‘Impossible’ Device Could Propel Flying Cars, Stealth Missiles

[Bootstrap Bill]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Also, the way I see it, flying cars would have to take off to a certain altitude then wait for other flying cars before circling to land again, all wasting time.

I think a better shift in transportation would be cars that drive themselves-with a computer at the wheel you could have high-speed merging and instead of stopping at an intersection, the spacing of the vehicles would allow the opposing flows to sort of pass though each other without stopping.

Groups of cars that are going to a common destination could link up to form trains - zero spacing - and then break apart when they get to their final destinations.

There are railroad utility trucks that can operate on trracks or roads - they have two sets of wheels. Why can't we build ordinary automobiles like this? We could install train track in every major street and freeway.Simply drive to your nearest track and let your cars onboard computer take control until you reach your destination. It would combine the best of private automobiles with PRT.

[M II A II R II K]

For local flying they could fly at like 5-10 storeys up which would also resolve the swarm issue with the sky and the skyline, and for long distance travel they could follow designated skyways to also not be able to just fly anywhere in the sky.

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Obviously there would have to be some kind of fullproof failsafe system for flying cars.

Such as all cars being connected through a central computer and instant parachutes, or things on the ground ready to reach up and scoop up a failing flying car or something.

That's so funny. . . I mean. . . why don't we have them in commercial passenger aircraft it it's so easy to just deploy an "instant parachute" or some such nonesense???

I also love the cartoonish description of a "thing on the ground ready to reach up and scoop a flying car or something". . .

I needed a good laugh today. . . thank you!!!

. . .

[ardecila]

Because it doesn't make sense to do so. Commercial aircraft are piloted by people with extensive training, and airlines conduct excruciatingly detailed mechanical exams of aircraft to prevent failure during flight. Because of this, commercial air travel remains the statistically safest method of transportation. Such measures make sense for airlines that charge $100-$500 per ticket times several hundred people per flight, but it doesn't make sense if flying technology ever extends to personal vehicles on a large scale. Individual motorists are far more likely to make mistakes, especially in dangerous weather, while distracted, or while intoxicated. An equipment failure of any kind reduces or eliminates the vehicle's ability to stay aloft, with the risk being certain death. There's also no minor accidents in the air - the journey is either a safe, uneventful one, or the vehicle fails somehow and kills the occupants.

Flying cars would need a variety of improvements to ever reach a practical level of safety to be adopted by the public at large. First, some kind of robust autopilot system connected to sensors throughout the vehicle. This would automatically take over in the case of an equipment failure or low fuel levels and bring the vehicle to the ground safely, in a safe location (determined by a worldwide database of fueling locations and safe terrain). It would need some sort of homing beacon with a powerful battery, and emergency food rations for a day or two to allow enough time for rescues to be attempted.

Finally, in the event of an equipment failure that the autopilot cannot compensate for, parachutes for all occupants, each with their own homing beacon.

I'm not sure the notion of aerial highways is a good one. Obviously, it make sense in terms of avoiding random collisions in arbitrary locations, but you can do that with radar as well. But if fixed aerial highways are to be established, then doesn't that negate the entire purpose of flying cars? There will still be congestion along those routes, and trips will still be longer than they need to be, because they won't be straight lines from origin to destination. No-fly zones, around airports, military installations, tall buildings, and wildfires/active volcanoes would of course be part of the system, but vehicles should be allowed to choose their own flightpath around those obstacles.

Flying altitude would be out of the control of the driver at nearly all times, with the autopilot instead relying on topographic data and radar to set the proper altitude corresponding to the driver's chosen flightpath, avoiding mountains and other vehicles.

[youngregina]

UH? maglev tracks for roads, and the turn of the street lights would cut off power for a specific part of the track? seems pretty plausable to me. at least this is easier and less gas consuming than 30000 ft. flying cars...

[M II A II R II K]

Pentagon Clears Flying-Car Project for Takeoff


November 13, 2008

By Noah Shachtman

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008...rpas-flying-c/

Originally Posted by Article Excerpts

Darpa hopes its "Personal Air Vehicle Technology" project, announced yesterday, will ultimately lead to a working prototype of a military-suitable flying car — a two- or four-passenger vehicle that can "drive on roads" one minute and take off like a helicopter the next. The hybrid machine would be perfect for "urban scouting," casualty evacuation and commando-delivery missions, the agency believes.

**********

To make the flying car work, Darpa believes, makers will have to use "morphing wings" to ease the transition from road to sky; "optimized disk loading" propulsion, "for the combined fly/drive mission"; and strong flight control software.

[M II A II R II K]

This design is pretty kick ass too.




http://www.macroindustries.com/websi...index_main.htm

[M II A II R II K]

Parajet Skycar - World's First Carbon-Neutral Flying Car!


By Ben on Wed Jul 16 2008

http://www.likecool.com/Parajet_Skyc...tion--Car.html

The Parajet Skycar will be the world's first carbon neutral flying car. The Skycar Expedition team plan to take the eye-catching vehicle from London to Timbouctou in 2009, using a combination of flight and driving to battle the tough Saharan terrain.

The 3000 miles of journey from London to Timbouctou. The Parajet Skycar betweens a dune buggy and a paraglider. The Parajet Skycar powered by a biodiesel-modified Yamaha R1 1000cc motorcycle engine. The motor runs through a Continuously Variable Transmission either to power the rear wheels or to turn a large rear-facing propeller via a belt drive.

[llamaorama]

Haha, if that picture was real life, couldn't a gust of wind easily blow that thing right into the side of that skyscraper?

[jstush04]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

This design is pretty kick ass too.




http://www.macroindustries.com/websi...index_main.htm

the specs are really nice, too. i'm just afraid of the spec i haven't seen: the cost

and that little dinner on the coast will cost you $150 in fuel costs

[Lucky Luke]

That's pretty awesome. Looking at the demo video I can't see why that wouldn't run on rails. With some solar sensitive roof material you could have trains powered for free for ever! That's cool. Might even bring the prices down!

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

That's so funny. . . I mean. . . why don't we have them in commercial passenger aircraft it it's so easy to just deploy an "instant parachute" or some such nonesense???

http://cirrusaircraft.com/parachute/

I would think something along the lines of this system could be used for private hovercars and the such in the future.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by electricron

Opposing gravity are what wings do. Wow, a breakthrough the Wright brothers figured out 100+ years ago. I'm impressed.

As others have pointed out, wings don't oppose gravity any more than your legs.

But it's interesting you mention wings, because what the guy describes as causing the "lift" in his device isn't that far off from a special relativity form of the way wings use pressure differentials to generate lift. The curved top of a wing causes airflow to go faster, and faster air has less perpendicular pressure than slower air does, so the slower, more-pressure-exerting air on the bottom of a wing pushes up the aircraft.

In the special device, there are microwaves that exert more pressure on different-sized ends of a device, so he's using a pressure differential to create force in one direction. The claim by those who say it can't work is that since the microwaves are all contained within the device, that the force can't move it. Which is basic newtonian physics. The inventor claims that his device gets around this because of principles related to Einstein's work on Special Relativity, which he claims applies in this case because of the speed of the impacts of the microwaves mean that they're existing in a different frame of reference, which overrules the conservation of momentum and allows the devices to move in relation to the rest of the universe.

There are really only two questions that remain to be resolved:

1) Is special relativity true?

2) Does it actually apply in this case?

If the answer is yes to both, then the device is theoretically sound and would probably work. If either or both are false, the device won't work. I don't have a strong enough science background to properly evaluate either of those questions, but none of the counter-claims against this device seem to directly address either of those two questions - they all address newtonian physics, and special relativity and newtonian physics complement each other, but aren't both applied in all circumstances.

[philvia]

flying cars will never be mainstream. at least not with today's technology. weather is the main concern, in my opinion. how will you prevent a light gust of wind from blowing you into another vehicle or object? you feel it in airplanes all the time when wind pushes your plane... but they're free for miles of any other aircraft. skyways for cars will be many times more dense and crowded.

flying cars are really something i wish people would stop dreaming about.

[SnyderBock]

NASA's Gravity Probe B was supposed to provide conclusive scientific experimentation/proof to support Special Relativity. Tests came back all negative. Most scientists are in denial, claiming that Gravity Probe B's most sensitive instruments ever made (by many fold), would now have to be 1000 times more sensitive to validate Special Relativity. Because if they needed instruments less sensitive than that, Gravity Probe B would have at least provided some amount of supporting data.

It is starting to look like Einstein had much of the mathematics correct, but his explanation of the fundamental mechanics and nature of matter/gravity/space/time were either incomplete or incorrect. He himself knew this, I guess it just took the world 50 years to recognize that he died trying to solve these very anomalies in Relativity.

It is entirely possible that both relativity and quantum physics are both a little off and some unifying breakthrough physics will ultimately be needed to take human understanding of the fundamental nature of the cosmos to the next level.

The problem with this propulsion system... Well the problems with this theory are as follows:

I. They are developing it as a satellite propulsion system, not flying car propulsion. If this works at all, it's propulsive force will only be the difference in force created from one side of the laser-like reflection chamber, to the other side of it created by the induced compression wave. We're talking a net force not much greater (if any greater) than an ion drive--which is equal to the force of a piece of paper resting on your hand.

II. The concept that the geometrically induced compression wave wont result in an equal force exerted on each side of the laser-like reflection chamber, is based on one of the most controversial aspects to the General Relativity theory.

However, this technology must be researched and developed. If it is proven to be functional, it will lead to a revolutionary propulsion system to assist mankind in becoming a space fairing race and to colonize the solar system--ultimately industrializing space. In the more short-term, it will reduce cost for launching satellites. It will lengthen the life of satellites and make it feasible to construct a private and/or government satellite repair space station (or several of them for that matter). Goods and people would be ferried between Earth and low Earth orbit via small reusable space shuttle-like spacecraft and the satellites would use their propellant-less propulsion system to drop down from high Earth orbit and dock with the repair space station for maintenance. As for in-atmosphere propulsion, this technology would have to be refined and enhanced many, many fold and vehicles would have to be constructed of yet to be developed super-light materials such as C-60 filament composites (for weight reduction purposes).

[Trantor]

Originally Posted by Tom In Chicago

silly. . . I'm still waiting for these flying cars damnit!!!

yes, they will open a WHOLE NEW WORLD...

... of fatal traffic accidents!

we humans already die in the millions by driving in "2d" environments... just imagine the pandemonium that letting BILLIONS OF PEOPLE navigating in a 3D environment would cause!!!

cars landing over people on busy streets... crashes at 500km/h over big cities, with the debris falling over people down below. etc, etc.

[Bootstrap Bill]

Originally Posted by Trantor

yes, they will open a WHOLE NEW WORLD...

... of fatal traffic accidents!

we humans already die in the millions by driving in "2d" environments... just imagine the pandemonium that letting BILLIONS OF PEOPLE navigating in a 3D environment would cause!!!

cars landing over people on busy streets... crashes at 500km/h over big cities, with the debris falling over people down below. etc, etc.

This is the main reason will will probably never see wide spread use of flying cars.

But why not flying "buses"?

[Trantor]

Originally Posted by SnyderBock

NASA's Gravity Probe B was supposed to provide conclusive scientific experimentation/proof to support Special Relativity. Tests came back all negative.

thats a big fat lie.

14 April 2007: Announcement of best results obtained to date. Francis Everitt gave a plenary talk at the meeting of the American Physical Society announcing initial results:[23] "The data from the GP-B gyroscopes clearly confirm Einstein's predicted geodetic effect to a precision of better than 1 percent. However, the frame-dragging effect is 170 times smaller than the geodetic effect, and Stanford scientists are still extracting its signature from the spacecraft data." — Gravity Probe B website

besides, special relativity has already been confirmed in a million of ways. If ONE prediction fails, its not the whole theory who should fall down.

[PA Pride]

Originally Posted by electricron

Hovercraft do.

Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) is a revolutionary mean which US Navy and Marine Corps amphibious forces to access more than 70 percent shorelines. The air cushion can traverse water, snow, marsh, ice, tundra and sand. Its primary role is transportation of military cargo and personnel for up to 180 passengers. In addition, it can be utilized for mine hunting/sweeping and humanitarian relief. LCAC is combat proven and has been successfully deployed in many scenarios such as Kuwait, Somalia, Bangladesh, Liberia and Haiti.
LCAC is capable of operating at ranges of up to 350 miles from its home base or ship and can transverse obstacles on land as high as four feet (1.22 meters). It was designed to serve in extreme climates such as Sahara desert to Arctic transporting equipment and troops from ship to shore and vice versa. At sea state 2 this hovercraft can travel at 50 knots. Its propulsion system includes four ETF-40B gas turbines each rated at 3,955-shp, two four-blade variable pitch 11.75-ft (3.58 meters) diameter propellers, and four 63-inch (1.6 meters) centrifugal lift fans.
LCAC is not a fighting craft but can be armed with two M2HB 12.7mm/.50 caliber machine guns, MK 19 40mm grenade launcher, and M60 machine guns. The 91 crafts making up this class were built between Textron Marine and Land Systems/Avondale Gulfport Marine.

These things look so funky. Like some fictional steampunk style transport from a Final Fantasy game or something.

[Trantor]

btw, the EM Drive is bullshit imho.

On the other hand, the ME Thrusters (based on Mach´s principle) sound much more plausible, and there is a NASA guy working on it.

check it out here
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/09/mac...aul-march.html

and a thread here, including the participation of Paul March, one of the researchers behind ME-Thruster development
http://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/view...4426bc6b82bbae