I am not so sure I can call that a flying car. Maybe a personal aircraft, which is great, but not a flying car.
To me, a flying car would be one that I can drive on the road, park in a normal parking spot, and, if I am stuck in traffic, I can convert to flight mode and lift straight up and fly pass traffic.
gredr on
Get ready, they’re here. All you need is… a giant bank account and a pilot’s license. NBD, I’m sure they’ll add that to drivers’ education in your local high school.
The reason we don’t have flying cars was *never* that we couldn’t build such a thing, it was *always* that owning and operating such a thing was beyond pretty much *everyone’s* abilities.
wsj on
>Welcome, and congratulations. You’ve lived long enough to see the age of flying cars—privately owned, solo-piloted aircraft, free to operate in unrestricted airspace, much as automobiles can take to the open road. And they’re all electric. I knew you’d be thrilled.
>Here in the future, we call them ultralight eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles). Of course, they don’t much resemble the levitating Studebakers and auto-gyrating Chevys foretold in pulp science fiction. The Pivotal BlackFly—the first series-produced ultralight eVTOL to reach the consumer market (2023)—doesn’t even have wheels. It takes off and lands on its curved keel. It’s also amphibious, behavior highly atypical in cars.
(tl;dr: Driving this flying car is easy. But, Dan wonders, is an eVTOL that just about any idiot can fly necessarily a good thing?).
Jaib4 on
1
Is it self driving (flying)
2
Is it going to be a kind of taxi service
Because those 2 things are the only way I see this working
Electrical_Mission43 on
Be prepared for piss bottles falling from the sky from car windows, be prepare to hear news reports about children and pets tumbling to their deaths from playing car doors. Prepare for drunk divers avoiding street barriers and slamming directly into homes.
Don’t me started about criminals and terrorists.
5 Comments
I am not so sure I can call that a flying car. Maybe a personal aircraft, which is great, but not a flying car.
To me, a flying car would be one that I can drive on the road, park in a normal parking spot, and, if I am stuck in traffic, I can convert to flight mode and lift straight up and fly pass traffic.
Get ready, they’re here. All you need is… a giant bank account and a pilot’s license. NBD, I’m sure they’ll add that to drivers’ education in your local high school.
The reason we don’t have flying cars was *never* that we couldn’t build such a thing, it was *always* that owning and operating such a thing was beyond pretty much *everyone’s* abilities.
>Welcome, and congratulations. You’ve lived long enough to see the age of flying cars—privately owned, solo-piloted aircraft, free to operate in unrestricted airspace, much as automobiles can take to the open road. And they’re all electric. I knew you’d be thrilled.
>Here in the future, we call them ultralight eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles). Of course, they don’t much resemble the levitating Studebakers and auto-gyrating Chevys foretold in pulp science fiction. The Pivotal BlackFly—the first series-produced ultralight eVTOL to reach the consumer market (2023)—doesn’t even have wheels. It takes off and lands on its curved keel. It’s also amphibious, behavior highly atypical in cars.
Our cars columnist Dan Neil took the Pivotal BlackFly for a ride. His review here (Free link):
[https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/cars/i-test-drove-a-flying-car-get-ready-theyre-here-257b0ecf?st=VCdgpH&mod=wsjreddit](https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/cars/i-test-drove-a-flying-car-get-ready-theyre-here-257b0ecf?st=VCdgpH&mod=wsjreddit)
(tl;dr: Driving this flying car is easy. But, Dan wonders, is an eVTOL that just about any idiot can fly necessarily a good thing?).
1
Is it self driving (flying)
2
Is it going to be a kind of taxi service
Because those 2 things are the only way I see this working
Be prepared for piss bottles falling from the sky from car windows, be prepare to hear news reports about children and pets tumbling to their deaths from playing car doors. Prepare for drunk divers avoiding street barriers and slamming directly into homes.
Don’t me started about criminals and terrorists.