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Japan is making a push to develop flying cars, enlisting companies including Uber Technologies Inc. and Boeing Co. in a government-led group to bring airborne vehicles to the country in the next decade.
The group will initially comprise 21 businesses and organizations, including Airbus SE, NEC Corp., a Toyota Motor Corp.-backed startup called Cartivator, ANA Holdings Inc., Japan Airlines Co., and Yamato Holdings Co., according to a statement Friday from the trade ministry in Tokyo. Delegates will gather Aug. 29 to help chart a road map this year, it said.
"The Japanese government will provide appropriate support to help realize the concept of flying cars, such as creation of acceptable rules," the ministry said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @07:58PM (1 child)
Unless these aircraft can auto-rotate, glide, or parachute to the ground, I'll avoid
(Score: 2) by SparkyGSX on Monday August 27 2018, @09:53PM
Multirotor craft require low-inertia rotors, usually with a fixed pitch, so autorotation isn't going to be possible. Even if they would use adjustable pitch rotors (which kind of defeats the concept of a multirotor craft), it would still have to be electronically controlled.
Outside military aircraft, very few if any people-carrying craft flies purely electrically without any mechanical or hydraulic manual backups, and all require skilled and educated pilots to control the aircraft manually if things go wrong.
Autorotation, gliding and parachuting all require sufficient altitude, airspeed, or both. When taking off inside a crowded city, you'll have neither. Also, none of those will do you any good if you have nowhere to land, and they will give you limited control to avoid hitting buildings.
Small rotorcraft (especially multirotors) are incredibly noisy. That might be a bit of an issue in cities.
My prediction is that some more politicians and other people "unhindered by actual knowledge" will go with the hype, some designs will be rushed, airworthiness certification will be forced by said politicians, some craft will fly, some people will die, and that will be the end of it for the next fifty years
If you do what you did, you'll get what you got