60 Minutes had a segment on NASA’s new air traffic control system which makes air space more usable and on small prop planes under development by private firms that (in one example) can take off vertically and fly at 400mph. Would allow point to point travel from small pads. No big time-eating airports needed. Does anyone know more details about this? Thanks.
Looks like a recooked idea from Popular Mechanics of the 1950’s.
The Interstate system is breaking down under todays traffic level and irrespective of what technology claims, the higher the speed the more space that is required between vehicles…be they groundbound or aircraft. A neat idea that may have more applicability to avaiation as we know it today, not a panacea for the future.
I saw the show. I was not impressed. I worked in Aerospace and have a long interest in flying and I shudder to think of the average US driver flying these devices in large numbers. Ultralights and Gyrocopters are much easier than anything I saw there.
One craft featured on the show was a helicopter with counterrotating rotors that used the downwa***o strike vertical airfoils adjustable for right and left slant to control yaw. Pitch, fore/aft motion, and side to side motion was controlled by tilting the rotor shaft. Coordinating all this with the throttle opening for lift control seems to be only a little easier than in a helicopter. And even competent fixed-wing pilots have trouble with that.
Considering that most car drivers can’t even recognize a skid when they are in one, I see one hell of a learning curve for operating one of these.
Jack
Then there is the matter of fuel economy. I’m sure those things are far more fuel guzzling than even the worst SUV. Energy independence or at least the threat of it is essential to (1) eventually remove the threats of Global terrorism, and (2) American political, economic, diplomatic, and military efforts are not tied to the needs of people who fight against democracy and freedom (with any of the following: money, locations for training, or simply theology).
Not to mention there are a lot of no fly zones all over America. How would they sign the air? As it is the people on the ground can’t read signs…
Well, ultralights and Gyrocopters are pretty fuel efficient, mainly because they are small, light, and can go straight across country. But they are open to the weather and not suitable for everyday use for commuting and shopping. Only two of the “planes” featured on 60 minutes were any better in weather protection. With today’s social infrastructure only cars can do it all, and only a car/mass-ground-transit mix is a reasonable substitute. And when things get really congested only rail can cope. See the NE Corridor.
I believe the “Highway in the Sky” refers primarily to the display and information system; there’s considerably more to SATS than that. This is a logical extension of the principles of IFR to a more directed, intelligent system … it bears much more relation to the ‘intelligent highways’ programs (cf. the ‘national ITS architecture’ system) than to the present-day interstate-highway paradigm.
I don’t think that any of the proposed designs for ‘flying cars’ are intended as 21st-Century Navions; I would expect that relatively sophisticated systems of dynamic control (both in the vehicles themselves, and ‘distributed’) would be integrated with the external position and ATC systems. Be worth going to Danville to find out.
I suppose sooner or later we’re either going to see a Moller Skycar in production, or people will conclude the thing is a fancy scam… seems I’ve been reading that production is just around the corner since the 1970s. Anybody remember the Defender?
The vehicles that were mentioned by CBS appear to be most important as “innovative” forms of V/STOL… which is not a necessary component of the SATS programs. The much more important thrust of SATS is to eliminate much of the current set of risks (both actual and perceived) in general aviation as a whole, and I think the program can do that.
However, as a means of implementing ‘flying cars for Everyman’, as CBS seems to think, a technology-based system is at best lawyer bait, and even slightly impaired would start to pose major risks. There have been enough problems with ‘glass cockpits’ in commercial aircraft (nominally built and maintained to much higher $tandard$) to make a system that is essentially DEPENDENT on fancy graphical displays intensely risky. Trained pilots may even have difficulty, particularly in marginal conditions where it will be difficult to determine whether the system is starting to fail. It may not be fair to bring up the fluxgate compass… but I would be highly conce
Being both a pilot and a railroader (not to mention driver) these things fascinate me. IMHO, the idea of the general public – i.e. the typical driver – ever learning to fly, and doing it successfully, alternates between absolutely terrifying and absolutely hysterical. Not that flying is hard. Anyone who can really ride a bicycle, or sail, or ski well – I don’t mean hack around, but do it well – can learn to fly. However, flying is rather unforgiving. You get very very few chances to learn from your mistakes. Lapses in attention are likely to have unfortunate consequences. And you do not break the rules: they are there for very good reasons. The attitude of a pilot to flying is very different from the attitude of the average driver to driving – and this applies even to the top of the line hot shots; if you remember the movie ‘Top Gun’, this is the lesson the ‘hero’ had to learn – the hard way.
Automation will not solve this problem. The fanciest glass cockpit in the world is absolutely no good if the nut holding the yoke forgets to add enough gas to the tanks, or tries to fly in weather conditions the bird can’t handle. As we found out this winter, even the best commercial operations can, and are, grounded by weather. Can’t have that for general transportation – to which it would happen much more often.
Then there is the tiny question of where do you land and take off. Many many communities, at least on the east coast, now have very strict rules restricting, or in most cases prohibiting altogether, private flights from one’s back yard – and trying to locate or expand a regional or local airport brings out every NIMBY and Chicken Little from miles around. ‘A plane (helicopter/gyrocopter/what have you’ in every garage is a non starter.
Which is not to say that the ‘Highway in the Sky’ is a bad idea; it’s an excellent idea. As Overmod correctly notes, it is a better approach to providing navigation, separation, and sequencing services to air traffic. Rathe
Imagine all the cretins up there with the yoke between their knees,munching on a Big Mac and yakking on a cell phone…
I’ll ask my bro he is a aero engineer & works for a contractor of NASA[:)][:p][:D]
[quote]
Originally posted by tomtrain
[
Here is my bro’s reply
It was at Langley. It’ll be awhile (10yrs +) before anything
like that is available. Then all it takes is a couple to crash
into homes…
Ames has an air traffic project that allows airliners to fly
directly to their destination rather than via air ways
but 911 made this more difficult. It saves fuel though so
it may be tried soon.[:o)][:p][:D]
I have followed the Moller Skycars for years.I once thought the technology needed to make them actually work was a bit too high to reach. For example, how do you fit enough “fan” to move the air needed to actually lift and keep this thing in the air and actually drive it somewhere?
I have seen the car tied to a crane flying to work around laws prohibiting flight in the area. I am a believer in the concept as presented by Moller.
I have driven Semis for many years. I have also flown small planes such as the Archer and the Skyhawk. I dont know much about current procedures as they were done long ago from a small air strip. I also have flown about the country and overseas. I have seen the flight tracker where you are able to sit in the airport at Little Rock Arkansas and understand that there are 4 planes coming within the next hour and where they are as of 5 minutes ago.
The sky has many things going on such as No Fly Zones, prohibited airspace, Temporary restrictions due to construction !, weather, Federal mandated limits on Air Traffic Control Centers etc. Lanes across the sky at different altitudes and connected to various VOR’s and supported by TACCANs and other means such as GPS.
Now in my very small understanding I think the US Govt has been busy implementing a system where the entire sky over the CONUS is spilt into GPS Highways and Zones. Within several years I hope to see such a system in place.
Now. When I climb into a 18 wheeler that truck does NOT move unless all of the issues related to the equiptment, trip, schedule, fees monies etc etc etc… are met. Pilots in all kinds of aircraft are under similar if not more strict control. Ground control in a airport dictates what can move and when while air control handles any in the sky within certain heights and distances.
I cannot imagine right now my wife (I am NOT being sexist or any kind of discrimination) climbing into one of these Skycars and establishing a trip from say…Li
I can’t see that happening anytime soon, or even in my lifetime. But what we probably will see in the future is hydrogen fueled vehicles, drastically less dependence on fossil fuels ( we can’t move on dead plant matter and dinosaurs forever), and alternative fuels that are cleaner.
You already have far to many folks who can’t drive and now you want them to fly?
Who is gonna pay the insurance on these things?
The quality of the product coming out of the public shools continues to decline. How is somebody who can barely function as a McBurger employee afford one of these?
Is Congress going to mandate safety nets to cover the land and parachutes for these things. Or at bare minimum, ban overhead electric and telephone lines? (Darwin-proofing?, I nominate the star chaser as the first cra***est dummy!)
[(-D][(-D][(-D]
Or worse…
Preflight diagnostic failed due to short in a sensor or something.
In the deep south we may just jam a large screwdriver across that sensor to bypass the problem so we can go right away.
I cannot talk too much about “Quality” as I have rigged a 18 wheeler from time to time to get it moving. Or what will it cost to maintain these things? The shop time alone must be awesome. I counted 22 cars in our transmission shop.
Don’t forget that getting from the airport to the relative’s home still requires a car, bus, streetcar, minivan or whatever. Maybe even a train!
With the Moller Skycar you would need about 40 feet by 40 feet or less to land and take off in. Basically your driveway or front (back yard) Theoratically you could “taxi” or drive the car short distances to a open area before flight.
True, Highiron, so far as that goes. However. In order to do that, you have to assume that you either have good VMC conditions (at least 1,000 foot ceiling, 1 mile or 3 miles visibility) and very little wind (less than 5 mph) or you have a little more wind and a d__n good pilot or with anything less than hard VMC you not only need a d__n good pilot, you also need a superb guidance system – and that’s just to take off. To land in anything other than excellent conditions, you need a zero-zero qualified (Category IIIb) guidance system, and the pilot training and maintenance to go with it. You can’t do it with GPS, even with WAAS GPS, as the velocity control isn’t good enough (yes, you can put a missile through a window with advanced GPS – but who cares how fast it’s going? – that’s hardly a controlled landing!).
This alone reduces the utility of a ‘personal’ STOL or VTOL vehicle, such as the SkyCar, to just about zero. Like many of the green power schemes (wind, solar) it’s just dandy when the weather conditions are just right, but a total loss when they aren’t.
And that’s just for starters. Let’s picture a shopping mall parking lot with SkyCars… or a Little League game finishing… on second thought, let’s not.
I appreciate your insight on the winds. I had been thinking about that for some time wondering if the Skycars had the same behavior in any sort of wind above 4 mph.
Landing profiles for aircars are being, I think, overexaggerated.
NDGPS wouldn’t be used for short-final velocimetry – a combination of Doppler laser or radar, and tercom, would be. Hint (for you computer folks out there): where did the initial software algorithms for optical mice come from?
Granted, there needs to be more active control by the ‘intelligent’ guidance system over something with the flight profile of a Moller, in two respects, if it is to land effectively in gusty crosswinds coupled with unexpected vertical shear or microbursts. One is relatively rapid leveling on the pitch and roll axes, the other is the ability to ‘vector’ thrust to control lateral position. My understanding of how the Moller controls work is that the aircraft would rapidly yaw to face the gust, leveling as it does so, then spool the horizontal flight engines to maintain ground position.
Alternatively, you could easily arrange a variant of the system the Navy uses for helicopter landings in minimum space: a winched cable arrangement with a LTA support. The Moller is given some sort of positive grab to engage the cable, which is then winched down to give a stable, controlled, fairly precise landing – since there are no exposed rotor tips, even peripheral bumping or nonlevel contact by the airframe can cause little problem. Self-leveling in pitch and roll is really all that’s required of the aircar, given a proper fairlead arrangement on the cable. (And, before anybody asks, it should be relatively easy to preclude ingestion of the cable or its support by the fans or engines…)
Note that while the technology nominally ‘allows’ all-weather operation, in practice you’d never, ever try landing an active airframe in a populated area unless you considered yourself a Bold Pilot. Certainly not in a fenced back yard in a postage-stamp subdivision! But landing within 5 or 10 minutes’ shuttle ride of your destination might be sufficient, particularly if you have secure hangarag