I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there's basically no chance that flying cars become a meaning part of life in America in my lifetime (I just turned 40).
Reminds me of how Popular Mechanics use to alternate between Flying Cars and return of the Blimps issues.
Scott is a sport pilot enthusiast and approached the evaluation from that perspective. I don't think there are many pilots, myself included, that believe we are on the verge of flying cars for mass transportation. They are expensive to purchase, maintain and impractical for many reasons.
I agree. In the US I have seen simple regional public transportation projects take decades and they are still not complete. A single on/off ramp (literally a quarter mile of road) will take 5 years.
There is just no way a public flying car infrastructure can be built in the US in the next 30-50 years you are alive.
Super late to this but I'd take bipedal bots. That's not to say I'm particularly bullish on that idea though. Seems like it might be simpler to build purpose built robots for specific tasks. They'd probably be faster.
I agree with you, but keep in mind that's probably what 40-year-olds in 1903 said about planes after hearing about the Wright brothers. Sometimes things do actually change.
If we assume this means "in the next 50 years", they wouldn't be totally wrong. You could make the case airplanes were only on the cusp of being "a meaning[ful] part of life in America" by 1953 – planes only overtook trains for domestic US travel in 1955, and 1957 for trans-Atlantic.
Imagine a simple scenario. Take your $260,000 Helix to the grocery store to pickup groceries. While you are in the store a mother fighting with her kids accidentally damages your Helix backing up the car. Are you going to hop into that thing even with what might be considered minor damage? Probably not because you would not know how to evaluate whether it is safe.
A car. You'd just hop in to determine if it is drivable.
Not just after an incident, but what sort of maintenance requirements and burden will there be now? Can there be an equivalent to the beater for flying cars?
I think this is a case where I simply don't know enough, but couldn't auto-pilot be a lot easier and safer when adding a new axis? A lot fewer things to run into in the air, and if you could just rise or fall a couple dozen feet to avoid an collision seems safer.
The big limitation of autopilots is that they can't handle emergencies. By their nature emergencies are unpredictable so programmers can't reliably code for emergency situation handling in advance. An experienced human pilot at least has a chance to figure out a solution by reasoning from first principles and reacting intuitively to novel situations. These new eVTOL aircraft have a certain amount of redundancy built in but realistically if anything goes seriously wrong they're just going to spin and crash (or maybe pop a recovery parachute if so equipped and within the flight envelope for those to work).
Autopilots also can't handle VHF voice comms (with a very narrow exception for the Garmin Autonomí system in certain situations) or perform "see and avoid" traffic management in VFR.
Not sure about the autopilot part (even planes autopilots follow a flight path). I'm not an expert either, but with roads, there are clear lanes and markings. And ability to generally see around you, and judge distance.
Is what sets the lanes in the air are traffic controllers and flight plans? We're already short on traffic controllers. And there are already lots of near-misses (and not near-misses) even with the heavy regulation and control. Can't imagine having it as mass personal transit driven manually. There'd need to be a mass central system that controls everything, and in that case, might as well just keep it commercial
The energy efficiency isn't great either on personal aircraft
If it's autopilot you could probably also channel the vehicles to specific routes such that they maintain a road like set of channels where they're flying so the rest of us can not worry about random flying cars zooming around our yards and playgrounds.
We already do this with planes which have corridors they fly along.
Not that one. There's zero usable payload, extremely limited range, VFR only, and it's only "legal" is as a Part 103 (ultralight) exception.
This is, essentially, an aviation hobby toy and not remotely practical for anyone even doing a short-hop urban commute as they would be banned in dense urban (class B,C, and D) airspace too.
So basically its legitimacy and novelty is based on a loop hole? Nonetheless a cool hobby project, and usually will rally people behind this concept and we might see some excitment there.
It's not a loop hole: this was an intentional move by Congress and the FAA. Ultralights have been a legal category for decades. The operating limits in terms of altitude, speed, weight, and airspace are strict enough that when one crashes it usually only kills the (expendable) pilot and there is minimal risk to innocent bystanders.
The Pivotal BlackFly and similar aircraft are merely toys for wealthy thrill-seekers. Which is fine and could make for a viable niche industry. There is no viable path yet for "flying cars" to see widespread transportation use.
The aircraft looked sleek in Scott Manley’s video, but knowing it has only 20 mile range with the top speed of 60 mph makes it a little more than a toy.
60 really isn't a problem at all. I will drive a 1,000 miles going 60, if I can do it in a straight line, it would still save a large amount of time. The problem is absolutely that 20mph range. Not useful at all.
Part 103 vehicles can't be operated over congested areas. FAA considers anything more than sparsely populated as congested. A single church in the middle of nowhere might be sparsely populated.
I'm not even sure you can take off or land in your own neighborhood. Is a neighborhood a settlement? shrug
Also, no operations in common types of airspace: no bravo, charlie, or delta (or class e surface area). This may not be difficult seeing as they tend to exist over congested areas which must be avoided anyway.
Part 103 ultralights are vehicles, not aircraft, therefore not general aviation. Therefore, I'm not sure who will insure these operations. It may be the realm of self-insured.
Does 'flying car' have its own FAA designation? My assumption is that it would fall under the already existing aircraft types and require the same license to operate.
Readit News
Scott is a sport pilot enthusiast and approached the evaluation from that perspective. I don't think there are many pilots, myself included, that believe we are on the verge of flying cars for mass transportation. They are expensive to purchase, maintain and impractical for many reasons.
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There is just no way a public flying car infrastructure can be built in the US in the next 30-50 years you are alive.
https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/commercial-aviati...
Dead Comment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncRFPd69rg
A car. You'd just hop in to determine if it is drivable.
Autopilots also can't handle VHF voice comms (with a very narrow exception for the Garmin Autonomí system in certain situations) or perform "see and avoid" traffic management in VFR.
Is what sets the lanes in the air are traffic controllers and flight plans? We're already short on traffic controllers. And there are already lots of near-misses (and not near-misses) even with the heavy regulation and control. Can't imagine having it as mass personal transit driven manually. There'd need to be a mass central system that controls everything, and in that case, might as well just keep it commercial
The energy efficiency isn't great either on personal aircraft
not an expert, just shooting the crap
[0] https://www.ehang.com/
We already do this with planes which have corridors they fly along.
This is, essentially, an aviation hobby toy and not remotely practical for anyone even doing a short-hop urban commute as they would be banned in dense urban (class B,C, and D) airspace too.
The Pivotal BlackFly and similar aircraft are merely toys for wealthy thrill-seekers. Which is fine and could make for a viable niche industry. There is no viable path yet for "flying cars" to see widespread transportation use.
I'm not even sure you can take off or land in your own neighborhood. Is a neighborhood a settlement? shrug
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-103.15
See Simmons (2010 legal interpretation from the FAA chief legal counsel. https://drs.faa.gov/browse/excelExternalWindow/FAA000000000L...
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Also, no operations in common types of airspace: no bravo, charlie, or delta (or class e surface area). This may not be difficult seeing as they tend to exist over congested areas which must be avoided anyway.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-103.17
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Part 103 ultralights are vehicles, not aircraft, therefore not general aviation. Therefore, I'm not sure who will insure these operations. It may be the realm of self-insured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncRFPd69rg?t=1110