Have you ever wondered why the idea of flying cars excites people so much, despite helicopters already existing? šāļø #flyingcars #helicopters #futuretech
### Exploring the Fascination with Flying Cars
#### What Makes Flying Cars Different from Helicopters?
– **Technological Innovation:** Flying cars represent a new level of technological advancement, combining elements of cars and aircraft.
– **Accessibility:** While helicopters are limited in terms of where they can land, flying cars could potentially provide more freedom and accessibility.
– **Aesthetics:** The futuristic concept of flying cars captures the imagination in a way that traditional helicopters may not.
#### Considering the Practicality of Flying Cars
– **Traffic Congestion:** Flying cars could potentially alleviate traffic congestion by utilizing the sky as a pathway.
– **Efficiency:** Flying cars may offer a more efficient mode of transportation in certain scenarios, making travel quicker and more convenient.
– **Environmental Impact:** Exploring the environmental implications of flying cars compared to helicopters and other modes of transportation.
So, why the fascination with flying cars when helicopters already serve a similar purpose? Join the conversation and share your thoughts! #transportation #innovation #futureoftravel
Because a helicopter is a very different vehicle from a currently existing automobile that would, in this hypothetical situation, be able to fly.
And *most* people aren’t remotely interested in this in the first place.
Because The Jetsons promised us flying vehicles that everyone could afford as daily transportation, the most people don’t graduate beyond believing cartoons are real.
The idea of a car is that everyone has one. Helicopters are only the rich.
When was the last time you parked your helicopter in your driveway?
Because we will need to start stacking traffic lanes on top of each other. It will take incredible feats of engineering to maintain separation.
I blame Henry Ford the American genius he was he promised Planes in everyone’s drive way and it never happened, I’m not even American but I knew it would have eventually crossed over the pond!
Helicopters with wheels aren’t flying cars, they’re driving helicopters.
Jetpacks would be better than flying cars. Less collateral damage from crashing.
Blades of death mostly
Helicopters expensive and confusing. Cars much more accessible and familiar. Iāll never get to fly a helicopter but I bet I could fly a car (ya knowā¦ if that was a thing)
The idea of flying cars is that they’ll be accessible and purchasable (eventually) at the same sort of price as cars are now. Helicopters are prohibitively expensive for most people.
BTTF made them look so cool.
thanks for the feedback peeps, makes alot of sense
Before I got into aviation I thought flying cars where ridiculous and stupid, after getting into aviation, I am scared of the idea of the average joe being able to fly.
People want to believe in a flying car that *feels* as safe as driving (driving is actually much more dangerous than flying but thatās another discussion).
Also, the smallest, cheapest helicopter you can operate that isnāt a homebuilt is a Robinson R22. Their operating costs are roughly $400 per hour. I donāt imagine people are going to be thrilled with a āflying carā that would cost them a large mortgage *every week* to operate.Ā
We have flying cars. No one can afford one. Just up size drones including on board controls. Anyone want to front me a few million I’ll build you a prototype.
What I don’t get is that once you have a flying car, why would you ever drive it on a road?
Do you have a helicopter?
It has to do with the history of science fiction, specifically with the concept of anti-gravity.
The idea is actually almost as old as science fiction itself: if we have anti-matter, maybe we could also find anti-gravity? It was an idea several scientists played around with and Sci-Fi authors jumped at this, because the possible existence of anti-gravity would solve a lot of problems with interplanetary travel: we could accelerate a spaceship to almost the speed of light without squishing the crew into a fine paste and we can create artificial gravity, which allows us to film a space movie on Earth without having to simulate a zero-G environment.
Once we have anti-gravity, flying cars, people and hoverboards are a trivial side-technology. And that’s why every Sci-Fi setting has floating stuff. (Except for hard Sci-Fi, because actual research could not provide any hint for the possible existence of anti-gravity. Scientists are now fairly sure no such thing exists.)
So in the mind of the general public, flying cars (the quietly hovering version, not the loud, obnoxious ones that actually exist, like helicopters or such) are equivalent to futuristic tech. But alas, it seems we will never have them.
Because theyāre not exactly affordable or practical for everyday use – theyāre big, expensive, require specialist maintenance, and even more specialist pilot training. Whereas the concept of a flying car would be that theyāre available to all (sort of) – small enough to park at home, drive on the street when not in flying mode, easy to maintain and also requiring not much more training than regular driver training.
For all these reasons I really canāt see them ever taking off (pun intended š¬) no matter the technological advancements, unless theyāre self-flying taxi-like vehicles.
One thing which seems to always be a feature of them is rotors, for vertical lift obviously. But these are hugely inefficient and massively dangerous when in proximity of people – the whole comedy slicing and dicing effect!
I think efforts and investment should be better put into advancing cheap and available mass transit instead.
Because you can drive it too.
Outside of the fact that they both happen to fly, hellicopters and flying cars aren’t remotely comparable lol
Helicopters arenāt cheap. Not convenient. Canāt park wherever. A flying car though.., would be cheaper, and you can park anywhere. DUH
The implication with flying cars is that anyone that has a drivers license would be able to get one and they’d be similarly available or affordable like cars too.
Seeing how people drive their cars proves that this is a concept well beyond science fiction and traverses into fantasy.
A flying car in the imagination of people is a thing for personal use like a regular, ordinary, terrestrial car. A helicopter is not really useful as a household good because of the amount of space it needs and expensive they are to keep em running.
Flying cars in futurist media characterizes them as something a household uses, which would need to be very unlike a helicopter.
Psst. Guy thinks helicopters are real
I, like you, was of the “you mean *helicopters?!*” persuasion but reading this thread has made me see that “flying car” actually means “helicopter I can afford, that I know how to fly, that has no rotor, that requires no maintenance”.
Yeah, good luck with that, everyone.
Nobody is interested in flying cars. It’s a rich people fever dream.
You can’t use a helicopter for most of the things people use a car for, like going from your driveway to the local supermarket and back. Most people couldn’t even use a helicopter to commute to work. There’s no place to takeoff and land at either end of the trip. You’d have to use the nearest airports.
Most people envision a flying car being something that could take you from your point of origin to your destination without changing vehicles. For instance, you could drive it from your home like a normal car. When you reach a place where it’s safe to do so, you deploy your wings (or whatever keeps the thing aloft) and takeoff. You land in a similar location near your destination, retract your wings, and drive like a normal car the final leg of the trip.
The “flying car” promised by sci-fi and future predictions is one that can float in the air without a propeller, wings, expenditure of a huge amount of energy, piloting skills, complex machinery with multiple levels of redundancy, specialized safety certifications, or anything else that is required for current aircraft that makes them massively expensive and inaccessible to the general public.
So basically some sort of cheap and super reliable anti-gravity system. We just don’t have that, and there is no indication that it’s coming anytime soon.
Because wouldn’t it be great if your car could fly? You could get in your car and fly to where you’re going, it would be much quicker. You could also drive on the road when necessary.
Seems pretty obvious why people would want flying cars.
Iām interested in flying cars because I want to watch the spectacle once everyone in Los Angeles has one šæ
Because the average person doesn’t own a helicopter