Many of us do successfully operate vehicles in three dimensions and with excellent results. Contrary to popular belief, only around half of aircraft accidents result in fatalities. While somewhat higher than the equivalent automotive results, there are still many accidents that are very survivable. The stakes are only slightly elevated in aircraft. If the fan stops, it is very feasible to glide to a safe landing. When folks ask me if it is safe, I always relate that I have only been involved in three fatal accidents, and the third time they never found my body. Actually, my airplane has over 4,700 hours on the airframe and is still in excellent condition. 4,700 hours times 150 miles per hour yields 705,000 miles. No accidents nor incidents. I am very thankful that the bar to operate aircraft is much higher than that to operate a ground vehicle. If people were subjected to the rigors of flight school for getting a drivers license, there would be far fewer licensed drivers on the roads. Patrick will chime in too, I am certain. From: Daniel Holmes <danielh@holmesonics.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2013 3:46 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] The Future Many people can't properly operate a vehicle in 2 dimensions. Think of the issues with adding a third. Chuck, your jetpack is here...http://www.jetlev-flyer.com/ Dan On Mar 25, 2013, at 3:24 PM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
Dave, I used to want one, until I realized that with flying cars, there won't be many fender-benders. Almost all accidents will be aircraft crashes with the usual results.
You can't stop quickly, and your maneuvering options would be very limited in general, and in any kind of controlled traffic corridor especially. I doubt that drivers would be allowed to fly over houses and buildings- they'd be restricted to "air roads". So I'm thinking that even if the practical, affordable flying car were invented today (not those weird hybrids that are neither car nor airplane, and don't do either job very well), the masses would have to wait for a central control system that not only regulates the traffic in general, but the individual vehicles themselves. To be safe, there would have to be many layers of redundancy in the control computers. And/or all the cars themselves are networked. Fully autonomous control will probably be limited to emergency-only situations.
No George Jetson for a while yet. That's why I'd settle for a jet-pack with reasonable range, that didn't weigh 300 lbs. :-) On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 2:48 PM, Dave Gary <davegary@me.com> wrote:
Chuck,
All my daughter ever asks about is where is her flying car?
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-- Daniel Holmes, danielh@holmesonics.com "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!" -- Lord John Whorfin _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".