Oh what a bad idea

A hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars.

Man, I bet if you took that thing down to Wrightsville Beach in NC, with a big ol' sign that said "ride in a flying car. $50 for a drive, $100 for a five minute flight"... I bet you could do $300 an hour, easy. Three grand a day, it'd take a couple of months to pay it off, and then you own it outright.

Of course, the insurance on that thing (especially as a tourist business!) would probably be astronomical.
 
For $194, 000, they ought to throw in a little extra, like:

rosie.jpg
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
But the sky has limitless 'lanes'

Imagine a 5 lane highway... now imagine if cars were spread out among 50 different lanes based on altitude. Each lane is given about 30-50 feet to stay within... that's only 1,500/2,500 feet (in lanes, of course the first one is a far above our area)... big aircraft can fly up to 20k-30k... That's a lot of aerial lanes.
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I'm not sure we'd ever run into a problem like that.
If those things are anything like small planes, they should be really sensitive to weather. All it takes is for the day to be a little bit too windy and nobody would be out flying.

By the way, if it ever WOULD come to that - what's gonna happen to all the thousands of miles of roads that's been built up this past century?
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
But the sky has limitless 'lanes'

Imagine a 5 lane highway... now imagine if cars were spread out among 50 different lanes based on altitude. Each lane is given about 30-50 feet to stay within... that's only 1,500/2,500 feet (in lanes, of course the first one is a far above our area)... big aircraft can fly up to 20k-30k... That's a lot of aerial lanes.
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And of course, These guys would want their own lane!

Pedalpoweredairplane.jpg
 
Barry_Green said:
A hundred and ninety-four thousand dollars.

Man, I bet if you took that thing down to Wrightsville Beach in NC, with a big ol' sign that said "ride in a flying car. $50 for a drive, $100 for a five minute flight"... I bet you could do $300 an hour, easy. Three grand a day, it'd take a couple of months to pay it off, and then you own it outright.

Of course, the insurance on that thing (especially as a tourist business!) would probably be astronomical.
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I have had several small single engine planes on lease back programs over the years, it's basicly the small planes people rent for $125 an hour to learn how to fly or just go have fun in if they have their license. My insurance (it's not to expensive)would cover any passanger or if I wanted to take someone with me and charge them, but, here is the thing, it's not leagal to take paying passengers (for profit)unless you have a commercial rating (not as in airline commercial) but it is a min of 200 hours flight time and a test, that being said you could put an ad on Craigs list tonight looking for a single engine vfr pilot with a commercial rating who is wanting to build his time to work for the airlines and he'd do it for free, I know lots of people who would do it for free so you could still kepp all the money with a work around, if you get lucky you might be able to find a guy to pay you $30 an hour to take people for rides that you charge, it's still cheaper than him renting for $125 an hour to build his time.

Another thing is you couldn't land it on the beach or take off from it (FAA regs) but you could use it for a display on the beach on saturday with a sign that says "rides at the airport on Sunday for $75 each."

I'd bet you could make the payments and cover all cost doing that on the weekends so you'd pretty much have a plane that is paying for itself and at your use the other 5 days a week.
 
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Barry, I fly into Mountain Air (it's a golf community in the Blue Ridge Mountains on NC) you could park it there on the end of the runway and every pilot who flys in on the weekends to play golf would GLADDLY pay $300-$400 for an hour in it, you could go from flying community to flying community for a while.
 
Added to my wedding registry. Forget the dishes and stuff. So far I have a TARDIS, a telescope, and this. My bride will have to make her own way...
 
This almost wants to make me start a mini Net Jets (fractional aircraft ownership) with these as the aircraft, buy 1/4 share, 1/8th share etc.

Who's in for a 1/4 share of a flying car? Anyone?
 
Manual flying cars always seemed like a bad idea to me. We already have enough problems with cars and car related deaths and damage, drunk drivers, under age drivers, illegal races, let alone the fact that your "car" can now fly over water having a "tow truck" meet you in the middle of the Atlantic at 4am on a saturday might be difficult.

Not saying that there are not already loads of planes in the air and responsible pilots but when you look at cars and drivers from young one's up to the elderly people I very much doubt that they will all of a sudden become more responsible or they will admit that they do not have the capacity to drive anymore.

Now automated cars that follow set routes and work on long established and tested software would work though much more boring. I just think with terrorists, suicide boomers, old people hitting the gas instead of the brake and all the other wild car related stories, flying cars for the general population is not a good idea.

That's just my view and the baisis for an old comedy routine I had.

have a good one
 
ChipG said:
This almost wants to make me start a mini Net Jets (fractional aircraft ownership) with these as the aircraft, buy 1/4 share, 1/8th share etc.

Who's in for a 1/4 share of a flying car? Anyone?
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Ok Chip, Me, you, Barry and a little ol' lady from Pasadena..... She's gonna need it on Sundays. "Oh boy, I can't wait to see the look on the preacher's face....!"
 
The insurance to take a paying passenger in a sport certified aircraft is NOT a lot of money, I'd bet it will cost less than $3,500 a year and that's with full hull damage on a $200k plane. The thing is the FAA doesn't certify every tom, dick and harry so the more time you have and more ratings (like commercial) the cheaper your premiums are. When I started flying I couldn't even get insurance on the plane I wanted to buy (not at any cost)so I had to buy a small trainer (one of the ones I put on lease back). If your going to fly it and charge for profit you have to have a min of 200 hours and a commercial rating (the commercial rating makes your insurance premiums go down).
 
I know it only burns 5 gal an hour of auto fuel but I still would bet the costs to run it (no hangar) insurance, maintenance, pro rating for parts that time out would be $45-$55 an hour which is REALLY cheap in aviation standards, REALLY cheap.
 
Barry_Green said:
Think about it -- look at that thing driving up to the garage. Look at all that white space there, just perfect to put your company logo. When you go to the major ad agency to present yourself as a director (and especially an aerial cinematographer) pull up in that thing. NOBODY would forget who you were. That's a ticket to the big leagues, right there.

'Course, you already have to be in the big leagues to buy a $200,000 flying car, I guess...
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The funniest thing for me was when I played that video you posted, the first Google Ad that popped up at the bottom of the video was for "Aircraft Accident Lawyer."
 
I think littering will not only be a major fine but would kill as well. Imagine dropping a Corona bottle out of the window and hitting some dude with a Sony camera. Disaster.
 
Well, at 3:57am CNN just had a segment on the flying car, Headline News.

It's going to make it, the first flying car! Now they'll just have to stay out of bankruptcy court.
 
S. Matthews said:
I just think with terrorists, suicide boomers, old people hitting the gas instead of the brake and all the other wild car related stories, flying cars for the general population is not a good idea.
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Flying palnes are already available to the general public. You can get a fully functioning sport plane right now for 1/5 the price of this flying car (still an aiplane). If someone wanted to do malicious acts with them, they could. No difference what-so-ever. To fly this specific "car", it still takes the same requirements as any other sport plane.

If this "airplane car" makes you worry about those things, then you should already be worried....

Now, if anyone could go to the local honda dealership and buy one for $15k and could go down to the DMV and take a 5 minute test to get your license, that's when I would be worried. But I suspect that is still decades or more away, and I'm sure by then they would have safety regulations and standard ways of doing things just like the roads now.
 
Natural selection looking for a place to happen. Seems unfair to the people on the ground, minding their own business, who will be crushed by the falling debris.
 
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