Who Could Have Predicted This?

"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
12/17/2018 at 12:03 • Filed to: Flying Car, Flying Cars, Detroit, Michigan

Cheery batch of news from Detroit.

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DISCUSSION (27)

CalzoneGolem > For Sweden
12/17/2018 at 12:08

I feel like f lying cars are just a bad idea. I don’t want the idiots on the road to take to the sky.

Chariotoflove > CalzoneGolem
12/17/2018 at 12:11

It sounds great on paper, but the volume of drivers we have can barely handle awareness in two dimensions.

facw > CalzoneGolem
12/17/2018 at 12:12

I see no way it happens unless they are fully automated. Even then, the physics seem very dubious.

random001 > CalzoneGolem
12/17/2018 at 12:12

We already have flying cars. They’re called “airplanes”....

Milky > For Sweden
12/17/2018 at 12:15

They were even trying to fly it yet, but it accidentally got airborne and crashed.

Lol, thing meant for ground but bound for air, gets in air but goes back for ground.

TheRealBicycleBuck > CalzoneGolem
12/17/2018 at 12:18

The idea that anyone could take off anywhere and be airborne at any elevation and travel any direction is terrifying. There’s a reason that less than 1% of the population is qualified to be a pilot.

user314 > random001
12/17/2018 at 12:24

They’re called “ airplanes helicopters ”....

IMO, anyway.

user314 > For Sweden
12/17/2018 at 12:28

Much like fusion, Half Life 3 and Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0, the flying car will perpetually be 5 years away.

BigBlock440 > user314
12/17/2018 at 12:31

Can you drive a helicopter through the drive-through?

BigBlock440 > random001
12/17/2018 at 12:32

I’ve never seen an airplane parked at the mall.

random001 > user314
12/17/2018 at 12:32

Ether way works, IMO.

random001 > BigBlock440
12/17/2018 at 12:33

Ive never seen a "flying car" parked at the mall. Have you?

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > For Sweden
12/17/2018 at 12:33

I feel like the FAA ought to implement an “optionally piloted” exemption for experimental GA aircraft. You ought to be able to log 1000 hours of your little experimental aircraft operating in drone mode before you ever put a human in it. I think it’s asinine to risk the life of a pilot (especially when they often are people key to the development of the aircraft) for something like a taxi test.

Yes, you’ll lose some control by not having a pilot physically present. But losing an airframe is small potatoes compared to losing your chief developer (or really any test pilot worth a damn) , and there are a lot of things you can validate remotely (like “does it fly?”, “is it controllable?”, “can you easily recover a stall?”).

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > facw
12/17/2018 at 12:35

I think they could be remotely piloted, with an automated system as a backup. The military has logged what I’m going to venture as several million flight hours on UAVs over the past few decades. I think that’s sufficient to validate the concept. I’d even wager that having a drone pilot who flies constantly is better than having a GA pilot who only flies a few times a year.

For Sweden > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter
12/17/2018 at 12:36

1000 is far too few hours for an autonomous vehicle. Maybe 10,000,000 hours.

BigBlock440 > random001
12/17/2018 at 12:39

I’ve never seen a L och Ness monster at the mall either.

facw > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter
12/17/2018 at 12:49

I’d go the opposite way actually, autonomous flight, with human takeover available if needed. You’re right though that the tech is there for remote piloting.

user314 > BigBlock440
12/17/2018 at 12:50

Didn’t they do that in one of the F&F movies?

user314 > BigBlock440
12/17/2018 at 12:54

Kinja'd!!!

Not the best parking job, probably a BMW driver.

BigBlock440 > user314
12/17/2018 at 12:56

I haven’t seen any past 4, so ?

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > For Sweden
12/17/2018 at 14:46

1000 hours would be for experimental piloted general aviation aircraft as a “proof of prototype” phase before you put a pilot in it. Not for autonomous aircraft. During this phase it would be piloted remotely like a UAV .

WilliamsSW > BigBlock440
12/17/2018 at 14:48

I’d feel safer if I saw the Loch Ness Monster at the mall, as opposed to a world full of flying cars.

WilliamsSW > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter
12/17/2018 at 14:51

Just adding the capability to operate most GA aircraft remotely would kill any new designs, due the the cost, I imagine.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > facw
12/17/2018 at 14:56

Autonomous is just a lot hairier tech wise. There are still a lot of situation where a human pilot will outfly a program. I’m all for autonomous “features” that might keep the pilot from flying the plane into the ground, but I think for the time being it makes sense to have a human in the loop.

It would still be way cheaper, because one of the really expensive parts of general aviation is that the pilot is a non-trivial part of the cargo. If your pilot could go to work from 9 to 5, then go home every day, that would be a lot cheaper than having to either fly him or her back every day (necessitating round trip flights) or put him or her up in accomm odations.

You might be able to get away with something like a “partially autonomous” flight, where a really fancy autonomous piloting system did the boring “at altitude” bit, and the pilot just took over for takeoff and landing. You basically just have your human pilots doing constant takeoff and landings (maybe with downtime between jobs), so you’re not paying for pilots to sit there doing nothing.

I think from a regulatory standpoint, that will happen in commercial aviation before air taxi stuff. The remotely piloted plane I think might be more palatable, at least at first.

dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter > WilliamsSW
12/17/2018 at 15:08

No way. FPV is cheap. Consider that a new Cessna 172 is $300000. Even if your FPV system cost $300000, that’s small potatoes compared to a dead or injured pilot, which is pretty much a death sentence to any project that doesn’t have extremely deep pockets (e.g. the military) . And I don’t think you’d need a $300000 system to test basic flight functions. I’m guessing you could get something workable for an order of magnitude cheaper.

WilliamsSW > dsigned001 - O.R.C. hunter
12/17/2018 at 15:59

I think more computer modelling is a better answer, personally.

The engineering of the system wouldn’t be that simple - these aircraft have basically all mechanical controls, not electronic, so you’d be designing the interface between the mechanicals and the electronics. And testing the hell out of it before you test the aircraft. That’s not happening for $30k.

Where I *could* see it working is if much of that equipment became available in the production aircraft - - as a higher order autopilot system, controlled by the pilot in the aircraft. You’d probably sell it without autoland or auto-takeoff, but maybe use much of the system?

pip bip - choose Corrour > For Sweden
12/18/2018 at 07:36

oops