly or float than roll. (Gliding on enormous wings excepted.)

The final nail in the coffin of all these "no wheels" ideas, which have been with us in epochs since 1900, is the rising demand for energy efficiency. To what extent we might be able to attain STOL flight, hovering or jetpacking... all demand enormous amounts of fuel/energy compared to mundane rolling vehicles. That there is no practical power source for any of these (permitting the desired flight/use characteristics with more than minutes of flight/travel time) is one thing; that we can't support any massive increase in transportation energy costs is... conclusive.
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Old 01-23-2019, 08:24 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,703 posts, read 79,429,689 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quietude View Post
The exact tech is irrelevant. That it's a little "car" you can get into and "fly" anywhere you want to go is what people think of as a "flying car." It's fundamentally similar to most of Moller's more recent designs, for example. Never mind that, regardless of tech or implementation or anything, these things rarely get past a ratchety prototype that can only "fly" in the builder's wheat field under certain optimal conditions. And in recent times, it's more likely to be a scale model (which is what I suspect this Dubai iteration is) or even just renderings and CGI.

Like all such examples, the Dubai'er Fly'er can't possibly hold enough fuel for a meaningful trip, and is unlikely to be flyable in the hands of any but an extremely practiced operator - go look up the lunar landing trainer of the mid-1960s, for example.


O deer ghod, it's 1970 all over again. Anyone else remember when personal hovercraft were all over the covers of PopMech and Weekly Reader?

Nearly all the problems of a "flying car," with no real advantage. In the end, it takes far more energy to make something fly or float than roll. (Gliding on enormous wings excepted.)

The final nail in the coffin of all these "no wheels" ideas, which have been with us in epochs since 1900, is the rising demand for energy efficiency. To what extent we might be able to attain STOL flight, hovering or jetpacking... all demand enormous amounts of fuel/energy compared to mundane rolling vehicles. That there is no practical power source for any of these (permitting the desired flight/use characteristics with more than minutes of flight/travel time) is one thing; that we can't support any massive increase in transportation energy costs is... conclusive.
Personal hovercraft are still around. Lots of people have them. There is a pretty large group of afficnados who get together and race them. It actually does not take that much energy. My brothers ran on two small lawnmower engines and carried two people at speeds up to about 35 - 40 MPH The problem with them is they are very noisy and they have to be very very light. is was made of styrofoam.

They are generally self made from kits except the really pricey ones. You get foam insulation panels from home depot and glue them together to form a block, then you carve your craft from the Styrofoam block. coat it with fiberglass, add an engine (or two), controls seats, lights and away you go. the commercial ones are amazing. Some of them carry 20 cars. Some can go incredibly fast.

The real problems with them is stopping and turning. (Plus noise). With no real friction, they go a long way on a little gas. With improved battery technology, they become more and more practical and slightly less noisey.

Our local fire department has one. It was crazy expensive but extremely useful for ice and water rescues. they get called in for jobs mile and miles away. their downside is the thing is incredibly noisey. the people on board all have to wear hearing protection. With all the rescue equipment it can only carry four people and still have capacity to rescue two more people. Or it can carry two people and rescue four people. It is expensive to maintain and a breakdown could be dangerous because it goes places where no other type of vehicle can go (particularly broken up or thin ice), so if they break down, it would be difficult to rescue them (probably have to abandon the hovercraft and pull the people out in a helicopter). So far it has not broken down during a rescue operation.

It took electric cars over 100 years to catch on. Hovercraft have not been around all that long yet.

People who think they can predict what technologies are impractical and will never amount to anything crack me up. If they were around when computers first started becoming available to the public, they would have been among the many who said they are stupid, cost too much and don't really do anything. they will never be practical for anything other than a pricey electric typwriter.

Then the same people said cell phones were stupid and impractical and could never be made workable. They had been around for years and no one had been able to make them really practical for common persons use.

then the internet was stupid. What possible use can it have? Once lots of people start using it, is will not work. It is jsut not possible to ever make it a practical useful tool.

Then these people move on to electric cars. Now they are on self driving cars, hovercraft, fuel cells.


Their grandparents were probably in the group who opinion people would never be able to travel more than 45 mph because they would suffocate.


https://hovpod.com/hovercraft-applic...al-hovercraft/

Last edited by Coldjensens; 01-23-2019 at 08:36 AM..
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Old 01-23-2019, 08:42 AM
 
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,281 posts, read 54,065,692 times
Reputation: 40571
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
Personal hovercraft are still around. Lots of people have them. There is a pretty large group of afficnados who get together and race them. It actually does not take that much energy. My brothers ran on two small lawnmower engines and carried two people at speeds up to about 35 - 40 MPH The problem with them is they are very noisy and they have to be very very light. is was made of styrofoam.

They are generally self made from kits except the really pricey ones. You get foam insulation panels from home depot and glue them together to form a block, then you carve your craft from the Styrofoam block. coat it with fiberglass, add an engine (or two), controls seats, lights and away you go. the commercial ones are amazing. Some of them carry 20 cars. Some can go incredibly fast.

The real problems with them is stopping and turning. (Plus noise). With no real friction, they go a long way on a little gas. With improved battery technology, they become more and more practical and slightly less noisey.

Our local fire department has one. It was crazy expensive but extremely useful for ice and water rescues. they get called in for jobs mile and miles away. their downside is the thing is incredibly noisey. the people on board all have to wear hearing protection. With all the rescue equipment it can only carry four people and still have capacity to rescue two more people. Or it can carry two people and rescue four people. It is expensive to maintain and a breakdown could be dangerous because it goes places where no other type of vehicle can go (particularly broken up or thin ice), so if they break down, it would be difficult to rescue them (probably have to abandon the hovercraft and pull the people out in a helicopter). So far it has not broken down during a rescue operation.

It took electric cars over 100 years to catch on. Hovercraft have not been around all that long yet.

People who think they can predict what technologies are impractical and will never amount to anything crack me up. If they were around when computers first started becoming available to the public, they would have been among the many who said they are stupid, cost too much and don't really do anything. they will never be practical for anything other than a pricey electric typwriter.

Then the same people said cell phones were stupid and impractical and could never be made workable. They had been around for years and no one had been able to make them really practical for common persons use.

then the internet was stupid. What possible use can it have? Once lots of people start using it, is will not work. It is jsut not possible to ever make it a practical useful tool.

Then these people move on to electric cars. Now they are on self driving cars, hovercraft, fuel cells.


Their grandparents were probably in the group who opinion people would never be able to travel more than 45 mph because they would suffocate.


https://hovpod.com/hovercraft-applic...al-hovercraft/

We're talking about 'flying' cars, I don't think a hovercraft that couldn't clear a 10' obstacle qualifies as 'flying'.
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Old 01-23-2019, 12:07 PM
 
Location: Aurora Denveralis
8,712 posts, read 6,679,772 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
Personal hovercraft are still around.
No one ever said otherwise.

Without wasting a ton of quote space, you then list off five or six examples that, paralleled with the automotive world, cover the spectrum from go-karts to coastal freighters.

No one's ever said hovercraft/ground effect vehicles aren't real, don't work or have no purpose.

But like flying cars, they have nearly insoluble problems for anything like mass use. They take more power to hover than a car does to roll - and pointing out that super-lightweight personal fun craft use only a lawnmower engine for support is neither contradictory nor particularly relevant. They have almost no resistance to wind or slope forces, and only extraordinary amounts of directional power can overcome that; even the big ones have to be more or less "sailed" to where they're going and have very poor fine directional control.

And noise - the same problem as with "flying cars." No one is going to tolerate these things around except as hobby craft in remote locations and for emergency/specialty transport uses.

Trying to compare this tech, which (for wide use or any replacement of wheeled vehicles) is almost as impractical and unattainable as the mythical flying car, to established technologies that work just fine but took time to find wide application, is... juvenile.
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