john grigg wrote:
>
> James Swayze wrote:
> Perhaps call to order driverless vehicles that come to your door step,
> travel a ways and join up with a mass of others going the same direction,
> then branch off to your destination where other passengers take that same
> vehicle to yet another destination.
> (end)
>
> Considering how Americans love to control(drive) their own vehicles, this
> may be a very hard thing to get them to do!! lol In areas like L.A. where
> gridlock is bad I could see the public in frustration possibly going for it.
> The moller skycar would take control from the passenger and this could be
> a "roadblock" to the public eagerly accepting it.
There are a lot of things Americans and others will gradually give up without
much protest in trade for convenience. We have already. As time becomes more of
a premium some might welcome not having to do the driving, using the time to
check their investments with their wearable mobile office.
> James, the scenario you gave of skycars crashing into people on the ground
> is frightening and yet each year in the U.S. about fifty-thousand people die
> in car accidents! And a large percentage involving the abuse of drugs and
> alcohol. I see skycars being safer then that! Especially with automatic
> controls guided by gps.
Well it's scary as long as vehicles are unreliable enough to crash. I'm stating
the obvious but we are a long way from the kind of reliability needed for sky
cars. Automobiles for the most part crash on roads. Sometimes they careen into a
house but it's rare statistically. Airplanes sometime hit houses but again rare
statistically. This threatens to change if the air traffic increases to the
level Moller dreams of. Ever see "The Fifth Element"? What a nightmare of air
traffic portrayed there!
> I have a friend here in Anchorage who is a pilot of many years experience
> and he also has serious reservations about the moller skycar similar to your
> own. He basically thought they were cool looking deathtraps! lol
I used to build planes and I patched up jets in the airforce. I think the Moller
sky car looks really neat, kind of Buck Rogers, but it looks like it is trying
to defy physics. I must question where it gets enough power for the thrust
needed to be truly VTOL. I'd like it better if it's fans and engines rotated
rather than tried to deflect the air for downward thrust. In either case, the
most dangerous point of VTOL flight is transition from hover to forward flight.
At lower altitudes and o forward speed there is no recovery space or time if an
engine shuts down. His car looks like it is pushing it in the first place as far
as having enough thrust to overcome it's weight. I don't see how it could
survive the loss of even one engine let alone more at transition stage. Even a
balistic parachute will be hard pressed to dploy properely if a problem occurs
at low altitude.
> Certainly, there would have to be serious changes in the nature of air
> traffic and it's monitoring to make things safe. It may be a number of
> decades till we see skycars constantly zooming overhead.
No one more than me want's individual vertical flight. I have several designs of
my own. I'm just a little leary of having Mr. Public en masse running around in
the skys. I am aware, however, of the virtual highways in the sky and gps
guidence, etc. But what happens when a satelite gets taken out by a micro meteor
or a missing bolt left behind from another satelite or maybe a solar flare?
Oops!
> I have read that Dr. Moller is going to do serious flight trials this year.
> I look forward to hearing how they go. When Nasa, the military and the FBI,
> etc, start using moller skycars I will know that it is just a matter of time
> till the public gets them.
I can't wait to see the results of his tests. I guess at bottom I am just
skeptical of Mollers design more than I am of the concept of flying cars. It's
been a pet dream of my own since childhood when I used to try in a stiff wind to
land my Piper J3 Cub nearly vertically tiptoeing near the edge of stall speed.
Whew! The things I've done! ;)
> Like with cryonics, despite any bad news I am an optimist and want to try
> the technology out when it is the right time for me and the kinks have been
> worked out. And just think, with our skycars it won't be such a big deal
> going to an extro! As long as you're an American citizen, of course(yes,
> Charlie Stross! lol).
I too will stay optimistic, cautiously optimistic. ;)
James
-- "Quod de futuris non est determinata omnino veritas" NOSTRADAMUS 15TH Century
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