MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: You can't win this one

> If you don't drive it on the road, it's not a car. What you want is for everyone to
> own an aircraft. I like the words that article used: Personal Air vehicle. That's
> what you want, not a "flying car". That's how what the Jetsons use would be
> classified.

"You can't win this one." "I like the words that article used:" "roadable aircraft." That's what all those things are. Driving to the airport is nearly opposite in concept to flying home.

Is the "Skycar" not a "car?" The definition you cited is bull. "Car" is a shortening of "carriage," specifically "motorized carriage." "Carriage" meaning "a means of conveyance." So, everything; planes, trains, whatever, if it is a box around you with a motor attached. What makes the thing we call a "car" what it is, is that we have it with us at the place we are, and then have it still at the place we go to. A "flying car" needs to carry you from origin to destination, flying. And I'll accept that those things are true of those roadable aircraft.

> You can see all kinds on youtube. Don't hate because they're not mass produced and
> you (nor anyone here probably) can afford one, or could be bothered having to get an
> FAA license and drive to the air strip to fly with it.

Not mass produced? That's the whole point: "...drew us all as basically Eskimos living in igloos with flying cars." If these planes were mass produced, and I could get my training and license at the Walmart next to the dealership for a fiver, they would still never work.

It can NEVER be practical for everyone to have an airplane in their driveway to use when commuting to work, shopping, or going to dinner. Those things are ONLY useable as airplanes that must be used as such, except that you can park them at home if you don't live too far from the airport.

If I had one, with all the training, and all the licensing, I would need to drive to the nearest small airstrip (a couple towns south), take off, and land... where? Back at the same place, since Aeroflex is the nearest place to my normal destinations. JFK? Yeah, I want to go the city, so I fly there, and can't use it on NYC's streets, so I leave it there and take a bus. Now put a million of them there.

Only a vehicle that can cope with traffic, that doesn't need to queue up to take off and land, and that can use preapproved air "lanes" as local as any road, rather than just major highways, can be something everyone could have and use. Yes, it is a "personal air vehicle," just as the thing in the driveway now is a "personal ground vehicle." Using a definition of "car" that was designed to describe the thing we use now is just semantics. If they were what we came to use, the definition would change to fit them, because the root meaning has been abandoned already.