Flying Cars for everyone!

Kelvin

Kelvin

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KTD
Flying cars are back in the news...again.

These folks have some level of FAA blessing....

Their website isn't long on details unless you want to pre-order or invest.

alef-car-cgi.jpg
 
Well at least this one drives on the road. A lot of these aircraft that are advertised as flying cars, are nothing more than VTOLs.
 
New (old?) stuff pops up fast - the rate of change, adoption? Not so fast. Bigger things have to happen in infrastructure, bureaucracy, culture. A network engineer, a software developer, a pilot, a doctor, a cop, a lawyer, accountant, - all wake up from a 10 year coma - they'd be back up to speed pretty quick. Leaving out the network and developers guys, maybe 20 years would work, too.
 
FORANE said:
While a flying car might sound good, the reality might not be so good; as most items designed to accomplish 2 separate tasks tend to be good at neither.
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The next time you're inching along in an interstate traffic jam wishing you were flying above it, picture what that flight would be like if all the cars surrounding you were suddenly there in the air with you and were being operated by all the same people who can't even figure out how a merge lane works.

If that thought doesn't make you terrified of flying cars then you have no imagination.
 
Sundancer said:
New (old?) stuff pops up fast - the rate of change, adoption? Not so fast. Bigger things have to happen in infrastructure, bureaucracy, culture. A network engineer, a software developer, a pilot, a doctor, a cop, a lawyer, accountant, - all wake up from a 10 year coma - they'd be back up to speed pretty quick. Leaving out the network and developers guys, maybe 20 years would work, too.
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I think the doctor (assuming you meant medical doctor) would have some catching-up to do. There's been a number of new medicines approved each year, and probably some that were obsoleted.
New FDA Drug Approvals for 2023 - Drugs.com
 
Velocity173 said:
Well at least this one drives on the road. A lot of these aircraft that are advertised as flying cars, are nothing more than VTOLs.
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"Low speed vehicle" means 20-25 miles per hour, 3000# or lower gross weight. Think golf carts, but with more regulation and in most cases can't be operated on roads with speed limits over 35 MPH. So, it's pretty much a VTOL that can taxi.
 
So aside from motorcyclist knocking off our mirrors splitting lanes in traffic now we'll have these clowns jumping the line and bending our radio antennas? What's it gonna cost to insure a quarter million dollar plastic car on the road? With flying cars it always seems to be the same - they didn't really think this thing all the way out.
 
The 1954 Taylor Aerocar is still the closest we have come to a practical flying car. I was lucky enough to see one fly into the Antique Days Event at the Ocean Reef Club airport (North Key Largo, Florida) back in the early 2000s. I believe the car/airplane was based in Kissimmee, Florida at the time, and the owner and his son had flown it down to Key Largo for the day. I spoke with him at length and watched him configure it for the road, so that he could drive it to the antique/classic car show, a distance of only 1/4 mile or so. I was really impressed!

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...usg=AOvVaw2ws86gLEAQWoBGeYsT0Il6&opi=89978449
 
FAA Approval? EAB, Part xxx?, Experimental Exhibition, Certificate Required???
 
When I read this, I thought of "Brawndo - It's what plants crave! Buy now!"
 
X3 Skier said:
FAA Approval? EAB, Part xxx?, Experimental Exhibition, Certificate Required???
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Its my understanding they received a Special Airworthiness Certificate to fly. No clue if R&D or EE. Same thing basically what the CorsairV8 got to fly while working on their STC. However, I don't know if Alef has done anything more than that. Given there is the road-side of things they are that much farther behind any other VTOL or eVTOL currently flying as there is zero guidance for that aspect.
 
I, for one, am rather enjoying these new and interesting concepts. Using the longitudinal oriented body while driving on roads, but then using that bodies long structural members as horizontally oriented airfoils are fascinating and are a way to convert energy in more familiar ways to our contemporary aircraft. The structure looks pretty light too. Whether anything practical evolves from this seems to revolve around its propulsion systems and energy transformers. The constraints on electric battery power and weight still seem to be the biggest drawback to this effort also, but the allusion to harnessing different energy sources will be fun to witness.
 
Pilawt said:
Crashworthiness as an aircraft and crashworthiness as a road vehicle are not exactly the same thing.
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And the proper design for one is a horrible design for the other and vice-versa.
 
Pilawt said:
Crashworthiness as an aircraft and crashworthiness as a road vehicle are not exactly the same thing
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Not to mention that to get that little door ding fixed will require a trip to the airport and dealing with airplane mechanics and paying airport shop rates...
 
No mention of how many cup holders………. :)
 
MajorTurbulence said:
I, for one, am rather enjoying these new and interesting concepts. Using the longitudinal oriented body while driving on roads, but then using that bodies long structural members as horizontally oriented airfoils are fascinating and are a way to convert energy in more familiar ways to our contemporary aircraft. The structure looks pretty light too.
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Airfoils? Where? Those small side areas of the body? All cluttered up with screens and wheels and the pod? Good luck with that.

upload_2023-7-3_9-39-2.jpeg

And where are the massive batteries needed to make it fly? All I see are small electric motors and a tight cockpit pod.

Salty said:
What a great, new, fresh idea. Can't believe nobody thought of it before. I'm certain this will be highly successful.
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Exactly. Just like this one, promised by no less than Hiller (helicopter company) 67 years ago, for delivery 57 years ago:

upload_2023-7-3_9-41-6.png

Zeldman said:
Not to mention that to get that little door ding fixed will require a trip to the airport and dealing with airplane mechanics and paying airport shop rates...
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Aircraft shop rates are usually a lot less than shop rates for exotic cars. An aircraft mechanic can often make more money working on cars or heavy equipment and trucks, never mind Ferraris. It's one reason why A&Ps are getting scarce.
 
Half Fast said:
Nothing new. Mercedes built a flying car back in 1999.


The takeoff was magnificent, the landing not so much.
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Too much back pressure. Complete disregard for published V-speeds after rotation.
 
FORANE said:
While a flying car might sound good, the reality might not be so good; as most items designed to accomplish 2 separate tasks tend to be good at neither.
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+1

Seems to me an amphibious car is way easier to develop and build than a flying one. Yeah, there have been some for decades but how many do you see on the road except tourist Duck Boats?
 
Innovation comes in many different flavors given the level of technologies now. And from what I've seen personally its pretty interesting to see it gain momentum in the past 5 years with the eVTOLs, H2 conversions, and even the Alef flying car. For comparison, the 1st electric car was commercially produced in 1899 in Cleveland yet it took Tesla over 100 hundred years to make it commercially viable. The interesting part of this "renaissance" of new flying machines is that it may just save the private GA industry from themselves. Time will tell.;)
 
Insurance companies laughing out loud right now.
 
Dan Thomas said:
The Amphicar. Lousy car, lousy boat. https://www.slashgear.com/1187326/every-major-issue-with-the-amphicar/
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True enough, but a friend of my father had an Amphicar (a couple, actually, over time) in the late 1960's and early 1970's and put it to good use for his pharmacy business in the part of Australia I grew up in, which wasn't well served by niceties like bridges at the time, and where having the Amphicar could save him a rough forty mile drive (see e.g. Rod Radford, 94, relives memories of driving an ‘Amphicar’ around Brisbane Water).

I got to ride in it a couple of times as a kid and loved it, but as Mr Radford would probably have admitted back then, he might have been better served by having two normal cars, one on each side of the water, and having a decent small boat to cross that couple of hundred metres of water. That would have worked nicely in the Ettalong and Wagstaff of the time where you could moor a boat or park a car pretty much whenever and wherever you liked. But he liked the surprise and delight it caused in his customers and bystanders, I suspect…
 
DaleB said:
"Low speed vehicle" means 20-25 miles per hour, 3000# or lower gross weight. Think golf carts, but with more regulation and in most cases can't be operated on roads with speed limits over 35 MPH. So, it's pretty much a VTOL that can taxi.
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AvWeb said it will only have an airspeed of about 35mph, too. In the air or on the ground, this thing would be its own traffic jam.
 
Half Fast said:
AvWeb said it will only have an airspeed of about 35mph, too. In the air or on the ground, this thing would be its own traffic jam.
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Is that with or without a tailwind?
 
Half Fast said:
AvWeb said it will only have an airspeed of about 35mph, too. In the air or on the ground, this thing would be its own traffic jam.
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So… as a hobby or experimental, or a novelty toy, maybe kind of cool. It might even have a very narrow practical application, somewhere. But as a commercial product? I think the idea of selling more than a very small handful, even if it does live up to all their expectations… that’s a pipe dream.
 
DaleB said:
So… as a hobby or experimental, or a novelty toy, maybe kind of cool. It might even have a very narrow practical application, somewhere. But as a commercial product? I think the idea of selling more than a very small handful, even if it does live up to all their expectations… that’s a pipe dream.
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I dunno; I think a PPC + a skateboard might perform better and be more practical.
:D
 
Half Fast said:
I dunno; I think a PPC + a skateboard might perform better and be more practical.
:D
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No argument here. And the combo would cost a lot less than $300K, even if it was a REALLY NICE skateboard.

But this isn’t about practical, it’s about capital… getting it from others and spending it on fun stuff whether there’s ever anything to show for it or not.
 
I can see a market for employees of Goldman Sachs and a few others being forced back to the office buildings in downtown NYC. Maybe Chicago, Dallas, LA... Basically at the oversized cities (except DC for security reasons) where some managers ego needs to be stroked to say, look at me!
One potential use: I have flown in KTEB, wanted to attend a meeting in Manhattan, a mere 12 miles away. That traffic took 1.5 hours, each way. I spent more time in the cab, then I did flying to NYC from DC suburbs. This kind of solution, could potentially work very well. Now, is that a large enough market? Probably not.

Tim
 
tspear said:
This kind of solution, could potentially work very well.
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Like NASA's Maxwell, it's just more wishful thinking. And there are way too many examples of wishful thinking showing up in the "news."

Suitable batteries are the big problem. They don't exist.
 
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