Flying cars: How the future of transport took off already

10

October

2017

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Flying cars have been a goal for humanity for more than a century already. Science fiction writer, William Kaempfert forecasted in 1913 that there will be flying police cars that would direct air traffic of personal flying vehicles which will be parked on households’ rooftops (Milo, 2010). In early movies flying cars were quite different than Kaempfert’s view. For example, Ian Fleming, in his his novels “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1963) “The Man with The Golden Gun” (1964) envisions a future where cars a capable of both driving on the ground and flying when needed (Roberts & Milford, 2017).

In reality, things are more complex and slower-paced. Henry Ford in an interview in 1940 predicted :”Mark my words. A combination airplane and motorcar is coming. You may smile. But it will come.” (Milo, 2010). Are we getting closer to that moment? Probably, but not as fast as predicted by previous discoveries, such as the two “ancestors” of a flying car: the airplane, and the automobile (Milo, 2010). Both were developed quite quickly, since in 1900 only a few people owned an automobile and nobody flew an airplane, whereas in 1915 both were extensively used at the brink of World War 1. It took only 15 years to produce these two vehicles extensively in order to to be considered mainstream. However, the timeline for flying cars is significantly different (Singh, 2017).

The first attempt to build a functional flying vehicle was the Curtiss Autoplane, presented at an aeronautic exhibition in 1917 in New York. It wasn’t functional since it only hopped instead of properly flying. The development of this technology was unfortunately halted due to the beginning of the First World War. Today, there are at least 15 companies that aim to develop a flying personal vehicle in the near future. Many of these are in the United States, but there are also some in the Netherlands, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, among others (Singh, 2017). Besides startups, there are also giant companies involved in this industry. For example, the airplane manufacturer Airbus proposed two concept vehicles that would work on vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), an essential technology for a rapid development of flying vehicles (Markoff, 2017).

Moreover, the recent developments of flying vehicles technology are quite diverse, ranging from road-type cars that turn into a flying vehicle, to small boats that hover about water and to drone-like multicopters, either autonomous or piloted by a human (Roberts & Milford, 2017). It will be exciting to find out which type of flying vehicle will gain momentum and enter the mainstream. It must be mentioned though, that this will be possible only with the support of governments and lawmakers. A first step for this has been done by the Government of Dubai, which announced in February 2017 a new project called autonomous aerial taxi (AAT) (Ward, 2017). The AAT is an autonomous 2-seated Volcocopter with 18 motors, aimed to make the travellers safe against system failures. It is powered by electricity, thus being environmentally friendly, has a maximum flight time of half an hour at speeds of 50 km/h and a top speed of 100 km/h. The goal of AATs is to eliminate the increasing issue of traffic congestion in Dubai The first test for the AAT drone took place at the end of September 2017 (Ong, 2017).

Right now, the perspectives of near-future availability of flying vehicles are promising. Thus, the question is not if flying vehicles will be available, but when will they be available and which type of flying car will dominate the market. Obviously, there will be several hurdles needed to be overcame, such as the regulations in case of accidents, requirements of pilot licenses and so on. However, a first step would be to convince the majority of people who are afraid of this revolutionary technology that the future is happening in front of our eyes.

Markoff, J. (2017) No Longer a Dream: Silicon Valley Takes On the Flying Car. [online] NY Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/technology/flying-car-technology.html . Retrieved on October 9th 2017

Milo, P. (2010) Flying car Dreams Take Off Again. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/2010/05/04/flying-car-department-of-defense-autos-history-opinions-contributors-paul-milo.html . Retrieved on October 9th 2017

Milford, M., Roberts, J. (2017) The future of flying cars: science fact or science fiction? [online] The Conversation. Available at: http://theconversation.com/the-future-of-flying-cars-science-fact-or-science-fiction-76701 . Retrieved on October 9th 2017

Ong, T. (2017) Dubai starts testing crewless two-person ‘flying taxis’ [online] The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/26/16365614/dubai-testing-uncrewed-two-person-flying-taxis-volocopter . Retrieved on October 9th 2017

Singh, S. (2017) Flying Cars are close to moving from fiction to reality. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2017/06/05/flying-cars-from-fiction-to-reality/#5c2d50f34b46 . Retrieved on October 9th 2017

Ward, T. (2017) Dubai’s Autonomous Flying Taxi Service Will Be Ready for Takeoff This Year. [online] Futurism. Available at: https://futurism.com/dubais-autonomous-flying-taxi-service-will-be-ready-for-takeoff-this-year/ . Retrieved on October 9th 2017

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The future is close – flying cars (almost) ready to take off

18

September

2017

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Can you imagine what your life would be like if you could avoid being stuck in traffic jams every time you go to work by car? Have you ever heard about a flying car and said to yourself – “no, it is too futuristic, maybe someday in the 4th millennium…”? If yes, then you can actually be quite surprised, because experts claim that we are very close to have our lives completely transformed by this new technology.

Many companies, such as Airbus, Uber, Google, Toyota and even a Dutch firm, Pal V, are investing big money to put this idea, which seemed unrealistic at best not a long time ago, into life. One of the players on the market is Aeromobil. Their prototype is a petrol-fueled machine that can work both in the air and on the roads. The car currently costs €1.2m and is ready to take two people on its board. The main drawback of this particular model is that it requires an airstrip to take off (Rudgard, 2017).

It might be a good question to ask ourselves, why do we sincerely need flying cars? Is it only our technical “whim”? Well, the answer was somehow already provided at the beginning of the article. Traffic congestion grows unrelentingly and our civilization tried many solutions to overcome it: expanding roads, building underground public communication systems or ride-sharing. But they still seem as not sufficient to tackle the problem. That is also why Aeromobil’s vehicle is so impractical, even if it can fly, it still requires too much space to take off and land. A flying car should be capable of VTOL – Vertical Take Off and Landing – to be convenient to use by inhabitants of the most congested areas.

Another problem with flying cars lies in the process of flying itself. Earning a pilot’s license might be too much of a bother for an average consumer, so the engineers from Airbus plan on building a self-flying machine. They already have their prototype which is going to use laser scans in order to perform the landing process (Stewart, 2017). Given the cost of the car itself, it is more plausible that the cars will be owned by the government or big taxi corporations and shared, rather than owned by individuals.

Surely, with better technical advancements, the flying cars will probably get less expensive and maybe even affordable for an average person, but some researchers worry that a consequence of it might be actually increasing congestion instead of reducing it. As an example to illustrate the reasoning can be used the fact that we are exchanging more messages now, compared to when we had only paper letters and landlines (Stone, 2017).

Additionally, what cannot be overlooked is the issue of monitoring air traffic and reducing the risk of accidents, especially for vehicles with no human interaction. The airspace itself is getting more and more “crowded” with all the planes, drones and now, possibly, flying cars too. Even more complex Air Traffic Management and Control Systems must be constructed and implemented so that safety of all parties is ensured.

Will flying cars become a great technological breakthrough of the XXIst century? Or will they rather remain a futuristic fantasy?

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References:

Rudgard, O. (2017, September). Coming to a road near you: AeroMobil’s flying car preparing for take-off. The Telegraph, Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/17/flying-car-company-aeromobil-says-radical-concept-vehicle-will/
Stewart, J. (2017, August). Airbus uses lasers to teach its flying car to land. Wired, Retrieved from: https://www-wired-com.eur.idm.oclc.org/story/airbus-vahana-flying-car-landings/
Stone, M. (2017, June). Flying Cars Could Happen. But They’ll Probably Create More Problems Than They Solve. Greentech Media, Retrieved from: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/flying-cars-might-happen-but-they-might-create-more-problems

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A Social Media powered car?

27

October

2013

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It’s official. I’ve seen it all! I can die happy now.

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Apparently, teenagers these days don’t have enough entertaining tasks to perform, so they decided to build a vehicle that runs on social media shares, likes and mentions. Human creativity never ceases to amaze me. I still can’t decide if all the whacky inventors out there are pure geniuses or incredibly bored individuals. Either way, paint me fascinated.

Now, I’m no engineer. I’ve never been behind the steering wheel and I don’t have the slightest clue how a car works, but from my limited understanding, these teens made it so a battery is hooked to the car, which is also hooked to a tablet. Every time someone “likes” their Minddrive organization’s Facebook page, shares something on Twitter or Facebook or simply mentions it, it sends a signal with slowly charges the car’s battery allowing it to run for a little while. The plan being to make it from point A to point B by being powered by shares and likes, without crashing into a tree.

I knew social media had a huge impact on our daily lives, but this is beyond insane. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s awesome, but I still don’t have my damn flying cars and my jetpack. I shall demand them in every single blog I make, regardless of how many Facebook powered vehicles these bright students create.

Granted, their project is nothing revolutionary. It’s simply an electric car that gets charged the same old way, just slower and on cue. However, the creativity behind the idea is almost as brilliant as social media itself. If anything, it shows us that in today’s modern age, young people’s minds are working like clockwork, twenty-four-seven, always coming up with new ideas and helping us all evolve, at least mentally. And all of this is triggered by social media. The only question is: what’s next?

It better be flying cars and jet packs.

 

Sources: 

http://mashable.com/2013/06/06/social-media-powered/

http://minddrive.org/

 

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