Schadenfreude Smörgåsbord (Open Thread)
37 minutes ago
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wait. what? Flying cars?
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I kid you not. Technology has advanced to the point where the seemingly unrealistic science fiction inventions are becoming a reality. This flying car works so it runs like a car but takes off like a helicopter. The point of this invention is for soldiers to be able to fly with just knowing how to drive a car instead of extensive training for piloting. So far these cars are able to hold up to 4 passengers plus 1000 pounds of equipment and can fly for about 250 miles. Even though these cars will mainly be used for military purposes, I will definally get a chuckle out of watching the "The Jetsons" knowing that we too can drive in the skies.
DON'T PANIC! This blog is authored by Seniors at Aragon High School, San Mateo, CA.
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14 comments:
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This sounds really cool! However, we must take into consideration the economic impact these cars have on our military budget. Currently, $533.8 billion from the total federal budget is spent for military purposes; we can easily lower that amount by cutting down on the amount of money we spend on entertaining, yet almost worthless inventions such as flying cars. True, this invention has its benefits; however, I believe it would more economically feasible to just hire pilots.
As great as this idea is, I would agree with Shorhon that the amount of money the government uses on the military is astounding in comparison to its other spendings. However, I believe that this invention does have a lot of ups to it such as requiring less pilot schooling and flight training.
The military has taken it to a whole other level on their technology. When I first read on the iron man suits, I thought that the military couldn't be anymore unorthodox than that idea. Now with flying cars, I'm just pretty speechless. Don't get me wrong, flying cars has its benefits as a great supply convoy and transporter but the idea is just quite odd for the military.
Can't we already drive in the skies? I think this is called an airplane. I'm not getting the great aura that you guys are all feeling. I think this is quite a steep technological climb in today's world, and we're not ready for everyone and their children to be populating the skies with their "flying cars."
@Ryan: You just said that we already "drive in the skies." What do you mean that this is too steep of a technological advance and we're not ready for "everyone and their children to be populating the skies with their 'flying cars.'"
@Rashmi:
So once these flying cars get exposed to the general public and we're all allowed to go out and buy them, we're going to have "everyone and their children" populating the skies with their own flying cars. Furthermore, OP has commented that "these cars will mainly be used for military purposes," implying that some of them will NOT. Moreover, I can also foresee that once these relatively compact cars get used by the military, they will, at sometime in the future, get exposed to the general public. This is the "steep technological advance" I'm referring to.
@Ryan:
Your comment seems quite confusing. If this is as great of a technological advance as you are insinuating, why do you mention that it is the same as an airplane?
Also, these cars seem pretty useless. They perform the functions of a helicopter on wheels. Reinventing the wheel?
@Charlie:
Maybe I wasn't clear. I was referring to this "great technological advance" as the general population having access to the flying car, not the technology of the car itself. That was confusing, huh?
And yeah, I agree. The cars are completely useless.
I think this is so much more efficient for our men and women in the army! First of all, they can use their teen skills of learning to drive (which most likely they've mastered) to apply it to military flight. This is better so the army doesn't have to spend time extensively training them how to deal with flying such pieces of machinery! Very exciting and very futuristic!
I don't think this is as amazing as it sounds. To me, at least from the picture, this looks like an airplane with really big wheels. Flying cars definitely are the epitome of "the future" but I think these ones to be used in the military may not as technologically innovative as the name "flying car" implies. I worry, however, about the safety of this invention. The original post says "[t]he point of this invention is for soldiers to be able to fly with just knowing how to drive a car instead of extensive training for piloting" which sounds a little worrying to me. I don't know if I like the sound of untrained (or perhaps just poorly trained) people flying a car-plane-thing. I just think the motives for doing this may be a bit skewed. I was thinking the army would want something that maybe is best on land AND air, which is why they invented this. But to invent a flying car simply so people have to have less training sounds a little worrying to me.
I also worry about the future of flying cars, if (or when!) they would be introduced into society. How would road rules work? People could run red lights simply by flying over them! It would take a whole new system to integrate flying cars into society. I know this isn't what the original blog is about, but I still think the possibility of flying cars in our world is a bit of a scary thought, in the military OR in our everyday lives.
-Alice Bebbington
I see many problems with the government making this heft machines. I agree with Ryan that these flying cars are nothing more than a glorified airplane. I mean, the point of this invention is for soldiers to be able to fly without getting proper training?
At least for me, driving a FLYING car is immensely different from driving just a normal car. Once flight gets involved, a whole new dimension is added to the range of motion. For normal cars, people can go left, right, forward, and backward. With FLYING cars, people can go left, right, forward, backward, UP, AND DOWN. It seems to me that maneuvering a flying car is a vastly different ballgame.
A completely useless way for the government to spend money. And the amount of resources that would be needed to teach "drivers" how to maneuver these next generation "Cars".
"The Terrafugia Transition could redefine the convertible. And door-to-door travel. Designed by a team of MIT aeronautics engineers, including Terrafugia co-founders Carl Dietrich and his wife Anna Mracek Dietrich, the Transition is a street-legal, airworthy, airbag-and-parachute-equipped flying car that at $200,000 is priced less than a Lamborghini. The first models will be delivered next year. True, with its wings retracted like football goalposts, the Transition, whose 100-horsepower engine gets it 35 m.p.g. on terra firma, isn't going to be a match for an Italian sports car. But extend the vehicle's gull wings — and you are requested to do this at an airport — and the rear-propeller-powered Transition can fly two passengers about 500 miles at a cruising speed of 105 m.p.h. After you land, you will not be heading to the rental counter."
The description of the "car" on Time magazine.
Flying and driving a car will never be so similar that people would just need to know how to drive a car to fly a plane. A car only goes left, right, backward, forward while a plane goes up/ down (pitch), left/right (yaw) and rolls (ailerons). I don't quite see how just knowing how to drive a car would enable one to fly a plane (even if it was a helicopter). A flying car, if it does exist and if it is used, would probably require even more training than driving a car due to the transition between land and air. So this is a completely negative costly toy of the military. As Shorhon said, "we can easily lower that amount by cutting down on the amount of money we spend on....worthless invention such as flying cars." It's cool and all but it's not going to save any money.
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