I have to get one of these!

[Eaglezsoar]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ ... zRCM?rel=0

[Jimustanguitar]

Here's the video for anyone who was scared to click on the link.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4uSWtazRCM[/youtube]
How many years have they promised you a flying car, Eagle?


Forgive the language (not terrible, just not universally safe for work and a little crude).
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi6HsJRpnIE[/youtube]

[Eaglezsoar]

Thanks for the fix Jim.

[BenTheRighteous]

I liked the song. Very appropriate.

[Eaglezsoar]

Hopefully these will be the machines of the future if they can solve the problem of drunk drivers, inattentive drivers etc.
Imagine a crash hundreds of feet in the air and at 200 MPH.

[mhackney]

Ok, Carl HAS to get one of these so we can say "The Eagle has landed!"

[Eaglezsoar]

Ok, Carl HAS to get one of these so we can say "The Eagle has landed!"

A good one!

[Jimustanguitar]

I think we'll all be in self driving cars, maybe a fleet of them like taxis instead of owning our own, before we're flying to work. It will happen someday though!

[mhackney]

"self driving cars" - they'll have to rip the steering wheel out of my dead hands before I'll let a computer have all the fun!

[bvandiepenbos]

"self driving cars" - they'll have to rip the steering wheel out of my dead hands before I'll let a computer have all the fun!

+1

[BenTheRighteous]

Driving a car is boring as all get-out. A computer can't take over fast enough for my taste.

Motorcycles, on the other hand...

[mhackney]

My car is a classic 1983 Porsche 911SC Cabriolet, just sayin...

[Generic Default]

Aww you got me all excited for that. The video preview was low enough resolution that I couldn't see it was CG, I thought for a minute that some east Asian company actually prototyped a flying car!

Sooner or later I'll have to build one for myself. How much does a 1000 horsepower turboshaft engine go for on Ebay?

[Eric]

Hopefully these will be the machines of the future if they can solve the problem of drunk drivers, inattentive drivers etc.
Imagine a crash hundreds of feet in the air and at 200 MPH.

I'm more worried about the effects of poor maintenance and/or skipped preflight checks that will happen if such vehicles ever become mainstream. You can't get away with on a aircraft like you can on a car. I once saw the wings come off a sailplane at 3000 feet because the main spar pin wasn't safetied (the fuselage bombed in, but the wings landed in fair shape). Luckily parachutes are required in SSA competitons, so he lived to talk about the importance of preflight checklists.

[KAS]

My car is a classic 1983 Porsche 911SC Cabriolet, just sayin...

haha, Never thought I hear anyone say a car in the 80's was a classic

[mhackney]

Well, it is 32 years old. Technically an antique.

[KAS]

Well, it is 32 years old. Technically an antique.

I know, just giving you hell. Emission laws killed that hole era of what could of been the continuation of the 60-70's American muscle.

[ZakRabbit]

My car is a classic 1983 Porsche 911SC Cabriolet, just sayin...

haha, Never thought I hear anyone say a car in the 80's was a classic

'86 RX-7, daily driver... doesn't get much more classic than that, unless you count my '73 RX-2... Mhackney, does yours have the tripple choke Webers or injection?

[mhackney]

Let's see...

I have a 1970 Porsche 911S with Bosch Mechanical Fuel Injection and the 1983 Porsche 911 SC Cabriolet with CIS injection.

[ZakRabbit]

Let's see...

I have a 1970 Porsche 911S with Bosch Mechanical Fuel Injection and the 1983 Porsche 911 SC Cabriolet with CIS injection.

Back when the were Real Porsches.... when you had to know how to DRIVE to pilot one well... Always wanted to try a pre-'68.

[barry99705]

My car is a classic 1983 Porsche 911SC Cabriolet, just sayin...

haha, Never thought I hear anyone say a car in the 80's was a classic

Dude, I watched a Ford Pinto go by the other day with classic plates. It was in really good shape from what I could see. No rust or anything.

[Mac The Knife]

2011 Ford Mustang, 3.7 Liter V6, 305 hp, 31 mpg.

[Tonkabot]

I Have a few problems with that video.
300 hp charges the battery, 1 Megawatt powers the propellers and ducted fan ? do a little math 300 *750 =225000 watts. you need 1500 hp to power this for contineous(sp) flight.
so that means flight is on a battery that can put out a megawatt of power. The Tesla battery puts out something like 80kWh, so you'd be lucky to fly for 6 minutes or so before your battery was dead.
dead battery at flight altitude = dead passengers at ground level shortly after.

to really make it work you need that 1500hp turbine, which will probably get you 2 gallons per mile. Not very fuel efficient.

I wish the 'inventors' of these things could do basic math and physics. My math is rough, but it is roughly close enough.

[Tonkabot]

My car is a classic 1983 Porsche 911SC Cabriolet, just sayin...

haha, Never thought I hear anyone say a car in the 80's was a classic

Dude, I watched a Ford Pinto go by the other day with classic plates. It was in really good shape from what I could see. No rust or anything.

My chumpcar is a 93 325is, and it has classic plates. Classic plates mean I don't have to pay the taxman every fricking year for every car. Chumpcar is a 'lowcost' endurance racing class. http://www.chumpcar.com

[Generic Default]

I'm glad you noticed the math too! I wouldn't call them inventors since they made a relatively low quality animation of a flying car. Most attack helicopters have two turboshaft engines, each providing around 1500 to 2500 horsepower. They use two in case one fails or gets blown up ect.

A flying car, assuming it's unarmored and made from carbon fiber or glass fiber (instead of cannon-proof glass and sheet metal) would need a lot less power to stay in the air. For quadrotors and small RC aircraft that don't have efficient wings, you need about 1 watt of power per ounce of weight. Which is convenient for us, just multiply the weight of the flying car in pounds by 16.

Assuming similar efficiency, a 1000lb flying car would only need 16,000 watts to hover, which is surprisingly do-able. A regular hydrocarbon fueled engine and tank would be more than capable of powering a lightweight flying car for hours at a time. The power not used for downward thrust could be used for forward propulsion (assuming the car has that). At higher velocities, wings could increase the efficiency.

Does my 16,000 watt estimate seem reasonable? I got the watt-per-ounce estimate from known values of power consumption vs weight in quadrotors. It just seems like a small amount of power needed to make something fly.