Flying motorcycles are here!

[AMX]

And they say, litterally:

In the unlikely event that insufficient power is available to hover, the Skycar's aerodynamic stability and good glide slope allows the pilot to maneuver to a safe area before using the airframe parachutes.

If you're stable, able to manuver, and have a glide slope to a "safe area" you don't need a fucking parachute!!!

Yes, AMX, I know you're quoting someone else, but that is precisely what Wicked and I mean by bullshit. The sad thing is, the average person doesn't have the knowledge base to recognize the depth of the doo-doo when Moller or the like spout this drivel.

Well, I tend to look at it this way:
They're making the thing, so they should know best what they say.
If it's true, they'll certainly find a way to prove it.
If it's BS, we'll find out soon enough - where "soon enough" means "I won't be the poor guy leaving a smoking hole in the landscape".

Austria has to intercept about 50 airplanes per year - mostly pilots who "got lost", forgot to check for temporarily restricted areas

The US intercept rate has been thousands per year since 9/11...

Figures - you've got 35 times the population, and 116 times the land area.
Not to mention the budget to actually check consequently.
Oh, and this:

due in part to idiots who don't check before launching, yes, but also because the DHS, TSA, and FAA can't get their act together and come up with a clear, coherent, and comprehensible system of notification. In the past three years there have been at least two occassion I told the flight service briefer about TFR's - and he's supposed to be the one telling ME! (Yeah, yeah - another topic for venting...)

I haven't heard of anything like that over here.

Another problem the interceptors here are having is that the attack planes are too fast for intercepting the slower civilian planes like low power single engine Cessnas and Pipers, much less the ultraights and powered parachutes. It took them a bit to figure out that it makes much more sense to send a helicoptor after the slower planes than an F-16 or whatever they were using at first.

Whoa
Near as I can tell, we're using mostly the 105s for these cases.

*trying to get a bit closer to the original topic*
Uh, so... what do you think about that idea to "jump" traffic jams, but stay on the road otherwise?

[Broomstick]

Well, I tend to look at it this way:
They're making the thing, so they should know best what they say.

Some of the links I posted discuess "aviation scams", where the real purpose of the company is not so much to produce flying things as to sell mock-ups, documents, and other such. Rather like some of the informercials on TV. To my mind, Moller is clearly one such (this is also discussed in those links) Some of these other guys aren't, they really are trying to come up with something new. Doesn't mean they'll succeed.

If it's true, they'll certainly find a way to prove it.

While there have been a number of aviation inventors who struggled long and hard - the Wright brothers themselves and Sikorsky laboring on rotorcraft are just two examples - they tend to spend at least some time on test flights, which Moller has not. Nor do they seek a broad base for investors until they have something working to show people. It's not always working perfeclty, but at least it's off the ground - for instance, Sikorsky's first helicopter flew every direction except forward, but at least when he showed it around it was able to leave the ground, manuver, and land intact. Moller's skycar has NEVER flown.

Granted, when the Voyager was being built for the around the world without refueling flight funds were raised something like $20 at a time from hundreds, if not thousands, of individual investors but by that time Rutan had a track record of building working airplanes, and the segment of the public approached was the aviation community, where people have some ability to make judgements regarding feasibility.

Here's the difference between Rutan and Moller: For 20+ years Moller has talked and talked about building this "skycar", and for all the mockups and artistic renditions, he's yet to build a working prototype of any sort. On the other hand, Rutan says very little, he's just this crazy guy out the Mojave desert who lives in a pyramid and talks to his pet birds. But over the years dozens of working airplanes have rolled out of his hangar, things that fly and fly well. So when he says something completely whacky, like "I'm going to build a spaceship" it's not so easily dismissed. He actually did it in what, about 5 years? So why can't Moller build a "skycar" in 20?

The X-hawk looks more feasible to me, actually - at least the folks involved don't seem to be overselling it. It might actually have some use, if they can get it to work.

If it's BS, we'll find out soon enough

In 20 years Moller hasn't flown - either he's scamming folks, or the technology isn't there. Or a little of both.

Austria has to intercept about 50 airplanes per year - mostly pilots who "got lost", forgot to check for temporarily restricted areas

The US intercept rate has been thousands per year since 9/11...

Figures - you've got 35 times the population, and 116 times the land area.
Not to mention the budget to actually check consequently.

Actually, because of our much greater land area, the budget IS being strained in some ways. We also attempted constant patrols over a number of cities post-9/11 and has to quit - we just did not have the men, machines, parts, and money to continue indefinitely.

In the US the military will also intercept aircraft in distress - one of the more high profile cases was when a Lear jet chartered by the golfer Payne Stewart stopped communicating or obeying air traffic control instructions - they send a couple of fighters after it to get a better idea of what was going on, and to render aid if possible.

also because the DHS, TSA, and FAA can't get their act together and come up with a clear, coherent, and comprehensible system of notification. In the past three years there have been at least two occassion I told the flight service briefer about TFR's - and he's supposed to be the one telling ME! (Yeah, yeah - another topic for venting...)

I haven't heard of anything like that over here.

Outside of the pilots it's not exactly front page news here. But it's been a factor in the number of intercepts. You can't avoid a no-fly zone unless you know it's there. We've had problems with this from ultralight guys all the way up through commercial airliners. The guys in DC who do security know jackshit about aviation, and it shows.

*trying to get a bit closer to the original topic*
Uh, so... what do you think about that idea to "jump" traffic jams, but stay on the road otherwise?

Not going to work - think about the idiots who drive too fast in the passing lane.

There are several big problems to making flying cars the transportation of choice for the masses.

1) For short distances, flying is terribly inefficient - but then, so are many SUV's, so maybe that's not an insurmountable obstacle.

2) In order for this to work, people have to follow the rules. Aviation is NOT forgiving of error! You can drive carelessly and get away with it - flying carelessly is much more likely to result in disaster. Should people who habitually speed, tailgate, violate stop signs and red lights, and otherwise behave in a reckless manner on the road be allowed to fly? Here in the US, when I went to apply for my civilian pilot license I was required to sign a piece of paper allowing the FAA access to my driving record - obviously, if I can't be trusted with a car, I can't be trusted with an airplane. Mostly they're looking for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, but if they find a pattern of misbehavior they can hold it against you. Yes, I have known pilots who lost their flying privileges due to a bad on-the-road driving record.

3) If you engineer limitations on the machines, you can encounter other problems. After 9/11, someone seriously suggested a device mounted on all airplanes such that if you entered a no-fly zone without permission it would shut the engine(s) down. Yeah, that was a bad idea. But stuff like that crops up all the time when discussing flying cars. "Oh, let's limit them to 4,000 feet" OK - how are we going to do that? "Let's tie the altimeter into a computer, the computer into the controls, and it won't let them go above 4,000 MSL" OK... but you won't sell any of these in Denver. Also, what if you're crusing at 3500 feet and find yourself on a collision course, and the best way to go is up but you can't because of the limiter? What about hot, humid days - that atmospheric effect causes the same pressure drop as an increase in altitude - there are days here around Chicago where that would effectively limit these things to no more than 2500 feet above the ground. It would halve the amount of vertical space you could put these things in, resulting in much greater traffic densities and you're back to traffic jams - except everyone is going even faster than on the freeway.

4) Weather - this is much more a factor in flying at ANY level than it is for on-the-road travel. And a whole 'nother discussion.

So far, at least, the best options anyone has figured out include a trained, responsible human being in the loop making a lot of the decisions. Is the general public willing to learn the necessary facts, and act reasonably on that knowledge? I have my doubts, really I do. Even with the time, effort, and money involved in getting a pilot's license right now we still have idiots, jackasses, and "sky bullies" up there. Fortunately, they are a very small minority at present, but get the "masses" up there and we'll all have to make some major adjustments, AND put up with a certain number of wrecks raining down from the skies.

All of which makes me come across as a really negative person on this idea. I'm not opposed to flight for the masses - I strongly encourage people to get into flying, I love it, it's a passion of mine and I'm willing to sacrifice quite a bit to continue doing it. But if someone wants to fly they don't have to wait for these dream machines they can fly right now, provided they meet a certain minimum level of health (and, in the US, there are even options for those that can't pass an FAA physical - much more limited, the idea being to protect the people you might potentially fall on, but it IS real flying). No, a middle class American can't afford a Lear jet - but they CAN afford flying of the sort I do (me being right in the middle of "middle class" income wise). There's also soaring, hang gliding, skydiving -- there are a LOT of ways to get in the air right now, if that's what you want to do, if you live in North America.

Unfortunately, is IS significantly more expensive and difficult to fly as a civilian in Europe ... which is why my local flight school always has students from abroad earning their licenses here in the US and taking them back to be converted to European licenses. It's actually to fly to the US, rent a hotel for a couple months, and pay for flight training here in the US than to earn a pilot's license in, say, Italy. At least, that's what the last three Italian guys we had have claimed. The Canadian situation is somewhat different from the US, but not hugely so - we don't have droves of people coming down from up north, in fact, hardly any at all. No one in Windsor, Ontario seems inclined to cross the river to Detroit for flight lessons although there is not bar to doing so.

[VT-16]

I think it´s very likely we´ll get small, flying vehicles for mass-transportation (air buses, sky trains etc.) before any private, flying car. When we do get it, the accidents that WILL occur, will probably help motivate the masses into taking it even more seriously than cars. Face it, you can survive a nasty car crash, but there won´t be much left if you dive-bomb in your car.

[Admiral Valdemar]

By the way - the UK also bans the airframe-mounted ballistic recovery 'chutes such as the skycar and many other of these gizmos claim as a safety feature. It goes back to a number of gory accidents in the early 1980's involving such systems that fired off on the ground by accident and shot through someone. Which, by the way, is pretty much what does happen - it doesn't hit you, it goes through you. Which is yet another thing to worry about - backyard mechanics fucking around with these things, which are launched by a small, solid-fuel rocket, and killing themselves or bystanders.

It's not like any sane person would buy a deathtrap like that Skycar anyway. I don't trust most people driving normal cars, letalone flying ones.

[Col. Crackpot]

By the way - the UK also bans the airframe-mounted ballistic recovery 'chutes such as the skycar and many other of these gizmos claim as a safety feature. It goes back to a number of gory accidents in the early 1980's involving such systems that fired off on the ground by accident and shot through someone. Which, by the way, is pretty much what does happen - it doesn't hit you, it goes through you. Which is yet another thing to worry about - backyard mechanics fucking around with these things, which are launched by a small, solid-fuel rocket, and killing themselves or bystanders.

It's not like any sane person would buy a deathtrap like that Skycar anyway. I don't trust most people driving normal cars, letalone flying ones.

now imagine a skycar in the hands of a ricer with too much disposeable income.

[AMX]

*me is so stupid*

Moller's skycar has NEVER flown.

That doesn't seem to be true any longer.
There's a page with (tethered) flight videos HERE

[Wicked Pilot]

Tethered flights do not impress me. You could launch that vehicle 100 times and with a tether it can lose control 99 times without crashing, and still get that one good test for the cameras. Is it so difficult to get it to fly from on end of a football field to the other without a safety line? Even the Flyer could do that.

[mauldooku]

I´ll stick to hoping for my very own Skycar, thank you.

Jesus Christ, it looks like something out of F-Zero!

[mauldooku]

*Smacks head*

Quoting images is baaaad....

[AMX]

Tethered flights do not impress me. You could launch that vehicle 100 times and with a tether it can lose control 99 times without crashing, and still get that one good test for the cameras. Is it so difficult to get it to fly from on end of a football field to the other without a safety line? Even the Flyer could do that.

I was about to say "catch 22", but I decided to look at their site first.
And, behold their explanation for doing only tethered flights:

Presently all test flights of the M400 Skycar employ a safety tether from above to protect the vehicle from catastrophic failure. Certainly during these early tests there are a number of failure modes with an aircraft that has 24 microprocessors and 25,000 lines of machine language software code. Additional factors that make a tether mandatory include:

We are test flying within the Davis City Limits
We presently have only one M400 aircraft
Our insurance will go up substantially when the tether is not used while flying over land

They go on to say that they'll start untethered flights when they have approximately one spare plane.

[Wicked Pilot]

What a bunch of bullshit excuses. Put to Moller on a flatbed, drive it out to a test range, and run it there. If they're worried about catastrophic failure then they should use that 'spreader gun' they're so intent on relying on.

What a bunch of slack jawed pussies. You don't see Rutan making such excuses, and he sent his aircraft around the world and into space.

[aerius]

And they say, litterally:

In the unlikely event that insufficient power is available to hover, the Skycar's aerodynamic stability and good glide slope allows the pilot to maneuver to a safe area before using the airframe parachutes.

So it weighs 2400 pound, has heavy engines up front with minimal lift surfaces, and it can somehow glide? Its glide slope is "good" only if you compare it to a canonball. An F1 car will "glide" better than this damn thing.

[Broomstick]

I'm with Wicked on this one - it's not a genuine test flight until it flies free.

And, behold their explanation for doing only tethered flights:

Presently all test flights of the M400 Skycar employ a safety tether from above to protect the vehicle from catastrophic failure. Certainly during these early tests there are a number of failure modes with an aircraft that has 24 microprocessors and 25,000 lines of machine language software code.

And how many microprocessors in a Boeing 777?

And - interesting thing that - even the big airliners like Boeings and Airbuses that utilize computers extensively can STILL be flown to a safe landing even if the power fails completely and all engines quit, as has been demonstrated Air Canada (landing at Gimli, 1983) and Airtransat (landing in the Azores, 2001). Not that anyone is recommending the experience (and I'm sure the fact both these incidents occured in Canadian airlines is pure coincidence)

Use of tethered flights is NOT a common practice in test flights.

We are test flying within the Davis City Limits

Put the thing on a flatbad trailer and drive it out to someplace where a tether isn't required like real aircraft designers and builders do.

We presently have only one M400 aircraft

Rutan only has one SpaceShipOne. It never required a tether. Gee, a real aerospace designer is willing to risk a $25 million investment on test flights...

Our insurance will go up substantially when the tether is not used while flying over land

And if he actually DOES have insurance it wouldn't have a "land" distinction, as hitting the water at speed is just as lethal as hitting dirt. Unless you're talking about liability issues, where the thing falling on water is likely to kill bystanders than falling on the ground - which is ANOTHER reason to drag the thing out to the middle of the nowhere for testing, just like the real aircraft designers/builders do.

They go on to say that they'll start untethered flights when they have approximately one spare plane.

"Approximately" one spare plane?" WTF? What's an "approximate" plane?

Let's move to another example - Carl Unger's Breezy, which you've probably never heard of. Mr. Unger designed his airplane, he did not borrow the design from anyone else. He built it himself. When he was done, he test flew it himself - even though he had only one.

I met Mr. Unger at an EAA fly-in at Lansing Airport in Lansing, Illinois a couple years ago, and I have flown in a Breezy, with him at the controls. (While I respect Mr. Unger I doubt very much we'll ever be friends, having numerous differences of opinon over various matters, both aviation and otherwise)

Here's a picture. That's Mr. Unger up front:


Here's a Breezy in flight, please note tethers not required:


And as indicated in this link http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/k ... breezy.php Mr. Unger is selling the design so you can build your own, should you desire. No need to invest your money and wait years and years for the first untethered test flight.

If you ask me, Carl Unger is far more of an aircraft designer than Moller is, or is likely ever to be. Why? Because he builds stuff and flies it - even when he only has just one.

[Broomstick]

One thing that's been puzzling me for awhile in the airplane vs skycar debate is why there's a debate in the first place. Why the resistance to flying machines that look like airplanes and the drive to make cars that fly?

Flight through the air imposes certain restrictions on a vehicle. You either need a highly aerodynmic shape - such as a high-performance glider - or lots and lots of power, which is basically how something like the Harrier performs a vertical take-off. It's somewhat comparable why fish tend to converge on a similar shape, or why birds, bats, and pterodactyls tended to converge on similar shapes through evolution. While there are certainly strangely shaped fish, they tend not be good swimmers. Mammals that return to the sea converge on fish shapes, particularly the cetaceans. Likewise, there are non-flying birds (although the penguin, a non-flying bird that swims has some similarity in shape to fish and whales), but flying birds have certain constraints on size and shape.

So, powered flying vehicles will either have an "aeroplane" in the original sense of the word (or in the case of rotorcraft, a "rotordisk" of sufficient size to get the job done), lots of engine power, or a combination of both. Engine power is expensive, expensive in making the engine initially, parts and maintenance, and expensive in fuel. There is no way around this. Just ask the hummingbirds - there's a reason they don't evolve to the size of pigeons. The fuel costs they incur are enormous relative to their size, and require some highly specialized adaptions. Cheap flight requires a large, lift-generating area - look at the big, gliding birds like condors and albatrosses. They can stay aloft hours or even days and weeks (for the albatross) with very little energy or movement required... but they have relatively large lifting surfaces to hold them up with minimal power.

Now, look at some of these ideas proposed for "skycars" or "skybikes". Moller has almost no lifting surface... I don't care what he says, the damn thing can't glide unless you think a cannonball free-falling from the top of a building is "gliding". His design - if it can fly at all, which is still in doubt - relys on power to stay aloft. Gee, maybe that's why he needs, what is it, eight engines? It will never be cheap to run, no matter what the sticker price may be. How much would it cost to run eight conventional automobiles? That's a minimal fuel cost for a Moller skycar, because you have eight engines. Using my Toyota Echo as comparison (and that's being exceedingly generous, as it is a small, fuel-efficient car) that's about $10 for one engine, or $80 a week for eight Echoes. My average fuel cost per week for the airplanes I fly? About $40-60 (and that's on engines with things like carbeurators - not the most fuel efficent engines available today). So it's STILL cheaper for me to drag the old Cessna or Piper out of the hangar than to use a Moller whatsit. For that matter, the last time I paid for gas for my friend's Mooney - a high performance airplane that easily cruises 150 mph - it only set me back $26 for the whole trip. There's no way Moller can run eight engines on that thing without incurring a high fuel bill.

Now, how about that X-Hawk... feasible, in the sense that hovercraft using a similar sort of ducted fan technique have been around for decades. Problem is, hovercraft never really caught on in a big way. They rely on power for lift - so we're talking big engines and big fuel bills again. They're LOUD. They have some real uses - don't require roads (although relatively level ground seems a must) and can fly over water just as easily as dirt so they are truly amphibious. But it's not an efficient way to fly - many use a skirt to contain the thrust to increase lifting efficiency. The X-Hawk is, in many ways, a really refined hovercraft. It's possible... whether it's cheap enough to be worth it is another question entirely. And if the power fails... you fall.

The Spark design that started this thread is a rotorcraft. Now, making a gyrocoptor instead of a helicoptor eliminates quite a few problems involving moving parts and engines and so forth, so that's probably a good move. Folding rotors have been around for decades, and the various air forces around the world have worked out the bugs on that one. The fuel costs on this one will probably be comparable to what other small aircraft are experiencing, in other words, reasonable/affordable even if not matching the fuel efficiency of the more up-to-date economy cars. The other advantage of this system is that gyros have SOME gliding capability. Not much, but enough to reduce impact to survivable levels (As my rotorpilot friend said after surviving an engine failure during a hover at 500 feet - just because you walk away doesn't mean you won't be swallowing pain pills for several weeks.) A rotorcraft's ability to fly is not wholly dependent on engine power. There ARE gyrogliders out there - unpowered rotorcraft that are towed aloft and flown solely on gravity power to a safe landing, repeatedly. Which means I'm much more likely to climb into a Spark gyro than a Moller skycar. But gyros also have some of the worst features of helicoptors - the rotating parts, expense of maintenance - which is why fixed wing aircraft have largely supplanted them. Gyros had their "golden age" back when the zepplins were crusing the skies. Barring a truly monumental breakthrough, they're likely to remain on the margins, only in very specialized niches.

A Greyhound is a great runner, but not a very good swimmer. Likewise, a dolphin is a great swimmer, but pretty helpless on land. The attributes that make a great automobile don't match the attributes that make a great airplane and vice versa. Which has a lot to do with why jet-thrust cars with turbine engines are novelty items, and we've never used propellors to drive automobiles, and four wheel drive just isn't found on airplanes of any sort.

We already HAVE "flying cars" - they're called airplanes. Fixed wing monoplanes ARE the efficient means for small aircraft to get around, and at slow speeds/low power propellors are still the most efficent means we've come up with to pull/push them around (remember - the Spark gyro uses a conventional vertical prop to move it forward. The overhead rotor - which is unpowered - provides only lift, not thrust) which is why jet-powered small aircraft are novelties. I'm sorry if that disappoints anyone, but that's reality at this point in time. Maybe a hundred years from now things will be different, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Pcm979]

People want flying cars because they're cool. C'mon who hasn't watched 5th Element or Blade Runner and thought "I want me some of that" or a more grammatical varient?

[Col. Crackpot]

People want flying cars because they're cool. C'mon who hasn't watched 5th Element or Blade Runner and thought "I want me some of that" or a more grammatical varient?

it was the car chase scene on Couriscant in AOTC that did it for me. Still, there is a big difference between an airspeeder in Star Wars and that Mosler deathtrap.

[Broomstick]

Well, I'm a freak of nature who's always thought airplanes were way more cool than cars could ever be... so obviously I'm not the one to ask.

But the rest of your normal H. sapiens - what is it that makes cars "cool", so cool that a flying car is more cool than an airplane?

[frigidmagi]

It's the idea of everybody being able to fly.

[Pcm979]

It's the concept that one day the average Joe or Jane will be able to cruise the air in a flying Ferrari.

Hey, don't look at me. I prefer trains.

[Broomstick]

Hey, I think trains are cool, too - I have an N scale set I'll set up one day. And, oh yeah, I ride a REAL train to work and back every Monday through Friday, how cool is that?

Anyhow - the dream of the average Joe or Jane flying is available now, at least in the US - MOST people can qualify for an FAA 3rd class physical. Hell, I know people who have had coronary bypass surgery who've been issued 3rd class medicals. A pilot's license is about $4,000-6,000 - a sum most Americans can save up. A plane in good (safe to fly) condition can be had for $30,000-50,000 - comparable to many SUV's and fancy cars coveted by the masses. And, judging by the road traffic I see, bought by the masses. It's within reach for middle-class America right now... so why don't more folks fly?

Nope, it's not just the idea of flying... it's something about it being a car and not an airplane.

(Ferrari? Well, no, but one of the airplanes I fly does have a Rolls Royce engine. I love that airplane.)

[frigidmagi]

Because you can't park an airplane in the garage.

[Pcm979]

I mean I like going on *real* trains more than *real* cars.

It's just that people have a vague, uneasy feeling that flying is Best Left To The Professionals, while anyone can drive.

[Wicked Pilot]

Because you can't park an airplane in the garage.

Actually there are aviation communities popping up around the country. They are basically houses built around a runway, with a taxiways running up to a hanger/garage built into, or right next to each house. Sure the cost ain't pretty, and you have to live somewhat outside the city limits, but the option to park a plane in your garage is a reality.

Maybe after a long and successful career of making the world safe for democracy I'll get that lucrative 777 captain slot with whatever airline is still in business by then and be able to affort such a house. I'll even get one with a double hanger in which to park both my Fouga and my Mooney.

I'll make sure to show all those punk ass ultralight flying neighbors who's boss of the skies!

[AMX]

"Approximately" one spare plane?" WTF? What's an "approximate" plane?

A shortcut by me.
I didn't want to quote "at least one ready or nearing completion".
That'd be about one, maybe more (1+unfinished), maybe less (only unfinished).
So, approximately one, see?

As for tethered flight again: after a very superficial look, it seems like I unearthed one more reason - it appears like the thing is in fact not (yet, if you believe him) reliable; they actually need all eight engines to keep it aloft.
Of course, that's supposed to change when they get new engines - which just happen to still be in development

As for the examples of "see, no tethered flight" you gave - note that neither of them is a VTOL craft, so tethered flight would be rather tricky, to say the least.
Also, Rutan had good reasons to belive the SSO would work (yep, that's because he usually knows what he's doing), while Moller had no idea whether, e.g. his apparently self-designed control software would just switch off the engines in mid-flight.
As for Mr. Unger: most of the problems possible with the Breezy, would probably have articulated themselves on the ground - most of the problems in the Skycar are of the "suddenly takes a nosedive without any apparent reason" variety.

geez, this'd be more convincing if I thought that "flying car" was a good idea...
"Traditional Debate" sucks.

[Sarevok]

Why bother building complex vertical takeoff craft when you can build a small cheap helicopter and calll it a flying car.