Flying Car Show: Inventors Insist Cars Can Fly (PHOTOS)

USA Today reports that inventors, despite the clashing designs of airplanes and automobiles, simply won't let the dream of a flying car die:

One leap that engineers and tinkerers have never quite made, however, but refuse to let die: the flying car.

Year after year a few more try. Of all those stuck stewing in traffic gridlock, who hasn't imagined soaring Jetsons-style directly to a destination?

Most flying cars never get off the page, let alone the ground. The few that do are bedeviled by lack of funding, impracticality, limited appeal or fears they may simply break apart in flight -- as some have.

The fact is that these keystones of modern transportation -- cars and planes -- have basic differences that make them a match made in hell.

"It's like trying to mate a pig and an elephant," says Lionel Salisbury, editor of the Roadable Times, a website that has made him a de facto chronicler of flying car attempts. "You don't get a very good elephant, or a very good pig."

Today, a new crop of magnificent men and women believe advanced materials and sounder business practices finally will allow their flying machines to defy skeptics.

Photos of some designs below (for more details and pictures, visit USA Today).

Comments

[Coyote2]

Stupid idea: too much energy is needed to keep these roaring things in the air. Too late as the Energy Scarcity monster approaches.

The solution is different. We are surrounded by magnetic and gravitational fields: the magnetic field of the earth saves us from the angry buffeting of the sun's blast furnace. The sun has an immense magnetic and gravitational field that our galaxy trumps. Not only this but a captive galaxy, Sagittarius is currently plunging through the Milky Way galaxy exactly where we are.

So there is beaucoup existing magnetic and gravitational energy available that should be able to be tapped to create a flying car. I think that the best place to develop this would be on a lunar colony where the interaction of the moon/earth/sun fields and low moon gravity would encourage just that.

But with approaching Energy Scarcity, Global Climate Disruption and subsequent Global economic collapse, it would appear that we will never get the chance.

[OldKnute]

OMG!!!!

Don’t let McCain see this. He will order a million of them for his 100 YEAR war.

Noooooooo!!!

All the best

Knute Neo-LIB

[jpcline004]

Where we're going...we don't NEED roads...

[11907281]

The answer is not flying cars but helicopter cars, ... no jetpacks, ya that's the ticket.

[jsgaetano]

Or Copter-packs! It may not be the safest option, but it would probably be the most fun. If you saw it on TV, I mean.

[HowietheScreamer]

The red one with the label "Skycar" is the M200 Moeller Aircar. He uses a turbine engine that can be powered by regular gas or by ethanol.

The main problem would be coming up with an FAA acceptable avionics system that would automate most of the functions. And also an FAA approved "driver/pilot" license.

[Raymondf]

Al Gore has one ordered.

[jsgaetano]

Yeah, but Cindi McCain already has three. Cuz you just can't get around Arizona without a plane.

[marymansour]

So then you have a private plane. Hello?

[antaeus]

Jet-SON!

[MajorKong]

They've actually built "flying cars" in the past. They were either small cars that you could attack wings to or airplanes that could fold their wings and "drive" on the road. Basically you had something that wasn't a very good car and also wasn't a very good airplane.

[googlymoogly]

It would be hard to imagine flying cars in South Florida. Most of the people there don't know how to drive a regular car. It's a free for all. Traffic rules and laws are ignored even by law enforcement. Vehicles are pretty much flying everywhere now. Especially through red lights and stop signs...

[pakaal]

There's no doubt we can build them, but it's hard to imagine flying cars anywhere in the US without dramatic changes to how we monitor and control air traffic nationwide. The idea of flying out of a traffic jam is great until you've got 20,000 other people thinking the same thing, and everyone blasting up, up and away at the same time.

And if you think driving when drunk is dangerous, add a hundred miles an hour or more to that, plus 500+ feet altitude. The possibilities for disaster are endless.

[HillbillyBob]

AMEN, i used to live in Fort Lauderdale and drove 33,000 miles a year as a sales rep covering from Ft Pierce to Key West..that was 19 years ago and I quit the job after Hurricane Andrew because of my cost of insurance. I lived there for another 15 years. I now live in Rural North Carolina and still have cold sweats and jittery nerves when I have to drive near the cities during rush hours.I was rear ended 4 times, sideswiped more times than I could count run into a canal once, almost T boned a few times, mugged 3 times..could it be ptsd?

[SwingVoter]

Cars have been flying since 1903.

[Opt1musPr1me]

these look like planes trying to be cars. These aren't flying cars they're planes for crying out loud.

[jpperry]

Why would any inventor waste his time and resources on a flying car?

*Considering how poorly people drive, do they really think making everyone a pilot is a good idea?
*How much do you think flying-car insurance will cost?
*Is there really a future for a flying car in a post oil economy?

[Ajita]

One word answer: Science

[BadgersBite]

With Photoshop even my Honda can fly!!

[pakaal]

gimme some decent drugs and I can fly too!

[BlueInARedState]

Hey, whatever happened to the magnetic technology the Japanese are using to move their monorail system? I thought scientists were working on a way to float vehicles using the same technology with the magnetic counterpart to the vehicle built into our existing road or rail systems. That would be quiet, effecient, utilize existing transportation networks, and completely cut the oil vampires, excuse me, "oil producing countries" out of the picture.

And while we are at it, why can't urban and state governments, re-open old existing rail lines in populous urban areas for commuter train lines? Especially using the same Japanese technology.

Will it be expensive? Absolutely. But will it cost more than the almost trillion dollars and over 4,000 American lives we've spent in a war that we all know was about Exxon Mobil getting it hands on oil? Not a chance.

Even if it did, we would have those 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi human lives back. And no one can calculate the cost of that to the families who have lost a loved one.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Efficient! NO. Don't people like you consider that it requires MUCH energy to elevate ANYTHING.....much less the vehicle and its passengers--even before propelling them forward? Much better to make some modest investments in bicycle tech. which affords its riders some crash protection and, perhaps, shields them somewhat from inclement weather!

[Daps]

Yes, I believe the point to maglev is speed, not efficiency.

[KillTheMessenger]

The power required to levitate a maglev car is inconsequential compared to power necessary to overcome the aerodynamic drag at full speed. When the car is not moving it is not being levitated. The Japanese system uses superconductors and does not need any energy at all, except for the cooling of the coils (that is very expensive, though).

In any case... if you can show me a bike that can go at 300mph, I can show you a maglev that does not need power.

[dctackett]

that's all I need... some drunk teenager crashing into my roof.