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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: 2) by legont on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:10AM (2 children)
Two reasons. First, that multi engine vertical design is inherently unsafe especially for engine failures. That's why military almost have none of them.
The second reason is that actual mechanics of flight is less than 10% of training. A teenager can be taught to fly a regular aircraft in two hours. Most of them take off on the first attempt and land successfully during the second lesson. Many people fly ultralight without any training whatsoever for many years.
However, left at that, in real life flying this teenager will be dead by his 5-10th hour. There are way more tricks than simple flying in a pilot's skill set. Some of them are not obvious, such as a pilot have to have a certain character that most people don't have before the training.
I know that those Google folks are betting on AI's for that. Well, if they succeed, it will be AI flying stoned morons to the nearest bar. But I don't hold my breath.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday July 21 2018, @01:14AM
Forgot to mention - a perfect example of such a moron with this approach to flying https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_Jr._plane_crash [wikipedia.org]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 23 2018, @08:19AM
I made the Moller comment in jest.
The Skycar has been a running joke for decades--basically a way for the inventor to make a living off investors while delivering little. Hmm, come to think of it, put that man in charge of a software startup!