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| Dimension |
 Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 1:13 pm Post subject: Flying cars.... |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 83
Location: Canada
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Has anyone else seen this
www.moller.com
Supposedly by the end of 2008 they will have flying cars on the market.
If you have $995,000 that is(only for the first 20 of them). |
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| Wolf |
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Lycanthrope
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1014
Location: Here
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Yeah, the Moller flying thingamagig has been known of for a while. At least five years, if not more.
Last time I checked in, they were still having problems with range, capacity, noise, and the big issue: where do you land the thing.
Be that as it may, I wouldn't consider this a "flying car." In my opinion it's merely an airplane in a different configuration. Same principles. I can buy a private helicopter now for less than that, and do pretty much the same things.
Not that I want to balk the project...but paint a pig purple...it's still a pig.
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Wolf
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"Be fair with others, but then keep after them until they're fair with you." Alan Alda |
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| Dimension |
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 83
Location: Canada
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haha
That's a good aphorism.
And as for landing it's got VTOL now. And by the specs on the site they've got a fairly good range and what not. I think it said at cruising speed it produces about 65 decibles. I'm not big into the science of sound waves though so I'm not entirely sure how loud that would be. |
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| Wolf |
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Lycanthrope
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1014
Location: Here
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| Dimension wrote: |
haha
That's a good aphorism.
And as for landing it's got VTOL now. And by the specs on the site they've got a fairly good range and what not. I think it said at cruising speed it produces about 65 decibles. I'm not big into the science of sound waves though so I'm not entirely sure how loud that would be. |
65 decibels? That's much too quiet. It must be a quote of the in-cabin noise, not external vehicle noise. Otherwise you'd be able to have a conversation while standing next to this thing, without raising your voice.
As for VTOL, I'm aware of that, but it still doesn't answer where it's gonna take off and land from. Okay, so maybe after buying a million dollar airplane I'd have built my own hanger and landing pad at my house...but that still doesn't explain how I use it for anything except airport jumping, and the possible city high-rise helicopter pad. Try to land that thing at the mall, or at a restaurant, or at the average office.
Not to mention that I'd bet the airway traffic commission hasn't penned in new laws governing flying cars, so you'd probably have to keep to defined airways. That would mean you can't fly or land it anywhere even a normal helicopter could fly or land.
I'm not trying to be pessimistic. I'm just pointing out there's got to be a lot of work before even a fully-functioning Moller...airplane...fulfills the idea of a flying car.  
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Wolf
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"Be fair with others, but then keep after them until they're fair with you." Alan Alda |
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| Dimension |
| Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Posts: 83
Location: Canada
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Point taken
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| dejawolf |
| Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:59 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Ph.D.
Joined: 31 Dec 2006
Posts: 668
Location: Norway
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oh i remember seeing pictures of this way back when... around 1997 i think.
michael jackson had ordered one it wrote.
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only a fool puts art above science. |
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| Wolf |
| Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Lycanthrope
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1014
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| dejawolf wrote: |
michael jackson had ordered one it wrote. |
If you put sparkles on it and said it would change the world, MJ would buy it.
You could sell MJ a nuclear warhead if you promised it dropped a care-bear on the corpses afterwards.
_________________
Wolf
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"Be fair with others, but then keep after them until they're fair with you." Alan Alda |
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| Hugundous |
| Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 6:39 am Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 31 Dec 2007
Posts: 5
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| dejawolf wrote: |
oh i remember seeing pictures of this way back when... around 1997 i think.
michael jackson had ordered one it wrote. |
That's the ultimate crap-detector. Anything with the Jackson seal of approval has already earned my contempt. |
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| Wolf |
| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:19 am Post subject: |
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Forum Lycanthrope
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1014
Location: Here
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Who brought this thread back from the necropolis?
Anywho, the day of the flying car will be scary. Imagine two idiots with coffee in one hand and cell in the other, having a collision above yer house/office/etc.
Not to mention the world is already tooled for ground transportation. There simply isn't the space, infrastructure, or provision, for widespread (or even pocketed) personal air transportation in the form of flying cars. Even if a miracle happened and the fully-working flying car appeared in driveways across the globe tomorrow, it would be a disaster.
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Wolf
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"Be fair with others, but then keep after them until they're fair with you." Alan Alda |
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| spirytus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Freshman
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Posts: 41
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| Quote: |
| Imagine two idiots with coffee in one hand and cell in the other, having a collision above yer house/office/etc. |
Agree, fortunetly this is a problem that can be solved; Modern avionics, and an updated airway control infrastructure...
Simply remove the human driver/pilot from the equation. This technology already exists today. Noted, it is also one of the most costly components on an aircraft.
Afortable personal aircraft (aka "flying cars"), are still a ways off, even if a new radical form of propulsion and/or lift is devised.
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| Wolf |
| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Lycanthrope
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1014
Location: Here
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I think you'll still find it's a disaster waiting to happen. Apart from malfunctions, weather, technical glitches, etc, you can't rule out the abilities of the human inside. Humans have shown a surprising ability for survival, but also a surprising ability to snuff themselves, too.
Plus you'd still have the infrastructure problem. Just because we can get a flying car up in the air, and fly it automatically to a destination, doesn't mean we can do much with it at points A and B.
It would be better, at least in this point in time, to focus on developing better systems of long-distance mass transportation. We need to find a way to get large numbers of people to and from places, without relying on a personal vehicle so much. Unfortunately, in a country like the US, there's a lot of distance and a lot of people to deal with, plus there's very little infrastructure outside of cities for mass transit. Except for buses, most towns and suburbs don't have trains, subways, canals, etc.
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Wolf
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"Be fair with others, but then keep after them until they're fair with you." Alan Alda |
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| Jellyologist |
| Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Senior
Joined: 12 Jan 2007
Posts: 330
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What is the purpose of a flying car? There are cars and there are helicopters. I'm not going to spend a half million on a flying machine and then use it to drive to Walmart anymore than I'm going to take a thousand dollar suit and use it to mop up the spilled beer on the floor.
If I want to drive to Walmart I'll buy a 15 thousand dollar car and if I want to mop up the beer, a piece of paper from a $1 roll. I'm not going to 'drive around' a half milion dollar machine...the insurance alone would buy a couple new cars. |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 2:25 am Post subject: |
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Ok so flying cars will now be thrown into the scrap bin along with space elevators, hawking radiation, and telekinesis  |
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| Shaderwolf |
| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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Forum Senior
Joined: 13 Dec 2005
Posts: 312
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada (wanna play?)
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Hawking radiation?
what was wrong with that. Maybe I'm a little outdated, but I thought that that was real. |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Not real just prof Hawking tweaking the maths.... |
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