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View Poll Results: Are flying cars a good idea? | |||
Yes | 8 | 22.86% | |
No | 20 | 57.14% | |
I don't know | 7 | 20.00% | |
Voters: 35. You may not vote on this poll |
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01-10-2009, 04:23 AM | #21 |
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Re: Flying cars
with the knowledge that we've gained from studying insects we are working on computer systems that will eliminate crashes completely so i dont see how that technology cant be applied to flying cars
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01-12-2009, 03:54 AM | #22 |
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Re: Flying cars
In response to the rather large, well-educated post from Cavernio, imagination is nice. Reality is not.
Also, to who_cares973, where is that related to? Because if that is related to air traffic crashes, then that is a lot easier then millions of hovering/flying cars throughout North America. It's hard enough to keep up airways for airplanes. If your system you are referring to is for cars, I think it is impossible to avoid crashes all together, and in some cases, you should probably crash into something instead of dodge and damage your car further by the outcome, may it be a ditch or otherwise. I personally think that cars should NEVER have a crash avoidance system like that, except for warning beeps or something along those lines, as computers should NEVER replace our reflexes. Because what the computer may seem to think is right, is quite possibly wrong in real life situations. This being said, computers would have to have artificial intelligence of that of an advanced robot that is capable of mapping, controlling the vehicle, and determining the outcome of it's choices, as well as the consequences. The G-forces, the type of passengers, babies, children cannot be calculated with a computer. Imagine this also when taking electronic navigation and crash avoidance into flying cars, where it must also determine airways vertically as well as paths horizontally. Therefore, manual drive would be the best, with navigation guidance systems, however then you have human error with even this type of transportation. All in all, I really do not think flying cars would be efficient. In theory it would work without a doubt, in practice is another story. Last edited by TD_Project; 01-12-2009 at 04:02 AM.. |
01-12-2009, 10:50 AM | #23 |
smoke wheat hail satin
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Age: 36
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Re: Flying cars
Here is an interesting, and pertinent link:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479167,00.html I smiled openly at the concept. I like it, and would like to see further development. |
01-12-2009, 02:44 PM | #24 |
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Re: Flying cars
flying cars are a cool idea, but not necessarily a good one. everyone can see how much trouble we have on the roads today. it would be even worse in the air. how do you make traffic lanes and roadsigns? what if a flying car malfuctions? it could crash on the people below. and there is air traffic to worry about as well. i would love to see a flying (hovering) car one day, but not on a widespread scale. its just too impractical and dangerous.
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01-12-2009, 05:06 PM | #25 |
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Re: Flying cars
Certain things are just out of the question...
as for that FOX News link... The wing span needs to be fixed... and we will need to build a new system for places of take-off. It'll take too much work for something impractical. |
01-12-2009, 05:14 PM | #26 | |
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Re: Flying cars
Quote:
right now they are working on applying it to cars i dont know about airplanes though
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01-12-2009, 05:16 PM | #27 |
smoke wheat hail satin
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Re: Flying cars
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01-12-2009, 05:19 PM | #28 |
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Re: Flying cars
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01-12-2009, 08:05 PM | #29 | |
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Re: Flying cars
Quote:
As for the idea of getting the cars to have the standardized layer system it would be fairly simple depending on which method you use for keeping the car off the ground. Which brings me to my next point. Currently i can only think of two conceivable ways to pseudo-practically get the cars off the ground. Magnetism or thrust propulsion. If you use magnets then you could just adjust the strength of a magnet in the car such as an electric magnet that regulates the intensity of the push. However this leads to the problem of the other magnet. Unless you found a way to use the sheer gravity or metals of the earth (which would mean the magnetism would be different in different locations) then you would have to make huge magnet strips along, lets just say, the roads we have now. Obviously everyone can see why having giant magnets on our streets next to buildings and such would be a problem. This leads to the second idea, propulsion. Current hovercraft vehicles use air and a curtain or dress type thing to keep the air pushing in the correct direction. If we somehow found a way to increase these intensities hundred-fold as to get a heavy car high off the ground then that would mean we have a massive amount of a steady stream of air pushing downward which would make the layer system impossible (for the air would be pushing down on cars beneath causing a change in altitude). The third way would be of course to use what aircraft today use which would take too much takeoff distance and landing distance. However if a 4th way were developed then it might be possible. Such an idea would have to approach the realm of being able to repel the air molecules directly beneath the car or use them in such a way that we could drive on it as if air was a solid matter. Other than that and a silly "stuff a bunch of lighter-than-air materials inside the car" i cant think of another way to accomplish it. As far as no fly zones go you could easily just have the hovering (or just really tall) traffic signs with whatever technology you used on the cars and simply just use the road system we have now with a few alterations. Flying over buildings though would have to grant a manual control to deviate from the "air highway" which could be as disastrous as a car going off the road and running into a building. P.S.- You wouldnt need emergency vehicles that could fly if all the commercial vehicles were already flying. First off if there was an accident it would all crash to the ground anyway. Second, if the roads are clear then the emergency vehicles could just use the ground roads. Lastly, even if the emergency was in the air its not like we would be able to just take a step outside to the side of the "air highway" because last time i checked gravity still applies. Edit: You would also have to find a way to compensate for the increased gusts at higher altitudes that could throw a car off course. |
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01-12-2009, 08:14 PM | #30 | |
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Re: Flying cars
Wouldn't those be where the paragraphs are? It makes it easier to read when they are separated, in my opinion. |
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01-13-2009, 01:53 AM | #31 |
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Re: Flying cars
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01-13-2009, 07:29 AM | #32 | ||
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Re: Flying cars
Quote:
Quote:
As to actually having a car be able to fly so smoothly, I have no idea how one could do that. The best that I can think of currently would be to have it take off and land similarly to a helicopter (or hovercar), and then maybe switch to using wings. But we still don't have the amount of precise control over airplanes that we'd need in order to maintain altitude so precisely with wings, because as pointed out, wind exists. Current airplanes take into consideration such consistent wind patterns like the jetstream (I, uh, think), but that type of consistency only happens very high in the atmosphere anyways I think. I suppose we could just use helicopters for everything, but the control I think is still not exactly there. Plus, although I'm making an educated guess here, I don't think helicopters are very environmentally friendly. They're certainly very noisy at the very least...imagine 50 helicopters flying over your house at once. Yikes. What would really suck would be looking up at the sky and always seeing cars. I guess my point was that it doesn't have to be incredibly and impossibly complicated to make an air-road system. But, of course, what I thought up is all moot because we don't have the technology available that would work with it. Last edited by devonin; 01-13-2009 at 11:50 AM.. |
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01-19-2009, 01:10 PM | #33 |
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Re: Flying cars
I believe that flying cars would be a good idea if they are solar powered because they would be eco-friendly and it would slow down the effects of global warming.
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01-19-2009, 01:33 PM | #34 |
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Re: Flying cars
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01-19-2009, 05:26 PM | #35 |
Very Grave Indeed
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Re: Flying cars
The thread was trying to look more at the ramifications of flying vehicles in terms of safety, efficiency, etc. I'd suspect that a flying car would be about as eco-friendly as a normal car and a light aircraft. Obviously any kind of alternate eco-friendly fuel source would be more eco-friendly no matter what vehicle it was powering. Good point, just kinda missing the general thrust of the thread.
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