The flying cars : a pointless concept?
One day, we might drive flying cars. In the past, you travelled in a airship, a hybrid thing between the ships and the planes.
Sir James May asked me why I want to drive if a car can fly? It's a good question. I try to explain why these hypothetical cars would be a great idea. Moreover, what are the basic and legal questions about the flying cars. In our world, the technology create a lot of things. I've already studied the solar or autonomous ships, the equivalents of the solar and autonomous cars.
What are the common things between fly a plane, sail a boat or drive a car? These types of transportation are composed to wheels/propellers and motors. You use common fuels like petrol, electricity or hydrogen. Build a flying car seems to be easy for engineers in theory. In real life, it's more difficult to do it but the idea is concrete as Mr May showed us in his TV show, James May's Big Ideas, flying an aerocar in 2008.
The flying cars exist in movies. Do you remember when Harry Potter and Ron Weasley travelled in the sky to go to Hogwart? The little Ford Anglia 105E became one of the characters in the movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). Mr. Weasley bewithched that car giving it the possibility to be invisible. Before, there was another legendary flying car. The Citroen DS was an amazing car in real life. She was modified to become a crazy car in the saga, Fantômas (1964-1967), a French parody of James Bond. Fantômas, a revolutionary businessman, escape in his flying Citroen DS at the end of the second opus(1965). At that time, the flying cars were the product of the science fiction though it's not a foolish idea. Can we consider the flying cars like an real and technological opportunity?
We develop our technology to improve to our lives. The flying cars should be a solution to avoid a busy terrestrial traffic jam. You can argue me the air traffic is busy. Today, gigantic planes are designed by Airbus and Boeing to reduce the traffic. The new A380, one of the modern planes, have two decks and carry over 1000 passengers in a luxury confort. We'd create new seaplanes too. The flyingboats and the floatplanes are differents. They're still amphibious vehicles and was used generally during the WW1. Now, nobody think seaplanes could be a modern way of transportation. The flying car might have the same role in the future.
I studied the legal status of the hovercrafts and the airboats at University. So what's a flying car? A plane, a car or both? Do you drive a car or do you fly a plane? It depends on the elements we choose to define a car and a plane. If we drive a car in the sky with equipments from a plane, it's a plane. What's the limit of the equipment about the safety of the driver and the passengers? You have to respect the traffic rules in the air corridors as you do it on a terrestrial road. We wonder a lot of questions about the definition of the flying cars. The transportation world is complex but fascinating to understand how the cars, the ships and the planes share common technical things but have different legal status.
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Comments (15)
would love a flying car but there are so many nut's on the road crashing and running out of gas so think do you want that bunch flying over your house or school
Actually I see the convergence of autonomy and flying cars to be the near future. Flying cars have always had the issues of the untrained meat bag behind the wheel causing issues where it may crash into other planes or whatever and autonomous cars have the issue of the road is a very complex system to navigate with signs and pedestrians, roadwork and of course traffic.
If a car was managed by a human on the ground and autonomous in the air and assigned a route corridor that will keep it away from other cars and planes it would in theory be easier as it only has to follow coordinates at an altitude and only look to avoid birds and unexpected obstacles. A central system would be needed to assign those routes.
Very good article!
Thanks Louis. I was afraid someone tells me it was a bad article.
I had driving lessons in a 105E Anglebox.
I was cheering for the Whomping Willow.
I'm sure Mr. Weasley could help you to drive it!
I'd think one of them designed the gear box in it as a wizard wheeze
For me it makes no sense because you either need a runway to land and take off or the land vertically like a helicopter. For the former it will likely mean more driving than you would have to in the first place to your local runway and if it works like a helicopter than why drive on the road at all?