Flying cars crash into each other at Chinese air show

You can become a private pilot with an airplane or helicopter rating in 40 hours. 250 is for commercial pilots.

And this shit does happen.

It took decades an many lives to get there, people tend to forget that.

Not to mention that the frequency of inspections even for the kind of planes amateur pilots fly is insane compared to cars.

Something like a Cessna 152 (common single seat, single prop, plane) has in addition to the annual inspection another one every 100h of flight, plus of course before using it the pilot has to conduct a pre-flight inspection (which is mostly visual).

Imagine if before starting your car you had to check that the steering wheel actually turns the wheels or that the brakes actually work and every 100h of use you have to take it to a mechanic for a more thorough inspection, plus the engine only lasts 30,000h and you have to replace it after that.

I am not looking forward to random idiots falling from the sky onto my property.

And also a huge QC culture. If we let the auto industry make aircrafts for the general public, we'll soon wish we were flying Boeing

That's just a normal day in Alaska.

Low and slow is the most dangerous kind of flying you can do.

Flying cars are also inevitably less efficient and heavier than a dedicated counterpart, meaning the flight envelope is small, and your aircraft is less responsive.

(lower power to weight ratio, less efficient use of the lower,)

Also, any real pilot would be able to explain why flying cars are a bad idea… so they’re probably not all that experienced.

I think if they become a thing people won't directly control them. Instead they will fly autonomously.

It's way easier to make something fly itself than drive itself

Let's say we all magically become able to not crash into each other at all. That's not going to make things much safer; car aren't built with the strict QC of airplanes, they're bound to have more failures.

When you have wheels, it's not all that problematic, with some luck you could even be unscathed after losing a wheel on the highway.

Once you're flying though? Anything happens and you're pretty much toast

The pilot has always been the limiting factor for flying cars.

People are always saying "it's the future, right? Where are my jetpacks and flying cars?". And the truth is, there have been many prototype vehicles over the years that could be called flying cars, we've already done it. The reason everyone doesn't have one in their garage comes down to two factors.

1. Price. The reason cars are as affordable as they are is mass production. That is to say, still quite expensive, but within reach for most people in developed countries. With mass production you get that economy of scale, but most people simply don't need a flying car, so it will be hard to ever reach that level of mass production.
2. Skill to operate. A "flying car" is simply an aircraft that you can park at home. It's an airplane or a rotorcraft of some variety. As such, you'll need a pilots license to operate it, as well as (probably) a special certification for VTOL vehicles. Obtaining a pilots license is not as simple as a driver's license, there's just a lot more to know and the consequences of being underprepared are more severe. This isn't within reach for everyone, not everyone should be a pilot. That fact makes mass adoption near impossible and that exacerbates the first issue, not being able to utilize economies of scale.

The way I see it, people can't be expected to operate flying vehicles safely in congested areas, it's just not a realistic expectation. But I do think there is a route to this Jetsons future. When we actually master self-driving vehicles, when it's a mature and reliable technology, an expected feature on every new car, when it's demonstrably safer than any human driver, and when you no longer require a driver's license to operate the vehicle, at that point we're finally ready for flying cars; the rest of the technology is already there waiting for us.

My bet is that personal flying vehicles will happen and gradually spread --- probably not as a mass replacement for ground-based vehicles --- but it'll be fully-autonomous vehicles. It won't be Average Joe becoming a pilot.

EDIT: Well, okay, I mean, you can get personal flying vehicles today --- in the US, you don't need a license or anything to fly something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_parachute

...whereas you do to operate a car on public roads. Just not allowed to fly over built-up areas. But I'm talking about heavier vehicles.

Hexacopter, but yeah, basically a microlight helicopter.

Congratulations, you can't count to 6.

It comes with a car carrier.

Ya would think a flying car would at least have wheels. The marketing is doing the heavy lifting lol

Flying trams.

m/fuckflyingcars Jokes aside, what did they expect?

When you mean hits the road... Do you mean crash into it?

In theory, sure.

In practice, a large number of autonomous vehicles traveling at high speeds might not be able to keep clear of one another consistently.

They’re going to be marketed to people who aren’t qualified to fly helicopters.

If it's marketed to trained pilots, it's a "helicopter." If it's being marketed to untrained pilots, it's a "flying car."

Look like quadrocopter in the images.

is that Gabriel Bell?