Why flying cars haven't been invented yet Pros and Cons

[BitoBain]

You bring up some good points in this thread, but I don't think flying cars will every really become popular. They might, but it would be a long time. Their physics alone make little sense, especially to commoners.

As Mooclan stated, using small jets to power it would be very difficult and take a lot of training and skill. Were any malfunction to occur, the car could easily plummet to the ground and absolutely kill every passenger, unless they only hovered a few feet above the ground, in which case they would be no better than a regular car. A flying car would also take a ridiculous amount of fuel, which would be very different from the normal stuff you pick up at the gas station.

It doesn't really have any real big advantages versus regular cars. It would be more expensive to fuel, maintain, and manufacture. It would be extraordinarily dangerous, especially driven by regular people who already have habits of texting and being drunk while driving. It might be faster, but that comes with its costs. Collisions of any kind would be absolutely fatal and they could be easily abused by criminals, terrorists, and crazy people. The reason modern airplanes are so safe (you are 5x less likely to die while in an airplane than a car) is that they are large vehicles with carefully planned paths, being driven by a professional crew as well as workers on the ground. They have very strict rules while people are aboard them. Regular citizens manning aircrafts? Scary. Also, wouldn't we have to have landing pads all over?

I think self driven cars are more of a priority than flying cars.

You're right on. Google has manufactured a famous car which has driven itself one million crash-free miles. Computers are indeed smart enough to be far better drivers than us. They use sensors to detect all surroundings and then follow simple procedures according to traffic laws and a gps. The great thing about self-driving cars is that they would obey all traffic laws perfectly, and always find the shortest path to a given location. They can even take traffic into account when choosing the quickest route. They would never crash, unless a sasquatch decided to play leap frog on the highway or something crazy. They could also maximize miles per gallon by braking and accelerating the perfect amount, using calculus.

Speaking of gas mileage, did you know that you can take a lot of unnecessary bulk off of modern cars and easily give them 100 mpg gas mileage? It turns out that a lot of cars, especially larger ones such as pickup trucks, are simply big and heavy for the purpose of being big and heavy. People like bigger cars because they feel safer and taller, but this is an illusion. People who drive sports cars and pickup trucks actually get in more crashes and get hurt more often than people who drive smaller cars, probably because they think they can be aggressive and take more risks.

What if we lived in a world where all cars were self-driven and had no unnecessary bulk? We wouldn't have to deal with crashes and confusing street signs. We would pay 1/4 as much as we do now for gas. People would just have to sacrifice that desire to control their vehicle and feel big and powerful. Oh, all the world problems we could solve if we would just changed our attitude...

 

[ChibiGoose]

They actually have been invented, but use of them has been declined by the government.

 

[Kinify]

They actually have been invented, but use of them has been declined by the government.

http://www.terrafugia.com/ They said they are already allowed to make it, but the bad thing is you need a Pilot license.

 

[AlgerWaterlow]

I do agree that having air-lanes would be more efficient than physically building concrete roads. However, humanity is closer to developing self-driving vehicles than to making ones that fly.
http://theconversation.com/googles-...-theyre-not-the-droids-were-looking-for-27399

Also, I'd like to point out that flying cars would only be expensive until they could be mass-produced. When that day comes, they would end up being about the same price (or even less) than present-day vehicles. Learn the concept of supply-and-demand peeps.

 

[Kinify]

Audi the car company also created a prototype of a self-driving car, but i would rather go with the flying car since its faster to travel and i do agree the self-driving car is safer but anything can malfunction.

 

[AlgerWaterlow]

Audi the car company also created a prototype of a self-driving car, but i would rather go with the flying car since its faster to travel and i do agree the self-driving car is safer but anything can malfunction.

I watched iRobot. I can never sit in a self-driving car after that movie. *shudders*

 

[MJM239]

I could just imagine the absurd amount of crashes that would happen if flying cars became a common thing.

 

[IronOre12]

Can collied with airplanes lots more deaths

I don't think that residential planes would be flying at 30,000 feet...

 

[Miner9823]

I would believe that such technology of flying cars to fulfill existence in reality could be somewhat of a great, and technology developing feat. Depictions of them were quite fascinating, as seen here in the discussion of the thread, it would seem that flying cars are yet, still in development, and some of which have already achieved the goal, to which then was discarded by the government, but it would be quite a beautiful opportunity to have full ownership of a flying car in particular.

I have recently searched up about some depictions or predictions of the future, to which the portrayals were made somewhere in the 50s, which was indeed a long time ago. What is incredible is the fact that people have believed in such great technology from quite a long time ago, and now development is already occurring towards bringing us closer towards the future of the technology we use, hence making me believe towards why it is such an innovative project to undergo publicly. However, flaws can be inevitable, just like every day cars we use.

Over thousands, possibly millions of car crashes occur around the world every year, and a lot of fatalities happen every year due to crashes like them. I could imagine how dangerous it could possibly be with people flying their own personal auto-mobiles that can fly. Or maybe some irresponsible people could fly while under intoxication, which could be a potential risk to those who fly close by them, and in worst cases, crash back in to the land. Or I could imagine certain malfunctions that could occur during flight, which will cause the driver to lose control, and in the worst case, crash somewhere dangerous. Depending on how high the altitude of the car goes, then it would ultimately lead to how devastating a crash can be, take an Airplane altitude for example, falling at such a great height, and at such a great speed, as well as hypothetically not having any safety installments in your car, then it would most probably be certain death.
However, taking an altitude just slightly higher than of an average, everyday car would mean that there still are potential risks quite similar as of a normal car, but less risky than an airplane car. Imagine having it to crash, it would possibly just fall on to the ground, not being able to fly, however having this in acknowledgement, this would mean that there could be some sort of wheels that can help cushion the fall at the bottom of the car, and if the flight malfunctions or doesn't work, then the wheels would be there to cushion the fall, and continue letting us drive normally, but without flight.

But when considering the great advantages of owning a flying car, it would be quite mesmerizing, just imagine having an airplane version of the car, (Although I deem it is unnecessary, it's basically flying a mini-plane) having an opportunity to view the world in a whole different perspective, where you could look at mountains, or the top of a forest, or even having an above view of your very own home and city, imagine how beautiful landscape pictures can be, and how easy it could be to take them using this sort of car. Although we would need some sort of fuel or electricity to help power a car, and imagine how much consumption it would take just trying to fly it, and even power it at all. The costs would be unfortunately vast, however the ease of transportation and view can be in a way, quite worth it.

I could also imagine about the ease of transportation you could fly anywhere with a little more ease, but we have a road junction, a system to which keeps traffic as organized as it can be, so it could prevent accidents or incidents from occurring, imagine a world where cars do not need a legal driving system to which they can drive however they like, at however speed they like. It would be somewhat like Grand Theft Auto.
Imagining a system-less flying car junction, a lot of crashes would occur, and metal with bodies in them will be falling out of the sky like birds in a hunting season, and that sight is very distressing.

To my conclusion, I would think that such innovation would be a wonderful thing to have, and in a way, will represent the technology of our future with pride, unfortunately there are many risks and that could pull us back a vast amount for that, in the meantime, I would think self-driving cars that don't need bio-fuel or diesel will be our main goal for now, since we are first looking forward to a cleaner future.

Apologies for taking too long to post, this is my first decently readable post after writer's block. :c
Unfortunately I've yet to catch up on some pretty incredible threads...