What do we want?! Flying Cars! .. When do we want them?! 5 years ago!

Corwin:
I thought I'd try to lighten up the Science forums with something a bit less controversial... although it might not be a popular thread. Controversy gains more attention and momentum.


But seriously... who doesn't want a flying frickin' car, right??
And I don't mean some kind of "oversized drone" with propeller-blades... not some kind of "helicopter on wheels"... I mean the "anti-gravity" kind. A regular car when it's on wheels, but flip the switch and you ignore gravity and just fly around.

The movie Blade Runner predicted these kinds of flying cars by 2019.
The Back To The Future trilogy puts Dr. Emmet Brown in a flying DeLorean in the year 2015.

Scientists have SERIOUSLY dropped the ball on this.

MJ59: I want my flying car!!!!

MJ59: Still waiting

Corwin: Where is Aura's comment, and my most recent comment?

When I click on the thread from my profile I see those comments, but not Beaver's.
This thread is broken, man.

Oh, FFS... Wire made a duplicate when I created it.
I had to flip a coin and delete one of them. Sorry, Aura.

MJ59: Double ups r a bugger hey! lol

Corwin: This wouldn't happen if we had flying cars.

MJ59: IKR?

The giant midget:

MJ59: Not fast enuff! lol

The giant midget: Those little buggers move quickly enough.
They have been around for a while now.
If someone has the cash they can buy anything .

MJ59: I want Mach 3! lol

The giant midget: Maybe that's the problem
We can't afford the 170 mph flier and we are asking for light speed already

Corwin: Two problems with that one.
Firstly, I already specified that helicopters on wheels don't count. I want a REAL flying car that defies gravity, and one that is still practical to use as a regular automobile.

And secondly... that YouTube clip is CGI.

AretoNyx: I actually never wanted those but if anything that is a plane. Lol

People can try to drive cars that turn into boats as well bit not everyone should.

Corwin: One aspect of a flying car that most people don't consider is the awesome camping possibilities... being able to easily access hard-to-get-to remote locations. Or in the case of an anti-gravity car, being able to access locations otherwise impossible to get to.

I've done plenty of off-road camping over the years; Canada is great for that. Locations that require a few days of canoeing/portaging, for instance. When I got older I bought a 4X4 Jeep and could access remote lakes many kms from the main road, but bring more gear and proper food, and spare myself the backbreaking legwork of paddling and backpacking.
In more recent years I found I could access many of the same remote locations on my 883 Harley, although I was back to packing ultralight compact gear and eating Raman like I did with canoeing.
There's nothing quite like having an entire lake to yourself, and no camping fees.

But a large number of the million remote lakes in Canada can't even be reached overland, and require a pontoon-plane. And only if the lake is long enough to land and takeoff again. I've never actually done that. Those kinds of charters are expensive, and it's the LEAST safest way to fly.

And I haven't even mentioned the other method of accessing remote locations -- Mountaineering. Now THOSE guys are friggin' NUTS. You'd never catch me dangling from the side of a cliff with nothing but a thin rope preventing me from plummeting to certain death. But those guys experience views the likes of which us less-adventurous (non-insane) people will never enjoy, except from the safety of our armchairs.

BUT... an anti-gravity car? To be able to just lift up and set her down gently anywhere we pleased? Hell yeah! I'd want one of those. Picture the look on the mountain-climber's face when he spends 3 days reaching that lofty peak, only to find me up there next to my flying DeLorean, a steak on the BBQ and enjoying a smoke... and I can be back on the ground in 15 minutes.

Okay... I know what you're thinking... sports like ones I've mentioned above are more about the challenge of "getting there", not just "being there". The journey is more important than the destination. But bollocks to that. That may apply when I take my Harley for a cruise, but once you leave the road it's a different matter. In those cases, for me, it's all about the destination. Sure, there's the bragging-rights of conquering that challenge and being somewhere that few people would dare to be, but the logistics of getting to those locations is more of a necessary evil to me, rather than enjoying the trek. And I'm getting too old for that shit.

I want my flying car, dammit.

Corwin: Of course there's something else to consider... even IF anti-gravity flying car technology existed, it would still likely be prohibitively expensive for the common guy.

I've read the Blade Runner novels. They portray this technology existing by 2019. They call them "Spinners", and are exactly the kind of flying car I've described... but they are out-of-reach to all but the elite. The Police and the military possess this technology, but the average citizen is confined to the ground.


A more realistic vision than portrayed in Back to the Future, where in the year 2015 Dr. Emmet Brown can pop into any corner garage and have his DeLorean affordably converted into anti-grav flight capability. But that was a spoof, and not meant to be taken seriously.

Corwin: I will say though, that there are a few companies working on something akin to an oversized drone using present technology that has some promise. More like a flying motorcycle.

But so far the prototypes I've seen do little more than hover, and are unstable, and look rather dangerous. Still very much in the development stage.
When they can build one with a 5,000 foot ceiling, a speed of at least 100 mph, and a range of a at least a few hundred miles, and in the price-range of a sportscar or superbike, then we'll have something.

MJ59: I wanna be like George!

Wild__: I want a light saber too.

MJ59: Damn yeah!!

LoisS: I would still love a *Back to the Future Hoverboard .

Corwin: I don't know, Lois, those things look dangerous. Without friction, how the heck do you control one of those things?

At my age I'd likely break a hip or something.

MJ59:

LoisS: Oh come on, you could break a hip slipping on a wet leaf on your driveway. At least this would be a better story.

Wild__: Confucius say: man with flamethrower have no wet leaves in driveway.

LoisS: He's Canadian, there are leaves on this mans driveway/front step. One soggy leaf can mess a mofo up more then a banana peel. And you know how those are always left about.