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from the maybe-he-is-just-up-in-the-air-about-them dept.
One flying car seems absurd; Larry Page has three.
He started with Cora, a two-seater flying taxi, then added a sporty flying boat called Flyer, both developed by a company called Kitty Hawk. And last week, The Verge discovered a third: Opener, which just came out of stealth mode. There was no mention of the Google co-founder in the startup’s announcement, but when confronted with evidence of Page’s involvement, Opener quickly issued a press release admitting it.
Flying cars (more formally known as eVTOLs — for electric vertical takeoff and landing) are the electric scooters of aviation. Everyone from Uber to Airbus is working to build the lightweight aircraft and the aerial networks they will require, to say nothing of a host of well-funded startups, including Joby in the US, Volocopter in Germany, and China’s EHang.
Just last week the airline companies got upset at how disruptive SpaceX and Blue Origin are to their flight plans.
(Score: 3, Informative) by EvilSS on Friday July 20 2018, @02:42PM (1 child)
B) NASA not the Navy (USN turned it over to the Ames research center years and years ago)
C) NASA allows other companies to lease the field and hangers as well.
D) Google is paying millions of dollars to NASA for the lease
E) Google also carries scientific instruments for NASA on their private jets for research
They wanted to make it a public airfield but residents got up in arms over possible UPS/Fedex flights.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Friday July 20 2018, @02:44PM