Flying motorcycles are here!

[Broomstick]

"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?

OK - now I see. Might have to share that one with the local homebuilders. "Yeah, he's got an approximate airplane and maybe one day he'll even finish it."

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

Yeah, typical. Typical of Moller, who's needed technology is always just around the corner, and typical of multi-engine aircraft, which tend to become more difficult to control after you lose an engine.

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.

Even so, at some point, you have to cut the umbilical

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.

Gosh, I suppose it would have been totally unreasonable for Moller to build a model of his idea, an RC control skycar of sorts, to test his software first rather than risking a human life? Granted the weight-to-power ratios and some other factors are different on the smaller scale, but it would function as a testbed for his software. Making models of larger aircraft for testing purposes goes back a long way in aviation design.

Maybe that's one of the reasons I get cranked about Moller - it's not that he has this wacky "new" idea, I like strange flying machines (if they work). It's the ass-backward way he goes about it.

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.

I disagree. While the Breezy is quite docile in normal flight it does have some extremely unforgiving characteristics. Among other things, owners are advised to avoid full stalls. I know one experienced pilot - homebuilder, former airline captain, aerobatic glider enthusiast - who stalled it at about 9,000 out of curiosity and during recovery it kept going into secondary stalls, taking about 5,000 feet for him to recover normal flight. That is a very serious issue, and it was not apparent until someone took it up and flew it. I don't know if all of them have the characteristic, or if they have them to the same degree - one of the problems of homebuilt airplanes is their variablility from one to the next, even if they're of the same design.

This sort of thing is also why in the US homebuilts have a plaque mounted in full view of any passengers warning them that the airplane was not built to FAA certification standards and you fly at your own risk. Even with tested designs, there is a significant crash rate on initial flights. Which is not to say all homebuilts are deathtraps - some are very fine aircraft - it's just that the possibility is always there.

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

I think the flying car is a GREAT idea... just not in the hands of the average road-rage consumed car driver

[Broomstick]

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

Because the smallest, cheapest, most simple helicopter IS a "complex" flying machine.

The other problem is that rotorcraft are harder to learn to fly. Sure, once a pilot becomes qualified it's not a big deal, but no one is a "natural" at rotors.

Here's an example, contrasting fixed wing and rotors: if you're in a small airplane like I fly, and the pilot up and has a heart attack, and if you avoid panic and get on the radio, you can be talked down to a safe landing even if you have never taken the controls of an airplane before. They might even be able to use the airplane afterward. This has happened numerous times, in fact. So often that folks have found it useful to publish and sell laminated cards that can be carried on board that explain to freaked out passengers How to Land This Airplane. The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook has this in the chapter called "How to Land a Small Airplane". The technique is not always successful, but successful often enough to may it worth trying.

On the other hand, no such thing exists for rotorcraft. The consenus of the rotor guys is that if you're a passenger in a helicopter and the pilot dies so do you. You can't be "talked down" in a helicopter. The only procedure offered was "bend over and kiss your ass goodbye - if you have time to do that."

So, in the "helicopter as flying car" situation, you either have to get really strict about the training and licensing program (and I'm well aware that the "school" aspect of flight training discourages a number of folks) or have absolutely, completely reliable software. And we don't have that yet. I don't care how sophisticated the aircraft is, the fancy flight computers still have old fashioned "steam gauge" backups. Which have also been known to fail - been there, done that.

And here we have another difference between the "flying car" concept and the "airplane". I gather that for most people "flying car" means something that flies, but is as easy to operate as a car. Just get in and drive. Truth be told, the small planes I fly are about on the level of manual transmission car - when everything goes right. The problem comes in when something goes wrong. It's pretty straightforward to pull over to the side of the road when something goes wrong in a car - pulling over in a flying machine is more difficult. Part of flight training involves evening out that difference. Before I got my license I had to demonstrate I could safely land an airplane with NO working instruments, and the final flight task on my checkride was the examiner pulling the power back to minimum several miles from the runway way and saying "OK - wheels on the pavement or you don't pass". Which is all to the good - but many people don't want to put in the time and effort to learn those techniques and drop out of flight training. At this point, the "software" to deal with these things is installed in the human being, not the machine. Are our machines reliable enough to trust with this? I don't know... and I am skeptical. Computers are very good, better than humans, at the routine - but humans are still better at improvising around the unexpected. At least trained humans are.

[Admiral Valdemar]

At least a chopper can autorotate. Try doing that with that Jetsons shit Moller is wanking over. Ain't got no wings to glide and has no rotor to use either.

But then, a rotary winged craft is inherently more complex than any fixed-wing one. Just look at the swash plate and compare it to the simple pulley system for the surfaces of a light plane. Additionally, the best choppers use turbines, but that adds weight and cost and also means using expensive fuels again anyway. There's at least one guy near me who has a Robinson 22 and another who has a Bell Jet Ranger III. Guess which one is the multi-millionaire.

[Slartibartfast]

Why not make it with variable wings then? I mean they could fold into the cycle but still be regular wings.

Oh yeah, because you can crash the damn thing if you're not a pilot... until we can build self-levitating vehicles that work even when powered down like in Star Wars, I don't see how this can work

As for the flying cycle, it looks like a regular chopper, I'm guessing with powered wheels so you can use it on a road too.

[Broomstick]

Oh yeah, because you can crash the damn thing if you're not a pilot...

You can crash the damn thing even if you ARE a pilot!

Actually, the biggest obstacle to a power-off landing in a conventional small plane is the notion too many people have that if the engine quits you fall out of the sky. You don't. If you're in cruise and the engine quits yes, the nose will drop relative to the horizon, but it's not that abrupt and you soon reach a point of equilibrium... almost always you'll find yourself flying along at the same speed, you'll just be descending instead of in level flight.*

The big key? Don't panic. When I practice no-power landings the hardest thing to do is be patient - at "best glide" it can take longer to reach than ground than in normal flight, as counter-intuitive as that sounds.

(When coming in for a normal landing, if I'm too high I'll happily dump altitude - in an emergency situation I'll hold onto altitude as long as I can)

What usually kills people (in my opinion) is either panic, lack of regular review/practice of emergency procedures, or a mix of both. And, oh yeah, being stupid about the weather. Flying cars will have all of those problems, just like any other aircraft.

* Usually - I can come up with scenarios where this won't happen, or airplanes that don't glide well, because aviation is like that - full of exceptions and compromises. But the vast majority of the time, if the engine quits you'll notice, but you won't be in immediate danger of life and limb. Usually.

[Wicked Pilot]

Actually, and this may seem counterintuitive, the flying motorcycle's one engine is probably safer than the Moller's four fans. If the one and only engine on the cycle quits your decision is made; you pitch to best glide, attempt a restart if circumstances allow, and if that fails you power off land in Henry Joe's cow field. In a multi it's a little bit different. If you lose an engine you can usually continue flying on the good one, but doing so is difficult. Not only are you having to fly without thrust from the dead engine, but you have to fight the good engine. At high power, low altitude and low airspeed situations like after takeoff, you have to seriousily know what you're doing in order to keep yourself from losing control and crashing should an engine suddely shit itself. You have to clean up the aircraft and secure the dead prop in pretty short order, while climbing away maintaining coordinated flight with rudder and aileron into the good engine, maintaining your best rate of climb airpseed until safely from terra firma. In the event though that you can't get ahold of the situation, you can always throttle back the good engine and power off ditch as if you where in a single, but doing so would demonstrate to all that you should have never been flying a twin in the first place. In the Moller though that is not an option. If one of those fans freezed, you're fucked pretty bad. The only real option you have is to deploy the chute, crossing your fingers that you're within the envelop and not directly over alligator infested swampland.