In the "Movies" thread, white out mentioned Back to the Future 2 which was an awesome movie because it had flying cars and a hoverboard. I really liked that movie as a kid. Anyway, I think that movie inspired a dream of designing or owning a flying car someday. I think there's a few of you here who are interested in planes and cars, so this seems like a good audience.

So what do you think of the Skycar, Paul Moller's design for a flying car? www.moller.com

I think it's great and would love to have gotten involved earlier on. I contacted him for a job in college, but at the time he didn't have any paid positions and I couldn't afford to fly out to California to work for free. If I was single, I would probably go there now. I've always thought that if I could have worked for Henry Ford, I would have. And now, Moller could turn out to be a modern day Ford.

So, do you think it'll work? Are we ever going to have flying cars? It still seems pretty far-fetched. Reading Moller's site though, you start to think it's pretty feasible, not primarily a technological issue but mainly a political issue.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frFLKURulm0&NR=1


it just might be possible

 

Is that video on any other sites? I can't get to Youtube from work (apparently too many people were swamping our bandwidth). If not, I'll check it tonight from home.

 

I'm home now and got to watch the video. That's funny, I haven't heard about mag-lev in awhile. I think there might be few complications to getting more than a few inches off the ground.... Thanks for the laugh. It's always good fun to catch a clip from a UFO convention.[8D]

 

I dont think you understand that clip. What they have done is take the conductive properties of a superlight structure with alkaloid metals (tin foil) and passed a conductive current though it. there by creating lift. Its just using a certain frequency of electricy. Not using electro-magnets to levitate or push. Its flying because of a passing current. That little experiment you saw, has completely revolutionized our world concepts of electricity and its properties.

It was first demonstrated a few years ago and sent scientists running back to there labs to see what might be

Although your right, ufo people ate that up saying look look its possible. but this is just showing sky car might be possible

 

Infrastructure would be the major issue:

- Air Traffic Control
- Vehicle Registration
- Licensing
- Legislation
- International Borders Crossing Issues
- Etc...

FWI (FUI) would be another issue, you wouldn't want a drunk pilot[8D].


JPN

 

and i would not stick my tongue on that battery lol.

 

I think I remember discussing this during some physics course in college. As I recall, the lift is actually caused by the magnetic field that is created when the "conductive current" is passed through it. Any electric current creates a magnetic field with the flux following the right hand rule (i.e. if a current was going into this page, a clockwise circular magnetic flux would be created). If you pass a current in a circle (or triangle as in the video), the flux from each of the sides joins in the center. The result is if you take a lightweight object and pass a current through it you can create lift through this magnetic field. The problem is it requires a large electrical current to lift a very lightweight object (I don't see this ever working to lift the battery required to generate any lift capability). Nonetheless, it is an interesting result.

As for JPN's comments -I agree there are a lot of political sorts of hurdles (you've named a pretty good set) and still some technological hurdles (no showstoppers though). I had never though of the Int'l Border Crossing issue, that's a good one. Moller has said that the FAA is working to create the necessary infrasture to handle air traffic control and some of the legislative requirements. We'll just have to wait and see, but I will always continue to dream...

(Oh yeah, as for the FWI, the original - and current far-term goal - is to create a fully automated capability where the passengers don't actually pilot the craft. I think that's causing them a lot of trouble in the legislative arena though.)

 

I could imagine the uber-rich buying into something like this. It's just another *toy* in the collection. I actually believe that is Moller's target audience (He only needs to fool a few to pay for his research). I don't see it ever catching on mainstream. The cost would be prohibitive. Not to mention the cost of insuring something like that. Can you imagine the liability and the amount of coverage you would need? This is simply every boy's dream and one boy that grew up to build it - nothing more. I saw a program where the skycar was featured. Apparently, the skycar is several years in the making, like since 2000 in its current state. Moller stated in an interview that he believed that within 5 years about 10% of the population would be able to own one. And within 10 years about 70% would own one. (Something like that, if I got the numbers wrong, oh well).

 

The rubber industry (Goodyear, Michelin, Firestone, Toyo, . . .) would never let it be built. Nobody to sell tires to.

 

Not to worry, some Skycars would have to come with landing gears with rubber tyres, like airplanes do. That'll make those cars both road & airworthy.


JPN

 

yup yup, flux capacitors here we come.