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Hardware

One-person Air Scooters 126

Posted by Hemos from the beats-traffic-all-the-time dept.
Tempest wrote to us:"Ever wanted to soar over tall buildings with the greatest of ease? In a few years, with the help of NASA and a Silicon Valley engineer, Michael Moshier, you may be able to do so. After a lengthy training program, of course. " The specs are impressive: 80 MPH, 20 MPG. You can check out the story on CNN or the company's website.
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One-person Air Scooters More

One-person Air Scooters

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  • What about criminals? (Score:3)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Thursday September 16, 1999 @11:57AM (#1678212)
    I'm just thinking...a device like this would make the getaway from a bank robbery very easy.

    Police chasing in cars would be stuck if criminal jetted over a building out of their line of sight and helicopters would be in trouble because this thing would be able to move through areas they can't really follow.

    Either the police would have to have to keep pace with the average purchasing for these things or thre would have to be some way to track them (portable radar?) so police wouldn't need helicopters for each chase.

    Anyway...maybe I'm giving the criminals too much credit but I seem to remember several movies where jewel theives et. al. used jetpacks to completely ellude the police...

    Just my $0.02...

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • People wouldn't trust the things. They would be intimidated by the "rigorous training" required and the fact that you die if you screw up.

    This is a very real issue that I think gets overlooked sometimes. If the engine in your car dies out, in most cases it rolls to a stop, and you get out unhurt. If the engine on your Solotrek goes out, you die. All it'll take is one accident with these things to dampen public enthusiasm in a hurry.

    Personal flying machines may be the way of the future, but until they can make it 100% safe (well close to it anyway), the public won't bite. Of course maybe Moshier's already thought about this and has some solutions. I hope so, because I want one of these things.
  • Woah dude!

    There is no way these things will sell for $60,000. Try $600,000. Do you know how much carbon fibre, boron and other high cost/low weight material is in them? a single kilogram of carbon fibre cost's well over a $1000 and that a raw product. Consider that a) there are many kilo's of carbon fibre in each one and b) you have to mould and set the stuff.

    There is no way $60,000 is going to buy you a four seater aircraft, unless you get a second hand cessna 172. And that is made from aluminium and steel.
  • I hit 80 on my motorcycle on 101 in Silicon Valley just to keep up. If I had to pay a lot to get an air cycle, I would like it to go a lot faster.

    I have to slow down to go down the white stripe between the cars in traffic jams, but the motorcycle is cheap, >45MPG, and a thrill. I wonder if flying over everyone at a constant 80 MPH would be as much fun.
  • "A collection of 10,000 nuts and bolts trying desparately to get away from one another."
  • This is from a New Scientist [newscientist.co.uk] article from May '99. It's a 'SkyCar [newscientist.com]' developed by Paul Moller, and it's going to be in the air RSN (so they say), and is not manually controlled i.e. requires ATC (not air training corps -- for U.K. readers) above and beyond the current state of the art. This should mean no chance of crashing, (help! it's not running *NIX I hear you shriek...) or shunting your neighbour (not sp, there may be others, but I can spell neighbour (unlike Win 9n UK english edition grumble grumble)). It looks like I won't even need a driving license at this rate - well at least I've got my bike!
  • Does anybody else besides me have a burning desire to go watch Woody Allen's sleeper again after seeing this?
  • Yes, I really mean what I said.

    You have to look at the number of deaths per miles travelled as you say. Of all passenger road travel, the deaths per mile (at 35mph) are about 10,000 - 1 to the deaths per mile of passanger air travel (at 600mph). That excludes military action eg. KAL 007 was shot down etc.
  • Well I cant deny that this sounds really cool, but I just cant see much use in it for Joe Average.

    80 MPH at 20 MPG for 1 person to go about 90 miles?
    1. Hell even a motorcycle would be a better mass transit vehicle.
    2. If ya wanna take a buddy ya better bring a rope.
    3. Even the most foolhardy insurance company won't touch this thing.
    4. I don't own a jet ski/motorcycle and I know how to swim/walk, forget about walking home or swimming to shore if it runs out of gas.
    5. You don't have to worry about refolding that roadmap because ya cant hold the damn thing and maintain control at the same time.
    6. Its easy to know who has the right of way at a 4 way street intersection but what about a 360 degree 3D intersection?
    7. Airplanes glide, copters auto rotate, but unless ya have a ballistic parachute your screwed.
    8. Crosswind landings are going to slam you through your neighbors living room window.
    9. Even as the crow flies I can't see this as a decent way to get from point A to point B without GPS.
    10. I live in Kansas and bird hunting is really big, some drunk with a shotgun is sure to ruin a nice day of airscoot'n.

    That being said, if they solve 9 10ths of these problems, I really want one of these things.

  • Nt to mention that I don't trust a vehicle designed by a company who's web server isn't slashdot proof!!!!!

  • I remember back in elementary school (mid 70's), we learned how by the year 2000, we would all fly to work in our hover cars, and we would have robot maids who would do all our housework for us. Well, I'm still sitting in traffic, and I still have to pay a human maid :). Pardon me if I am skeptical, but I have been promised a lot of things over the years based upon one of concept devices that never really worked as well as they said they did. I'll believe this one when I'm running from the FCC after violating SFO airspace with a six pack and a BB gun.
  • That makes me contemplate the risks of the further future.

    We all want personal teleporters, right? Imagine this, in a car accident you might get a mangled face, but essentially you're still you. In a teleporter accident, you might end up as 'Brundlefly', or worse still, me! (And believe me, it ain't a pretty sight!)
  • What would we call this new breed of transport? "Air scooter" provokes a childish view of the transportation medium. How about calling it the Punkfreakmobile.... your thoughts...
  • Yes, the reliability of the vehicle is quesionable as well. Apparently Bill Clinton has endorsed the scheme, which worries me greatly - The Air Scooter wlll always be going down on you.
  • PRESS RELEASE: Ben Dover of NASA reported to me in a recent interview that each device is fitted with a radio-activated detonation device, embedded deep with then scooters jet engine.
    To remove this device would mean destroying vital parts of the machine, rendering it useless.
    With a mere press of a button, a Pig can destroy any Air Scooter leaving the charred remains of the criminal to drop to the ground.
    If you want some more information on this subject, please see your local GP.
  • > they're actually enforced on all planes

    Do you think it would be easy to enforce the rules if everyone had one?

    > and there are no wankers in the air.

    But there would be if everyone had personal flying transportation.

    > Planes are adequately separated
    > and vertically spaced... shall I go on.

    I was not talking about planes as they are now. I was talking about a world of personal flying devices. I'm quite happy with the assertion that it is safer to be in a plane than a car nowadays.

    > If I were driving and yanked the wheel to the
    > right at top speed, what would happen?

    Depends. If I was in a personal flying device and veered right, I could easily hit people in the next lane to the right. But you're right in that there's no fixed obstacles - though the penalty for a crash is likely to be more severe.

  • I tend to agree with this guy. At first it might sound like a cool idea, but just imagine everyone on an average LA highway traffic jam suddenly take to the air. All those berserk gunmen could start bombing Highschools from the air instead of going in and do the diryt work themselves. Not to mention the problem of landing - Where do you land in a big city? On a rooftop? on a normal parking space? What about air traffic? The airspace over big cities is pretty full anyway (I can just see an air-car collide with a Boeing 747 over Hong Kong). Terrorists could pack one of these things full of TNT and instead of park it under the World Trade Center, they smash it into the building.

    No, air traffic is NOT for the masses. Maybe it would be better to create a kind of "air taxi service" - inexpensive short-range flights could be possible with such devices.. Helicopters are loud and "windy", so "aircars" or somesuch might be a better alternative anyway. Currently, if you want to go to a city which is not one of the major metropoles, it's nearly impossible to get a flight. Many smaller towns don't even have an airport. Is this an alternative to passenger trains maybe?

  • Smart Business Strategy. (Score:3)

    by K-Man ( 4117 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @12:08PM (#1678235)
    If the flying part doesn't work out, the company is poised to take over the CPU cooling market.

  • Re:What about criminals? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yeah I'd like to see how Chief Wiggums is gonna catch Snake in one of these puppies: Snake: Allll right! Easy get-away. [straps on air cycle and takes off] Chief: Not so fast flyboy. [straps on air cycle.... too big to lift off, takes spare donut out of holster and tosses on the ground... very slowly takes off after Snake]
  • The last thing I want is the general public to go flying around as if they were driving cars. Imagine, you take a ton of tests just like for getting a liscense to drive a car, and you see how many people do reckless things with their cars?

    I'd hate to see the wrecks from drunken pilots.
    Hell, I'm sure every petty criminal in the world would want one. "Hey, lets fly over top of this guys house and take pictures of his wife naked!"

    And damn, imagine the escalation in fly-by shootings...

    Just my opinion, but not only would the government probably not permit it, but if they did, those screening tests for who can fly these things would have to be pretty damn strict.

    ---------------------------
    "I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
  • Well I figured this would make its way to Slashdot when I saw it on CNN. If the two propellers just inches away from the pilot's face don't lower the cost of ground beef the uncontrollable dive to the death in the event of an engine failure would make a better ride than Valuejet.
  • I haven't gotten into the company's Web site, so I don't know if they discuss engine out characteristics. Helicopters can generate enough lift out of the windmilling rotor to cushion an emergency landing IF the engine failure occurs at a high enough altitude. This contraption looks like it would just fall out of the sky. Well, so does any heavier than air aircraft, come to think of it. Anyway, inquiring minds want to know...
  • I know very little about Germany, but I do know a little, feel free to correct me at will. As far as I know, in Germany the driving laws are very strict and require expensive training/certification to get a license, much more than America, at least. Aslo, I was under the impression that the cars had to pass very strict certifications etc. So, I was wondering, and hoping some Deutschlanders would input, how closely does this parallel the automobile situation in Germany, if at all.

    Thanks
  • Yeah, but Moller isn't working with NASA. That alone gives this guy more credibility than Moller, to my mind. Moller's stuff is way more ambitious, but that's an engineering negative in my book--I would bet a simpler personal air buggy will start working long before a more complex one. I think this guy beats Moller cold.


    Or not... what do I know?

  • What happens when we run out of the various fossil fuels? Why not just continue using that wonderful, free solar energy? Or maybe something else? I want my Shipstone and a Fusion Reactor.
  • So far I haven't seen anyone bring up the single user helicopters. I remember hearing on the news not more then a couple of years ago of a single person helicopter smaller then a two seat car capable of reaching speeds or roughly 75 MPH. I don't recall the name of the company, but they were selling from somewhere between 3 to 5 thousand dollars. Plus certification costs and lessons of course. Hell, I'm sure that some of you out there have wasted more then that on a good jetski or waverunner.
    I think that the company that made the IDO's Identitfied Flying Object (Not and official name, but I kind of like it) went out of business. I guess the average America, much like me, fear the same people that make left turns from the right lane with their right turn signals on will be flying above our heads at high speeds. Not a very comforting though.
    Good luck with flying Moped-type things!!!


  • I'd hate to have the Win98 based software decide it needed to revalidate me in mid-flight, and shut it down....

    Any good thing would have a a hardware interlock that would prevent the retinal scanner from interferring once it was started... Hmmm, so you might say, "Put it on the starter". Okay, well what if the engines quit in midair? You need to be able to disable the retinal scanner interference until you are safety on the ground.

  • Of course, the trick would be a design that would disable it should the transponder be fiddled with.
  • Other people have already questioned the feasibility of having large numbers of people doing this.

    I think what has to be realised, is that we can do this, or some sort of flying car, but it will require at least some computer control.

    One way is "roads", ie a certain height and position can only go a certain way. I think planes already work like this. The computer will need to stop people doing stupid things like going into another road. It would also make it easy enough to avoid massive training programs.

    Shortly after, we'll get people building titanium roofs to withstand the crashes from these things. =)
  • > You are 10 times more likely to die on the
    > road on a ten minute trip to the airport than
    > a 12 hour flight to Europe

    Only because there are a lot more cars on the road, and planes have trained pilots. I doubt that cars are inherently more dangerous than planes.
  • Man, Im glad I bought that case of Stinger missiles when I had the chance. The first time someone cuts me off in one of these things Im gonna let it fly!

    -BW
  • I prefer:
    "Ten thousand parts flying in loose formation."
  • ...In New York it takes literally an hour to go two miles...

    Then why don't you just walk? Witj just a bit of training, you can easily do four miles per hour :-)

  • i know the feeling, i just hope that while walking down the street i don't get the urge to whip out a nail gun and kill one of those mfers if he cuts me off.
    char *stupidsig = "this is my dumb sig";
  • >And damn, imagine the escalation in fly-by shootings...

    Yeah, if these things get out, the gang-related fly-by shootings will be greater than ZERO!
    Not too often do you hear some reporter talking about the infinite increase in crime. :-)

    Well, at least not where I live.

    Later
    Erik Z
  • That's a good point... and the work has to be done and signed off on by someone with FAA credentials. So you probably couldn't do even the most simple maintenance in your garage. You'd need to take it somewhere.

    What I haven't seen has to do with the recoverability of this thing if it DOES have a malfunction. I've seen demonstrations on TV of how helicopters can be safely landed even if the engines fail, as long as they're above a certain altitude. Of course, the pilot has to have a certain level of skill to do this. People giving traffic reports from helicopters spend most of the time they're not looking at traffic looking for places to land if they have problems.

    But perhaps this vehicle is light enough it could just be rigged with a big parachute. That would reduce the risk of death from a high altitude problem.
  • How can the very first comment on a posting be "redundant" as some moderator deemed this reply. It's not terribly insightful but come on!
  • Atlanta
    Major accident today over the skys of Atlanta. Joey de Blowey was flying to work this fine smog filled morning when he sucked a large Canadian goose (yeah, got another Canadian, to bad it was a goose) into his fancy flying machine while cruising at 80mph. His emergency parachute immediatly deployed and he started to descend to earth when he happend to float down into the props of the poor fool who happened to be flying below him. Most of his body was mushed but he was able to be identified becouse his head flew in through the bedroom window of Mary Jane of Roswell. Americans for the Libertys of Geese are looking into the needless death of the fine bird.

  • (snort) Baloney. 'Personal helicopter' my starboard nacelle! I bet 99% of the people who would try learning to fly a personal helicopter would die in their first solo attempt.

    I've pissed off a few NASCAR fans around my office by pointing out that when it came to driving a helo, Davey Allison turned out to be just another dead rotorhead wannabee. (He'd just gotten his license and bought his own bird, but he forgot the two cardinal rules of low-altitude flying and approaches: (1) Know where your tail rotor is in relation to everything it could possibly come in contact with, and (2) Pay attention to the surface winds.) If that sounds harsh, too fscking bad. Helicopters simply are not forgiving machines.

    Fixed-wing aircraft require some practice, but helicopters demand religious fervor. Helo pilots are born, not made. (And only an Army or Air Force puke would call them "choppers."

  • not to mention that, in a teleporter accident, you might end up with your lower body in one place and your torso in another. or the thing goes crazy (a bit like Netscape and/or Outlook Express when they post to Usenet) and creates multiple copies of you, all convinced that they are the original.

    I remember a long joking discussion about what would happen to your "soul" in such a case...

  • The Mollner thing has been on /. a few times already. Between the "this is sweet" posts and the "this guy has been trying for umpteen years and hasn't shown that he knows what he's doing" ones, I say wait and see.

    if I wanted to fly, I tihnk I'd rather try a paraglider instead. sounds like a lot less stressing than these.

  • This is NOT the Mohller (sp?) air car, which has been in the works for more than 30 years.

    The air car is supposedly in actual FAA certification testing this year though, so it's about to become a reality.

    Flying is expensive and requires a LOT more attention and training than most people are willing to put out.

  • the Coolest Thing Ever? (Score:3)

    by Kartoffel ( 30238 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @07:08AM (#1678266)
    Certainly every reader would love get one of these things, but I seriously doubt it will ever catch on or become affordable.

    Recall those advertisements in the 80's for the Amazing Air Car (send $19.95 for plans!).

    Or what about the autogyro? Short takeoff, vertical landing, cheap to operate, fits in a garage, cheap and easy to fly.... and hardly anyone has one.

    NASA throws tons of money at all kinds of things that never come to pass. I sincerely hope they get it working.

  • Slashdotted... (Score:3)

    by BugMaster ChuckyD ( 18439 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @07:22AM (#1678267)
    I saw this article on the CNN website 5 or 6 hours ago and tried to take a look at the company's web site and it looked like that it couldn't standup to the CNN Effect! So I'd bet it can't stand up to both that and the /. effect at the same time! (Then again I can't get through to /. half the time anyway) I'd bet that CNN gets more hits than /. but I would think that alot less people follow links out of CNN than they do out of /.

    In anycase this air scooter thing looks very interesting if it ever works out.
  • My new SUV barely gets 20 MPG that will be impressive to see if and when this were to actually get off the ground (yes pun intended). Of course by the time this does exist, I really hope we still ain't using gas.....

  • Oh yeah -- this guy (Score:4)

    by Tim Behrendsen ( 89573 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @08:00AM (#1678269)

    I got excited about 15 years ago when this same guy claimed to be getting ready to start trials of a personal VTOL aircraft. That company cratered (I might even have the original brochures).

    Forgive me if I take a "wait and see" approach to this one. :)

  • Long ago, SciFi writers, such as the late Robert Heinlein, used to write about a future in which we all had helicopters in our garages. Well, helicopters are here, and should any major auto maker choose to build them in quantity, they should be roughly as cheap as a luxury SUV. So, why don't most of us have a whirlybird to go to work in? The simple answer is that the skills required to fly a helicopter are a lot more difficult to acquire than the skills required to drive an automobile. (And, we have all seen how badly some people do with *those*!) I predict that this new innovation, though perhaps it will penetrate a bit further than the helicopter, will primarily be the toy of the rich, and the tool of law enforcement. Just like the helicopter.
  • Yea, but atleast you have to have had training to operate it. Or be able to crack the security. Either way I'd trust an operator of one much more than a typical car... Of course, untill the burocrats get a hold of the notion that it is everyone "right" to be able to own their own flyer.
  • Yup. Slashdot seems to be slashdotted for me a lot of the time too! The hump is in the middle of the day, and by evening I can connect reliably.

    Anyway, affordable air transportation is already available. Anyone can go out and buy a hang-glider type ultralight aircraft brand new for about $6000, which should be affordable for a lot of geeks with a job. The trouble is that these ultralights kill a lot of people when they crash! You don't need a license, so many people just buy them and try to fly them. Gravity is a teacher that only grudgingly gives make-up exams.

    Maintenance is another problem. Pison engines need to have regular maintenance to be reliable, and some parts should be replaced not when they are broken, but when they have a certain number of hours on them. Sloppy maintenance will kill you too.

    Still, I'm happy to see that people are still working on the problem. Sometime in my life I want to get my private pilot's license, and it would be nice to have a tiny personal aircraft that would be cheap to buy and cheap to keep. That means I need to keep it in my garage, not in a rental hangar at the airport.

  • Other things to do (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That thing looks cool. Maybe when it starts shipping, we'll all be too busy flying that all the AC's won't have enough time to try and get the first post

  • Could this be feasible for the public? (Score:5)

    by Daffy Duck ( 17350 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @10:43AM (#1678276) Homepage
    Suppose these things are cheap enough to mass-produce or perhaps mass-produced enough to be cheap. Suppose also that every owner gets whatever training is necessary. Then you can say goodbye to the oft-mentioned fantasy of chuckling to yourself as you serenely fly over the traffic jams below, because now the sky is full of people who used to be driving. What kind of flight-control, traffic-control, and safety systems would be required to make them safe? Well, as safe as car traffic is now, for argument's sake.

    Unless every unit is centrally controlled or has on-board 3D radar coupled to the nav system (and would you really trust that anyway?), you can't just let people fly wherever they want at 80 MPH. I'm not a pilot, so maybe those of you who are can enlighten us on airspace regulations. Would there be a minimum altitude for "high" speed travel? Would different altitude ranges be reserved for different headings?

    How about failure modes? Are emergency parachutes enough? Mars-lander-type external airbags? What about the traffic below you? Compressed helium and emergency balloons?

    It seems like there are a lot of issues to be resolved apart from mechanical and economic feasibility. Does anyone know what the state-of-the-art thinking is here?

  • Mirrors for solotek website? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Does anybody know of (or have themselves) any mirrors of Soloteks website? The article hasn't been on Slashdot for very long..... CNN linked to it. As someone said, is this the CNN effect?

    If you have one reply to this message with it! Thanks!
    -----
    Cool Linux Project of the Week [xoom.com]
    Coming soon.... October 1st!
  • i still remember the old 1992 'popular-science' article on the molner flying car that was supposed to be released in early 1999. i hear stuff on that only occationally. i am now forced to wonder if this idea will go the way of the flying car as well. it seems a good idea, expecially (imo) the extended training program, but, i see a lot of problems with it, not the least of which being cost. because of these problems, i am forced to ask a few questions:

    how much would something like this cost?
    would you have to be in contact with air-traffic control?
    if so would you have to pay for air-traffic control services?
    do i really want to spend $100000+ for the opportunity to get hit by a 747?
    do i want to wait for the molner aircar so i can take a girl out on a date or just stap her to the backpack?
    will it come equipped with a lightning rod?
    am/fm/cassette?
    do i want the possibility of crashing due to an inability to see during a rainstorm just so i can have the freedom of a flying motorcycle?
    how much will my insurance go up?
    will the have an option for hydrogen or electric power instead of petrol?
    can i get it in electic purple?
    will the guidance system (if any) run on linux?

    i have many other questions but those constitute the major ones. in conclusion, i wonder if this will ever take off, and if so, will it be worth giving up my car?

  • Skycar (Score:3)

    by Mazzella! ( 16436 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @12:36PM (#1678281)
    Moller International [moller.com] of Davis California has a full blown Skycar [moller.com] It uses 8 Wankel Rotary Engines(? [blockstackers.com]) (ala Mazda RX-7) the M400 [moller.com] gets 15 MPG (like the RX-7 too) and top speed of 390 mph (uh, not like the RX-7). The M150 [moller.com] gets 45 MPG and a top speed of 375 MPH. Cnet did a write-up of it a few weeks ago (that I sent into /. but was never posted), and can be found on the Rotary News site [cep.net]
  • Gee, wow, another "personal flying machine that will allow commuters to cruise above traffic" piece. These creep up every few years, along with articles about household robots and home-control technology. Sheesh. The only thing more annoying than pieces like this are those smug "Technology fans are dreamy irresponsible fuggheads because they predicted all this neat stuff and all we got are A-Bombs and DDT! Back to the caves now!" things that clueless lefties churn out.
  • I don't have the URL handy, but you can buy low end helicopters in kit form for $50K. Naturally this doesn't count the cost of the time to assemble it, the time spent learning how to fly it, and maintainence. Nevertheless, the up front cost is definitely in SUV range.

    Just another anal-retentive AC.

  • air car sounds more practical (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Slashdot recently carried a story on "air cars" (wonder how the initial trial turned out?) - travelling up to 300 miles on a tank of gas, up to about 450 miles per hour. Needless to say, I don't want Joe Blow piloting one of these. The most likely outcome of the popularity of mass air transit is that we'll see a lot more automation (computerization) of flight. i.e. you'll tell the scooter where you want to go; it'll automatically file for a flight plan and take you to the nearest parking area; you'll then walk the rest of the way.
  • I tend to agree with much of the sentiment generated here about the (non) validity of using these things for your everyday commute. However, assuming this flying gizmo actually makes it to production, there might be some very good/interesting uses for them:

    [0] recreation, as has been previously mentioned

    [1] wilderness search and rescue

    [2] forest fire fighting

    [3] military activities (obviously)

    In fact, altho i'm no parachutist, if these things can hand 10,000 feet, I would guess that you could potentially forget about the parachute and just cruise out the back of a plane with one of these things. It might give you more choice of landing spots, and would give you mobility after you hit [sic] the ground.

  • Yeah, but Moller isn't working with NASA.
    Uh, read this [moller.com] (DARPA,U.S. Air Force,General Electric,NASA, CALTRANS, U.S. Navy, ...)
    I would bet a simpler personal air buggy will start working long before a more complex one
    I'd rather have a body around me... The same reason I drive a sports car instead of a motorcycle. Not saying that motorcycles are unsafe, but I feel safer in my RX-7.
    I think this guy beats Moller cold
    Uh, ok.
  • If these things take off (no pun intended), I think the skies are going to have serious problems. This would be the transportation equivalent of the internet, people just wouldn't know what to do with it....

    But, think about all the safety peripherals that will have to be developed before these things will be released to the general public.

    -- Moondog
  • these things are gonna be way to expensive, plus they run on gasoline which we all know we'll run out of soon. I think the gov should lay electrical cable in the center of all roads. Cars would be electric, when you got home you'd charge up your car in your garage, when you went to work you'd only have to use the battery for small hops to the highway, once you were on the highway you'd lower your electrical probe and jack into the highway electrical system. Your car would have to log in to the network, and depending on how long you were logged in you'd be charged for that. This would prevent the problem of having to deal with wimpy batteries so you could go on long trips, and electrical cars could be bigger than golfcarts. Of coarse there would be problems with kids wandering into the streets and licking the electrical lines ect. but overall this would prevent the problems of gasoline powerd cars, and you woulnd't have to worry about drunken folks trying to take out the white house, or buzzing your house late at night.
    char *stupidsig = "this is my dumb sig";
  • The Moller-type sky car will never fly more than a foot or two above the ground, and I doubt even that. The man is, unfortunately, a crank. And he's been cranking out this hype for at least 15 years.

    There are a few successful aviation one-man shows. If you look at them, every one of them started small; built something simple, flew it for a long time, then built something else -- perhaps something more revolutionary and complex. In the last fifty years there have been only two people who could have pulled this off, Molt Taylor (of the AirCar) and Burt Rutan (Voyager, Vari-Eze, Boomerang).

    Moller has never built anything, to my knowledge, that has flown without being tethered down. The control systems for powered lift are incredibly complex, and he has shown absolutely no ability to produce one. What he has shown is pretty fiberglass sculptures and some slick ads. Unfortunately, these are quite simple to produce in comparison.

    Think about it. Did any prototype program that you've ever written come with the equivalent of an inch-deep red paint job? No! Of course not. Prototypes look prototype-y, because you want to be able to make changes, learn from your mistakes, repair your damage, rebuild quickly. Look at the Gossamer Condor in the Smilthsonian next time you are there. The two wings aren't even built the same, as they were destroyed in crashes, and improved, at different times along the development process.

    He's a crank, and has every single attribute of cranks, and none of the attributes of engineering. In the New Scientist' article, [newscientist.com] Moller says that he's never flown the M200 without a cable attached to a crane 'because neither Moller nor the vehicle are licensed to fly.' Right.

    Well, he's lovable, anyway. And the history of aviation has many more cranks than people who could follow through. And people want to believe. Hell, I want to believe!

    thad

  • You bet that NASA will get the bugs worked out of it. I doubt that they will be selling the plans anytime soon though. Think of the military uses for a small transport like this. They can build 1000's of these for the price of one helicopter. I bet we will see the US Military using this a long time before the general public.
  • Only because there are a lot more cars on the road, and planes have trained pilots.

    Exactly. When was te last time you saw a ninty year old granny flying with the left hand stobe lights on eh?

    Anyone can get a drivers license. You have to be fit, well and capable to fly.
  • What I mean is that, all other things being equal, planes are more dangerous than cars - obviously. The factors that I mentioned would no longer apply if cars were replaced by air cars. Hence, the fact that planes are safer now is irrelevant.
  • suddenly these things are everywhere, there's air jams, milage goes down, popularity wears off

    I don't buy this prediction that once everybody has an air car, there will suddenly be "air jams". Remember that there is much much more space in the air (a 3D volume) than there is on the ground (a 2D surface, and you only get to use the paved parts of it). Sure, in the short run there will probably be heavy traffic around airports or other "approved flying areas", but once every car is fitted with its own GPS auto-nav system and can land and take off from anywhere, I don't think there will be any problems at all. Too much traffic at 2500 feet? Okay, fly at 2550!
  • I'm just thinking...a device like this would make the getaway from a bank robbery very easy. [...] Either the police would have to have to keep pace with the average purchasing for these things or thre would have to be some way to track them (portable radar?) so police wouldn't need helicopters for each chase.

    Three letters: S.A.M.
  • Oh, you still believe that oil is rotten plants. Oil is carbon from the Earth's crust [cornell.edu]. It was even noticed that one oil field got more oil [doe.gov].

    There was also a recent report that scientists drilled through a virgin rock shield off Norway, where there should be no oil, and found oil. That rock did not form over any old surface rocks, so the oil must have come from deep in the crust.

    Nevertheless, we can convert carbon waste into fuels [go.com] with a little energy.

  • No, planes are not more dangerous than cars.

    There are more rules to flying than driving, they're actually enforced on all planes and there are no wankers in the air. Planes are adequately separated and vertically spaced... shall I go on.

    If I were driving and yanked the wheel to the right at top speed, what would happen? Death would surely ensue. If I were flying at Va (maximum speed for full control deflection) and yanked the wheel to the right, I'd barrel roll the plane, but I wouldn't die.

    Planes are much safer than cars. The people controlling them know it and they respect their surroundings, unlike 80% of drivers on the roads.
  • The web page for the Solo Trek XFV says it has been "... engineered to deliver 100% fail-safe efficient performance." Nothing is 100% fail-safe, and, so far, nothing is 100% efficient. If this first paragraph is any indication of their credibility, I'm not going to look for a dealer near me any time soon.

    Their FAQ is full of inconsistencies. It doesn't list any pre-flight check for water in the fuel... a regular part of every pilot's pre-flight. They think that making everything "three times stronger" makes it "fail safe". They rely on "sensors" to tell the pilot of a problem (like, presumably, the sensor that tells if the pilot has not programmed in his/her correct weight; the question that springs to mind is "why program it in when there is a sensor that can detect it?). According to the FAQ, the SoloTrek "can be flown and landed in the event of a complete electrical system malfunction". So what fires its spark plugs and the "electronic timing" and fuel injection mentioned in the second point of the FAQ? And it doesn't take much imagination to consider the dramatic consequences of an automatic deployment of their ballistic parachute when one is, for instance, over water. (Or maybe they have a sensor for this).

    While helicopters can, theoretically, "auto-rotate" to a safe landing in the event of power failure, they often fail to do so. Even in the hands of professional operators with thousands of hours of experience. And with deadly results. This ducted-fan device doesn't have anywhere close to the wing area of a helicopter blade. It seems to me that it would have the glide-angle of a brick.

    Flying machines are terribly intolerant of incompetence; the one thing we seem to be overloaded with in this world lately. This is what is likely to make the operators of these things road-kill in the backyards of homes under their flight paths. Imagine the same mentality as the people who operate jet-skiis applied to this contraption and remember that you can at least stop a jet-ski and think it over for a while.

    Flying to work isn't a matter of just strapping in and taking off. Remember all the times you drove to work in nice weather and drove home in almost zero-visibility? Visit the web site of this outfit and try to find an instrument cluster. Now try to imagine just how difficult it would be to fly one on instruments even if they had them. Finally, consider that the FAA doesn't just let you fly on instruments whenever you like... you need licenses and clearances and transponders and... well, you get the idea.

    The FAA (and other agencies in other countries) have rules for aircraft based mostly on the fact that an amazing number of idiots think they can just climb in and take off. ("Hey! How hard can it be?") These rules apply most stringently in the very areas (congested cities) where these devices would be most useful. Rules like staying 1,000 feet above populated areas, like not flying in less than 3 miles of visibility (remember JFK Jr?), and staying clear - way clear - of clouds.

    Their FAQ also seems to imply that anything over 100 feet above the ground (and how would this system know it was more than 100 feet "above the ground"?) is less safe... fully 400 feet below the minimum altitude the FAA requires over unpopulated areas.

    I have flown airplanes and gliders (if you want to forget your problems, just try keeping a heavier-than-air vehicle aloft for a few hours with nothing more powerful than "up drafts") since 1970 and can remember seeing literally dozens of these ideas come and go, from the "air-car" of the 1950s to this. Some of them had prototypes and many of these flew. But the realities of flying rendered them impractical in the marketplace.

  • ... on the way to crash.

    I've seen...

  • Awesome!

    One thing though... I had that idea 3 years ago when I first saw the replacement for a ski-lift, a great big fan you strap on your back. Of course that'd be fun to use on the way back down, probably add 30 mph to your impact :-)

    Patrick Barrett
    Yebyen@adelphia.net

  • To be completely honest about the whole thing, if by some chance someone did come up with a cost effective personal flying device I'm sure it would be limited to a couple of things.

    Firstly, I don't think they'd be allowed in the same airspace as current tech planes. The max flight height would probably be less than 700 feet.

    Flight paths would have to follow 'roads' like light poles with beacons on the top or someting and finally,

    Weather would all of a sudden make a difference as to when you could and could not go out. I can honestly say I've been on the road in some pretty bad conditions (so bad I ended up pulling off the road) and flying in worse, but, in the plane at least you can fly around the storm cells.
  • I'd rather have a Springwalker [springwalker.com]!

    And I bet they'll be hitting the market about the same time....

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Do you hear that? It's the sound of a million
    slashdot readers across the world all going
    "pfft" at the same time :)

  • Saftey? Nahhhhhhhhh! (Score:5)

    by Telemann ( 71939 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @11:20AM (#1678313)
    I suspect that traffic would not immediately become a problem even if the vehicles were affordable for a few reasons. People wouldn't trust the things. They would be intimidated by the "rigorous training" required and the fact that you die if you screw up. (Even if this isn't true it is a misconception that solotrek will have to overcome for the device to become popular.)

    As I don't expect that the air traffic would reach the volume it has on the ground I suspect that one easy way to avoid stupid collisions is to designate the vehicles "VFR only" or "visual flight regs only." If you can't see, say, more than a mile, (smog, clouds, fog, whatever) then you can't go up. I live in Alaska where small planes are very very common. In my home town, pop 307, there are usually at least 25 planes at the airport (a .25 mile strip of flat dirt with no terminal at all.) Alaskan citizens log more flight hours on average than citizens in any other place in the world (though that is an old statistic.) Most of these small planes are VFR and can not fly when it's foggy, but that's about the only law that the bush pilots up here have to deal with (unless they are approaching an airport.)

    As for safety, unless those things are heavier than they look I suspect that some of the safety tech developed for ultra-lights and small aircraft could be used. Nifty toys such as CO2 deployed parachutes have been in use in these areas for quite a while now. Make it a standard feature and hook it to the altimeter.

    I sure as hell want one.

    -Telemann
  • The way some people drive, I can't wait till the first pile-up comes crashing down into my backyard...

    In fact, this will do wonders for security-- got a barbed wire fence around your property? Hah!

    News for nerds indeed,
    W
    -------------------

  • Re:will it happen? will it be worth it? (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 16, 1999 @11:26AM (#1678315)
    To clarify:

    This is the Moller M400 Skycar he's referring to, I assume, found at http://www.moller.com [moller.com]. I can answer a lot of points (I've read a lot on this car):

    They hope to sell them for $60,000 each.

    There is no air-traffic control. They hope to develop a GPS-based autoguidance system built into each and every car, and have cars follow GPS-paved "lanes" in the sky. Cars could keep in touch with each other's GPS signals, and would fly themselves, eventually. For the first couple years, these cars would be manually operated and require a new type of FAA license.

    These are designed to be flown at around 1000 feet, and have a ceiling of 30,000 feet. If you go smacking one of these into a 747 (which cruise at 25-33,000 feet), that's your own decision.

    These can only be flown between licensed "vertiports" (renamed helicopter pads). The point of these is for personal city-to-city transport, not driving around in a city (though if your place of work has a helicopter pad, more power to you.)

    You shouldn't fly in a rainstorm. If you *want* to, well, remember: You're not a driver, you're a pilot. This is more plane than car. It's possible to fly in a light rain... and hopefully they'll have that GPS guidance up soon.

    Why would you WANT hydrogen or electric power? It'd be less efficient than these things. They use a new type of wankel engine that's far more efficient than any combustion engine mass-produced before, and the M400 gets 15 miles to the gallon. (The M150 single-seater gets 45mpg, but they won't build it, no matter how many times I E-mail them that they need to.)

    They've been successfully testing a predecessor, the M200, for a while now... they're going to be doing the first tests of the M400 literally any day now. They hope to get a production run started by the end of this year, although realistically, it will probably be the first part of next year before they start pumping these sweet things out. In the meantime, a $5000 deposit gets you a position on a waiting list for one of these.

    No clue what the guidance system will work on. And if you wanna get it painted purple, go for it.

  • This is pathetic (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hello? Does anyone remember a little company called Moller International?

    First of all, this is far from like the skateboard in back to the future - this thing has 2 huge engines (described as hoola-hoop sized in the article I read), only goes 80, etc. This is dwarfed by what Moller has done; Moller is further along, cheaper, have better milage by far for how much they carry, much much faster, fly by wire, look cooler, many many times more safety features (some of which look really sweet)... in short, this is a really pathetic, backwards attempt at a personal vehicle.

    If you don't know what I'm talking about when I mention Moller International, they're the people developing the Skycar which was mentioned here, what, a month ago? I think their web site is www.moller.com

    I want one ;) hehee

    - Rei
  • Wow, my car just broke down, but why bother fixing it when I can get one of these things? "Roads? Where we're going we won't need ...roads." And I imagine finding a parking space won't be such a big problem if I can just find some unlocked roof entrances... wow this is great...


  • People shouldn't dismiss this stuff too quick because it seems too "sci-fi-ey." I wasn't around, but I hear that the whole concept of global, two way television communications (in color, no less) was pretty laughable in 1949 when Orwell published 1984, too. Ideas in sci-fi novels are becoming reality all the time (well, the rational ones anyways). I used videoconferencing not ten minutes ago. So deal. :)

    I don't think anyone can really appreciate the uses for this until they've lived in a truly bustling metropolis. In New York it takes literally an hour to go two miles. Not to state the obvious, but that's how it is. I would guess that many a monied stockbrocker, lawyer, or accountant with a sense for adventure would jump at the chance to buy one. Oh yeah, and me. I'd buy one too. :) Heh and bicycle couriering would suddenly go from a low paying, pretty cruddy job to a you-pay-us, well-let-you-fly type deal available only to playboys with money to burn.
  • Don't forget also that the consequences of crashing a flying vehicle will generally be much more severe than those of crashing a car. Wrecking a car at high speed *sometimes* results in a fatality, but falling out of the sky in one of these would kill you, and anyone under you! Do *you* want the people you see driving around you flying above you? I don't! (And as for training... most people driving have years or decades of experience, but people keep crashing!)

  • blah, that solotrek one looks like one of the characters from quake2 (you know the one with the two spinning fans raised slightly above his head)

    Icarus.

  • From their site:

    How much will it cost?
    In limited production (500 units per year) the M400 Skycar will sell for a price comparable to that of a four passenger high performance helicopter or airplane, approximately $1 Million. As the volume of production increases substantially, its price can approach that of a luxury automobile.

    What is taking so long?
    Revolutionary ideas are not born overnight. We have been in development for 30 years and have several prototypes and concept vehicles flying. The progress of the M400 is on a very quick schedule when you review the man-hours and dollars expended. Only $100 Million has been spent in R & D at Moller International, compare this to the $1.2 Billion required for the gearbox design on the Bell-Boeing V22 Osprey.

    Oh! only 100 million. Shit I thought it was more that had to be recovered in R&D

    Remeber, this has to come out of the profit margin so let's see;

    500 per year, costs are $1 million each
    let's say...
    50,000 per year, cost would be $60,000 each as you say. Let's see now, scale the plant up from 500 to 50,000/year, suddenly these things are everywhere, there's air jams, milage goes down, popularity wears off, what ever.

    There is no way you can build a million dollar vehicle (to begin with) for less than 10% on a mass scale
  • "Mainenance demands for airplanes have gone done as well, and the anal level of checks/fixins is the cost of very safe transportation. "

    I think your spell-checker is a bit off.
  • Next up: Disney will be suing these folks for copyright infringement. I want a jet pack. Just imagine: when your boss is about to give you a big, long, and tedious project, you can literally 'jet' out of harms way. The only problem is though, you'd have to watch out for the ceiling tiles, and then carry a fire extinguisher around with you. Even if you didn't start a fire, you could taunt all your evil Catbert© hired co-workers. :)

  • "You are 10 times more likely to die on the road on a ten minute trip to the airport than a 12 hour flight to Europe"

    Hmmm... somehow I doubt this. Perhaps you meant to say "You are 10 times more likely to die on the road than on a commercial flight, assuming you drive and fly an average amount". Or, possibly, "You are 10 times more likely to die in 1000 miles of driving than in 1000 miles of flying on commercial flights".

    Of course, if you really meant that a single 10-minute drive is 10 times as likely to kill you than a single flight across the Atlantic, I'd love to see some supporting data. ;)
  • ..and they named it 'Floyd'.
  • In the inevitable future when everyone has one of these and those pesky groups of kids/drunks/peeping toms (pick one or more) keep hovering over your house, what are you to do?

    Happily, /. holds the answer - build the largest roof mounted HERF Gun [slashdot.org] your house will hold, and watch them drop like flies.

    As for me, I have a small airport right by where I work - should make for an exciting trip to work every day dodging the private jets!
  • The other problem with helicopters, and with any air vehicle, is it takes a tremondous amount of time to keep it tuned up and working properly. You don't exactly want a malfunction at 5,000 ft, do you?
    Helicopters cost thousands of dollars just in spare parts to be kept up. Fuel is extremely expensive, and you need to hire mechanics to check it out after so many flights, etc. Sure, newer military helis don't need as much time for repairing, but they cost around $6.5 million a pop. Spendy little suckers
  • It seems like a vehicle like this would be considerably easier to operate than a helicopter because of its dual rotors. Many of the most difficult skills in flying a helicopter are directly related to the single rotor setup. You have to use foot pedals to control a side rotor to compensate for the torque of the main rotor. You even have to control the pitch of the main rotor because one side gets more lift than the other. Dual rotors would cancel out these effects.

    These things seem like they'd be incredibly fun to use, and incredibly dangerous at the same time.

    Air Scooter is to Helicopter as
    Motorcycle is to Car.

    Basically you get all the danger of a motorcycle multiplied by all the danger of a helicopter. Good luck finding air scooter insurance.

  • Get Real (Score:3)

    by Murphy(c) ( 41125 ) on Thursday September 16, 1999 @11:42AM (#1678334)
    I won't even come back on the fact that we've all seen the "Incredible flying car/bicycle/moto/horse/slashdot", (only one of those actually fly!:) ).
    Anyway, there is something that will always keep us, the mere money impaired mortals, on the ground. And that is the running/maintenance costs.
    Somebody befor mentioned that helicopters could now be manufactured in large numbers and if that happened they wouldn't cost that much. Well let's just remember that maintnance cost on those babies are incredible. For one thing the security checks are a lot more demanding on somthing that is going to fly over your head, than on cars for example. If your car breaks down, you can simply pull it on the side of the road, but if you're actually flying, well, it just hurts a tiny wee bit more when you finaly hit the side of the road.
    Just remember that a chopper goes through a complete engin check every 30'000 flight hours, and on a turbine engin the *simple* check can cost you all the way up to 15k.

    So to make it short, Yhea sure it could be a fine leisure/sport, like parasailing, hanglinding, etc.. but get real, it's just not for every day commute.

    Murphy(c)
  • In short, no. Why? I hear you ask. As a pilot, let me begin.

    Suppose these things are cheap enough to mass-produce or perhaps mass-produced enough to be cheap. Suppose also that every owner gets whatever training is necessary. Then you can say goodbye to the oft-mentioned fantasy of chuckling to yourself as you serenely fly over the traffic jams below, because now the sky is full of people who used to be driving. What kind of flight-control, traffic-control, and safety systems would be required to make them safe?

    Something better than what we have now, which is so good, there hasn't been a mid-air for a decade. Seperation standards put heavy jets (>500,000lbs) at 3Nm, medium at 2Nm and light (the class this would be in) at visual separation.

    Well, as safe as car traffic is now, for argument's sake.

    You are 10 times more likely to die on the road on a ten minute trip to the airport than a 12 hour flight to Europe

    Unless every unit is centrally controlled or has on-board 3D radar coupled to the nav system (and would you really trust that anyway?), you can't just let people fly wherever they want at 80 MPH.

    This thing is fly by cable. i.e. all human input. No radar, no nav - all visual, so forget rainy days.

    I'm not a pilot, so maybe those of you who are can enlighten us on airspace regulations. Would there be a minimum altitude for "high" speed travel?

    Not above 250Mph below 10,000 feet

    Would different altitude ranges be reserved for different headings?

    East - even 1000's (2500, 4500, 6500, etc)
    West - odd 1000's (1500, 3500, 5500, etc)

    How about failure modes? Are emergency parachutes enough?

    Yes

    Mars-lander-type external airbags? What about the traffic below you? Compressed helium and emergency balloons?

    No

    It seems like there are a lot of issues to be resolved apart from mechanical and economic feasibility. Does anyone know what the state-of-the-art thinking is here?

    Seemed like a good idea at the time!

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