Flying cars

[who_cares973]

Originally Posted by Bolth mannn

bad idea, to put it simply, flying car accidents will always be fatal.

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

[TD_Project]

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.

[foilman8805]

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.

[coraleaterlinda]

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.

[~kitty~]

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.

[who_cares973]

Originally Posted by TD_Project

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.

right now they are working on applying it to cars i dont know about airplanes though

[foilman8805]

Originally Posted by ~kitty~

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.

The wing span needs to be fixed? What are you talking about? It already flies.

[~kitty~]

Originally Posted by foilman8805

The wing span needs to be fixed? What are you talking about? It already flies.

Wing span is too large to drive on roads... if it can go down, it still poses a problem if it juts out.

[slipstrike0159]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

I think that the people who are against flying cars are not using their imagination enough when thinking about what may be possible. I'm not going to be talking about current hovercars or personal airplanes or helicopters. These aren't used today for obvious reasons. I've treated the question as hypothetical, and I'm imagining doc's car from Back to the Future.
If we could find a way to make fairly quiet, not incredibly polluting flying cars, it would be awesome. The biggest improvement would be the elimination of highways. They're expensive to build, upkeep, keep clean, and they take up a lot of room. By comparison, developing a MAP which requires no maintenance would be great. It actually wouldn't be that bad to make a map either. Here's one possibility:

Altitude could be divided into layers. The bottom one could be for the slowest traffic, middle one for mid-speed, etc. Each layer (however many we'd want) would then be divided into sub-layers for different directions. Since we're restricted by roads, there could be, oh, say, 20 (just for example, it'd need to be looked at much more closely, obviously) different sub-layers, or horizontal directions one can take in any layer. The trickiest part would be changing layers or sub-layers, but it'd still be doable. For sub-layers, if the sub-layers were layered in order, (so have 0 degrees on the bottom, then 18 degrees above, then 32 degrees, etc.), you'd simply put enough vertical distance between each of the sub-layers to change direction, to be able to make an easy turn while changing altitude. For moving between layers, you'd have to leave a little more room so one could easily slow down or speed up safely, and put the layers so that when you transfer layers, you stay facing the same horizontal direction.
If you were looking on this from the top-down, you'd see layers of traffic all moving the same direction, with the slower traffic on the bottom, and the faster traffic on top. My only concern would be that depending on how many directions you'd want defined, and how many different speeds defined, it might become very high in terms of altitude.
The cars would obviously have built-in altitude detectors, and would ideally also be able to drive themselves once you've determined the speed you want to go at and the place you want to go. You'd probably still want to land and take off manually though, and be able to manually control the car just in case. The lowest heights would basically be a slow 'free for all', kind of like a parking lot. You'd also have to either make the layers start at an altitude higher than the tallest building, or have specific 'no fly' zones in areas with tall buildings. I like the 'no fly' zone idea better, but in large cities with tall buildings where traffic's heaviest, the type of flying I've suggested wouldn't seem to work well.
Regular aircraft would probably still be used with this system though, because the further away you want to go, the less likely you can be to fly from point A to point B, because there's only so many directions you could go. You would have to make sure cars can't fly near airports then. Also, airplanes are designed to withstand the changes in pressure you get at high altitudes. Regular flying cars probably wouldn't be.

I suppose if this map were to get too high, you could take out the speed layers and instead have speed lanes, just like we do now. They'd be repeating lanes though, so maybe have 10 lanes or something, then a space, then another 10 lanes. This would also give room for emergency vehicles, as they could have their own lane.

If we are throwing sheer impossibilities out of the picture then imagination would bring a good concept to life. To address some points though you would have to bring in some practicality. First off, the zone idea would be good but the problem with having too many lanes going upwards is the inefficiency of shifting between layers. Lets say you are at the top layer but you find out that you are at your destination so you have to get to the bottom. Getting from the top to the bottom would take so much time it wouldnt decrease the time it takes to get around in normal cars. So either less lanes would have to be employed or a FLAWLESS system would have to be developed for quickly ascending and descending.
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.

[~kitty~]

Originally Posted by slipstrike0159

If we are throwing sheer impossibilities out of the picture then imagination would bring a good concept to life. To address some points though you would have to bring in some practicality. First off, the zone idea would be good but the problem with having too many lanes going upwards is the inefficiency of shifting between layers. Lets say you are at the top layer but you find out that you are at your destination so you have to get to the bottom. Getting from the top to the bottom would take so much time it wouldnt decrease the time it takes to get around in normal cars. So either less lanes would have to be employed or a FLAWLESS system would have to be developed for quickly ascending and descending.
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.

Wouldn't those be where the paragraphs are? It makes it easier to read when they are separated, in my opinion.

[TD_Project]

Originally Posted by who_cares973

right now they are working on applying it to cars i dont know about airplanes though

Just seems impossible, but science has proved me wrong before. As you have proved me wrong before as well. :P We will just have to see.

[Cavernio]

"Getting from the top to the bottom would take so much time it wouldnt decrease the time it takes to get around in normal cars."

Only if you're trying to go a short distance and decide to go into the fastest area, which you wouldn't. Most people don't drive on the highway to go 10 blocks away. You could also still have regular roads (or the places they currently occupy) for local traffic, and you would still get a huge benefit from having those cars flying instead of on the road. Again, you'd have different altitudes for different directions, and you'd avoid most of the grid-lock, the thing which causes traffic jams in the first place.

"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."

I realized that not only are tall buildings going to be a problem, but mountains too. (Well, depending on how altitude is measured...if it's measured from the ground which is ever changing, they might not be.) Instead of having people necessarily manually drive around these areas, which I don't think would work well when the system would be so carefully layered, you'd have maps of the highways for, well, pretty much everywhere. Since this car is already so amazing as to detect altitude very precisely (if it weren't precise, this wouldn't be plausible), you'd simply download the map for the region, and let the car follow the path. The maps would simply be designed so that the traffic would flow around the obstacle smoothly. Upper layers and sideways along the same layer need not be affected.

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.

[AquaTeen]

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.

[~kitty~]

Originally Posted by AquaTeen

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.

AquaTeen... you're oversimplifying the idea of Flying cars.

[devonin]

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.