Flying cars
We submitted in another website (Reddit) a link from Wikipedia about the first flying car (
Aerocar). I mean this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocar. Well, it was removed and the explanation was "Thank you for your contribution. Unfortunately, your submission has been removed.
Please read the removal notice carefully. Your post falls into one or more (but not necessarily all) of the following categories:
No memes or low-effort/low-quality posts or comments. This includes copypasta, shitposting, and trolling. Posts designed to be hate-fests or troll-baiting are considered "trolling" and will be removed.
Memes are welcome in r/carmemes.
Please read the rules and the chain of action regarding removed submissions and moderator actions before continuing to post. If you have any questions, please read the rules first and feel free to message the mods if you still have concerns."
We decided to ask more, so we sent that: "Hello! I shared an article from Wikipedia about the first real flying car. And it was deleted because it's a "meme" or something like this. It was a mistake or not? Just trying to figure out this rule."
The answer was: "Hi there,
Our sidebar says: "We try to be a helpful discussion-driven community while maintaining high-quality discourse and topical content."
Reposting a wiki page is extremely low effort."
Then we explained this: "Hi! Thanks for the answer! I wanted to see what people think about it -- why there are so many flying cars (since that time) and we can't buy one still, so I shared this link to show them how long ago it's already possible to combine a car with a plane. Hoped there will be some interesting discussion.
May I post it as a question then?"
The answer was: "A complete title and fleshed out post body with a few links would certainly go a long way to satisfying the requirements." (plus something about another subreddit) and then we posted a question about the flying cars: "
When we can drive flying cars?" A quote:
When we can drive flying cars?
When we're going to have the chance to drive flying cars? The first one was produced in the '50s. So it's possible. Where is the problem?
(By the way, now we see that the first one was produced even earlier: "Jess Dixon's flying automobile c. 1940":
Kobel Feature Photos (Frankfort, Indiana) / State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
original description: "Built by Jess Dixon of Andalusia, Alabama. Can fly forward, backward or straight up or hover in the air. Runs on road or flys across country. 40 H.P. motor, air cooled, speeds to 100 m.p.h.").
And we got some interesting (and some reasonable) answers. Here I'll summarize the important points:
1. "Buy a helicopter."
It's not the same. A flying car means something that one can fly and something that one also can drive (when it's necessary). 2. "A flying car is just a plane."
I don't think so. Of course, this kind of definition is possible, but the flying cars are something different. I prefer this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadable_aircraft -- it "combines the flying capability of an aircraft with the option of being driven as an automobile on the ground." 3. "When they drive themselves."
It's a good idea, but I think it should be implemented to the nowadays "classic" cars too because the normal AI is going to prevent much more car incidents. 4. "The cost
The maintenance
The safe usage of
The noise
The lack of regulatory guidance" --
1. I don't know why a flying car should be more costly, but let's suppose it's so; this will make no big difference as far as there are people who like cars and who'll buy flying cars too. 2. The maintenance. I'm sure that even if from the beginning it'll be not so easy, after 1-2 years people will start to do it well. 3. Safety first. I do agree. Probably it may be more dangerous, especially if there are many flying cars in the same area at the same time. Depends on the management. 4. Noise? Here I'm not sure, but I may suppose that it's not necessarily more noise than a "classic" car. 5. The regulatory guidance is a big problem, but it's easy soluble.5. About these "... I thank God we don't have flying cars... People have a hard enough time as it is commanding a car on a 2D plane, the heard would definitely be culled if this was opened up to 3D" and "When people can prove they can handle driving on roads first." --
All I can say is that I hope that if there are flying cars for sale they'll be with a good AI that will make them as safe as possible!6. "The problem is you cannot make a reliable, easy to "drive" flying car and they would not be safe. This isn't Back to the Future this is real life." --
Probably this may be the main problem. I'm not sure.7. "... It’s not the technology holding us back, it’s the practicality of it. Imagine if every time you went to work in the morning you had to get permission from air traffic control and do a bunch of preflight checks. Everyone would be late all the time. And there would have to be some kind of organization for traffic or else people would just be flying into each other all the time or entering no fly zones or annoying people by flying over their houses. And if you’re gonna organize traffic into air roads, then what’s the problem with ground roads? Flying cars just don’t make sense for the real world." --
This is exactly what I think -- the technology already should be good enough (in 2020-2021). But I think that all these problems mentioned above are soluble with good laws, organization and management.8. "... anything fitting this description will either be a shitty car or a shitty airplane, or possibly both. The differences between the two transportation modes are simply too vast to properly address in a single vehicle.
To get more specific, a lot of design work goes into keeping airplanes as lightweight as possible. More weight affects an airplane's performance far, far more than it does a car. And this is an especially large concern when you're designing an airplane that will have systems that are literally dead weight while it's flying - that is, everything related to it being roadworthy." --
I'm not so good in this engineering science, so I can't comment professionally it, but I post it here because it looks like a good argument so far.9. "Can you imagine the amount of people who would text and fly?" --
In my personal opinion texting/chatting and driving/flying should be forbidden. Of course, if the flying cars are 100% "auto" (with the mentioned AI above), then it's okay because the driver/the pilot will be like e passenger and then he/she will be free to text/chat/sleep/etc.10. "I’m a bit worried about safety. Imagine how catastrophic traffic will be in the air." --
Me too. But with good regulations and good AI it can't be a problem in my opinion.11. "Airspace is so tightly controlled around anywhere you’d want to fly one to avoid traffic." --
The best option. This is the optimistic version that I want to believe may come true. ...