A nice, comprehensive summary of flying cars and electric planes.
What I want :
- To be able to get across any mid-sized city, to and from any points (within reason) of my choosing in 5 minutes or less.
- To be able to get from any city to any other city on the same continent in a reasonable time, and at price significantly less than current options. And this with spending no more than 10 minutes in airport queues for check in, immigration control and security.
Either of those would do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/disruptors_up_up_and_away
I've been working on a flying car, but I don't know where to get the motors suitable for it. I'm not experienced with building things, so my design is much simpler than Volocopter. Just two plywood wings and a couple fabric pockets for the pilot and (optional) passenger. And a pipe to bend the wings into a strong lozenge profile.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the key is to combine drone-like vertical takeoff and landing with airplane-like horizontal flight for long range. To minimize complexity, this is done by "tail sitting" - the entire vehicle tilts to transition from VTOL to horizontal flight.
But traditional tail sitting airplanes have had a lot of difficulties. They're tall and unwieldy. So, instead of a traditional airplane shape, I think a simple flying loop wing is the way to go. A loop is a good place to mount drone props, and this loop can be flattened into an oval for a better wingspan (and also making the vehicle fit nicely in a car parking space).
The ability to fit in a car parking space means that such a vehicle is suitable for direct commuting and travel.
Even with efficient horizontal flight, it probably won't have true cross country range. You'd need to stop to recharge periodically.
5 minutes or less might be difficult.
ReplyDelete