Behold, man's constant pursuit for new technology, halted by the forefather of all tools:

the stick.

Danj3ris

Big B

optical10

gadgetfreak

king_of_fools

Forestbear

Any links to pics of a flight model or testing data or who provides the hardware?

Not to be nosy, but aircraft are cool.

strider_mt2k

dvheil

mthrndr

SIXGUNNER

Spaceboy

gewitterkind

2) Like I'm going to trust my life to a vehicle that uses lawn mower wheels.

3) This just goes to show you- you can't always legitimize something by throwing a british accent at it.

homerjay

if it doesn't work out SimCity 3000 will let you revert to an earlier saved game!

Now that comment right there is just priceless...

Crazyglues

Second, the FAA would have no jurisdiction in this.

Third, I fly an ultralight with shrouded pusher prop, without the wings I can drive it on streets as I have added lights, turn signals etc, I just have the wings disassembled in storage bins on the thing, if I want to fly I find a field, set up the wings and take off.

m3talsyr3n

Alrighty, now I'm sold. These types of things always look cooler when it can fire 600 rounds per minute.

JRo

Now you think about that for a while, old feller

ajsellaroli

shadow

It's no Moller Skycar scam; these are experienced industry folks...Bell Helicopter and IAI are involved. I think there's a good chance you'll see these in a few years, in very specialized roles.

skyguym42

They even had a mockup made...with a freakin gatlin gun mounted on the side of it...freaking sweet.

[author switches to Napoleon Dynamite voice]

Yessss! I would keep my numbchucks stashed in the door pocket so I could like grab them on the way out. I only hope the flight suit has lots of pockets. For storing like tots and stuff. That would be freaking sweet.

Chicks dig guys with flying skills.

bunny_rabid

mofomon

sam_i_am

From what I've seen, the company is not saying its going to replace your car, there selling to a different crowd, like the Police, or Coast Gaurd, News stations, Military, etc.

They even had a mockup made...with a freakin gatlin gun mounted on the side of it...freaking sweet.

heres the military version pic:
http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=13...

murc

on the other hand though, im not sure how well this would autorotate, because a large part of the physics involved have to do with forward airspeed and the rotating disk behaving as a wing, giving the aircraft lift just like a fixed wing does as it goes through the atmosphere... with the rotors in ducts this wouldnt be possible... but im sure if this isnt vaporware, they will have thought of it before testing.

rlreif

Yah thats a very good point. I have had 3 cars completely die on my in my life (thats not counting the number that have stalled)

I know helicopters can use autorotation to try and survive an engine failure. I can't say for certain, having only flown fixed wing air planes (and mostly sailplanes where every landing is a forced landing but you have a 23:1 glide ratio), but it is my understanding that successfully pulling off an autorotation is much more difficult and takes quite a bit of training.

Heffae

Lurch

froggy

Justapspfan

The video is quite the joke, the air car is "immune to objects" like power lines. Snicker, snicker, snicker.

A great deal of what pilots have to do while flying is to look for places they could land in an emergency. This thing can't land in an emergency as it has the glide ratio of a rock. It'll need a rocket deployed parachute.

Skeptic

Nipponese

Unless it is a flying DeLorean, I don't care.

Thaddeus

animeredith

Aaron Stein

The video goes to great lengths to tell us what we already know: Air cars are potentially cool and useful.

What the video leaves out is any technical detail past the design features.

Phase one: collect investors.
Phase two:
Phase three: profit

strider_mt2k

Hoffen

what got me on this is that if you look on their web site they list the fuel weight as being 1300LBS for 2 hours.... assuming that it runs on Jet A fuel at 7LBS per gallon, this thing uses about 185 gallons of fuel for 2 hours or 93 gallons per hour.... A bell 206 jetranger uses less than half that... at $4 per gallon this thing is one expensive beast to run, and clearly isnt intended to replace anything land based from a budget standpoint

rlreif

All words of BS generation.

They didnt' specify if their patent was a design patent or an application patent. Big difference.

It's just a ducted Chinook anyway.

The Brain

albokay

obbie

TheGeektoriousBIG

aR-Tard

And is it just me, or does it feel like they are trying to target super heroes with this ad?

james-42

FatherStorm

ElPresidente408

http://www.urbanaero.com/Downloads/Hummingbird.mpg

When was Blade Runner supposed to take place? 2018? We got plenty of time to slap together a police spinner, kids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinner_(Blade_Runner)

We already have recalcitrant Sushi Masters who will insist on serving only two pieces when you want four. And noodles.

Realistically, I don't know if these will be as commonplace as regular cars, 'cause nobody is going to want to hear one babies touching down outside their bedroom window at 3 AM. But as a police cruiser, ambulance, air taxi...? You ain't got enough piss to put out that campfire, partner....

bunny_rabid

Zamemee

if it ain't broke, don't make it worse, i say.

willyolio

OBM

ok, little off topic there.

Anyway, why do flying cars have to fly 200ft up?

agrajag42

Hand_O_Death

bryanmccormick

willyolio

mobius9