Technology @lemmy.world Hossenfeffer @feddit.uk 3mo ago

Watch: A real-life flying car takes to the skies

www.bbc.co.uk Watch: A real-life flying car takes to the skies

From science-fiction to the real world, flying cars are here - but could the concept actually take off?

When will news media stop falling for this shit?

Oh, yes, when it stops generating clicks. I am part of the problem.

38 comments

I've seen plenty of working flying cars since the late 90's.

Word to the media: don't bother us with this shit until they have a working idea on how to monitor and regulate the shit so we can all have flying cars and not just one dude's stupid prototype. The hard thing isn't making a car that can fly. That shit is relatively easy. The hard part is figuring out how air traffic would work if everyone was up there. It's already a PITA and there aren't a helluva lot of planes compared to cars.
- I’ve already seen how ordinary people drive in two dimensions. Three dimensions is an impossible ask.
  
  I always find it amusing when sci Fi games with flying cars have them still driving in imaginary floating highways, it's like they know they would regulate it into 2D autopilot sky roads somehow
  
  So now we have to look both ways AND up to make sure some moron doesnt drop a car on my head?
  
  Fuck that noise...
- Whenever someone talks about practical, real-life flying cars, regulation is the first thing I think about, too. How will they be sure that some dipshit isn’t texting while flying over a school?
- Unfortunately, we don't monitor and regulate things here in the US anymore
  
  Unless the thing in question is an immigrant
  
  We do; but only gays, blacks, trans people, immigrants, and women.
- I've seen plenty too. They fly over sometimes. I believe they are called "helicopters".
- Word to the media: don't bother us with this shit until they have a working idea on how to monitor and regulate the shit so we can all have flying cars and not just one dude's stupid prototype. The hard thing isn't making a car that can fly. That shit is relatively easy. The hard part is figuring out how air traffic would work if everyone was up there. It's already a PITA and there aren't a helluva lot of planes compared to cars.
  
  If they're all automated and coordinating, NASA has put a lot of effort into researching how to coordinate a swarm of airborne agents with diverse goals.. I'd imagine that these prototypes have gotten further development and a reality-collision as drone systems have been deployed and evolving in the Ukrainian theatre. The tech for this might actually finally be ready.
Calling this thing a "real life flying" car is generous. This thing just looks like a mock-up at best and it didn't appear to even have a driver/pilot during the demo.

This thing will be bad in the air and bad on the ground.
- It looks like how I drew cars when I was 5 years old (who am I kidding, it would probably still look like that if I attempted to draw one today).
Please no flying cars. Please no. The jetsons made it look cool, but that was a cartoon made in the days before 9/11 and cell phones happened.

Now imagine some distracted driver, watching a tiktok while driving, and oops, they did another 9/11.

Now imagine that happens every week. Not because of terrorists, but because of idiots! WE HAVE A LOT OF IDIOTS IN THIS COUNTRY!!!!

......please no.
- Cars crash into buildings all the time. Even if you took the largest consumer car and “drove” it as fast as possible into the side of a skyscraper, you wouldn’t be able to cause anything close to another 9/11.
  
  That said, these are terrible for other reasons.
- In fact we have the largest strategic reserve of idiots in the world! Even our president is an idiot!
- Why would you assume these would be driven? This looks like a Hollywood special effect reel from the 1950s. We are close to having fully autonomous vehicles already. Any practical application of this couldn't happen for at least another 20years. If we are still driving our own vehicles by then we are all pretty fucked already.
- Pfft, whatever. Gasoline can't melt steal beams.
If that's a "real car" then my left testicle is a genuine mild Italian meatball.
- It’s a big ass drone with a car shape 3D printed over top of it
  
  Precisely. A golf cart is more genuinely a car.
America can't have 4-wheeled road-legal flying cars. 4-wheeled road legal cars must have airbags, but airbags are forbidden in aircraft.

EDIT: I stand corrected.
- Airbags are not forbidden in aircraft. They just haven't been considered to offer enough safety benfit for their weight and cost in most cases. That is starting to change though, and airbags integrated into aircraft seatbelts are becoming more common. They can be found in first class in a number of commercial aircraft, and are sold to be retrofitted into private planes.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airplane_airbags
  
  https://www.amsafe.com/product/airbag-restraint-systems/
  
  There are many reasons I doubt this car will make it into commercial production, but the airbags will be OK.
  
  TIL. I was regurgitating what I saw in a video a while back about the Switchblade, which was supposedly 3 wheeled because of the airbag thing.
- Easy, just eject them when you take off, and inject them when you land.
It's a lightweight 3d printed exoskeleton of a car using drone like motors and fans. The journalist who went in person was not allowed to be close or watch someone get in or out of the vehicle. While in air it is pretty obvious there is no interior seating just what looks like 2 large fans on the bottom. To call this even a concept of a flying car is incorrect at best it's a custom drone.
I saw the article before somewhere on my newsfeed and didn't click on it. Until we get some kind of new type of technology, flying cars will always be planes or drone that kinda looks like a car.
the safety of the actual car is good enough for consumers

This is a revealing statement.
- That statement is good enough for you
Ah there we go
When I was a kid I used to think it would be cool to have flying cars. As an adult I think about all the jets and helicopters and drones that already fly over my home and how annoying they are. The amount of noise of a fleet of cars taking off out of the neighborhood would make in the morning would be absolutely unbearable.

Looking at the underside of this "car" shows there are no drive axles, wires or motors going to the wheels, making it just a weird-shaped helicopter with wheels for no reason.

This video looks very fake. Were there no witnesses in this demonstration?

As others have already mentioned, regulations. Air traffic is tightly-controlled, and for good reason. There aren't really any technical limitations to flying cars. Shit's just dangerous, especially by unqualified individuals and en masse.

There's no way this thing survives any sort of crash test.
Ha, it's total crap. I watched video news about it.
Someone's 3D printer at home did some serious overtime there.
I've seen kites that looked more convincing. There are now some real, functional flying cars, although they are still far too expensive to be practical. This is not one of them.
Then, how about posing just a screeshot in a shitpost group or similar?

38 comments