SkyCar

[Joe_Widen]

Well, how many of you have heard about the Moller Skycar. It has to be the coolest thing since slice bread. Just wanted to hear some opinions on it.

http://www.moller.com

[Bill_Hancoc]

Ive seen video of it before on TV and it has great potential but the current prototype is loud unstable (as far as ride quality appeared) and expensive. not to mention hard to get into a parking garage.
It has potential to be the car of the (new millennium) "future"

[SamC]

Wow.. thats really cool! i want one. Anyone else?

[KenWittlief]

its been around since before you were born

cool idea, but it has never flown, and probabally never will

[Joe_Widen]

It has hovered and it has taken off and landed like a normal plane. Just can't switch between the two.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Joe_Widen

It has hovered and it has taken off and landed like a normal plane. Just can't switch between the two.

go back and read the "buy a Skycar" and "test results" parts of the webpage.

It says they have hovered with it tethered from above. It doesnt say anything about it ever being flown like an aircraft.

[Andrew Blair]

Yep, this sucker has been publicized like crazy, but simply doesn't have the flight part of the equation. If you look at the tests, it can hover fine, but only up to a point, where you would imagine the VTOL equivalent of ground effect would cut out. The engines are nearly throttled, and yet it can seem to go higher than about 40-50', ever. Even to clear treees and get *moving* in a forward direction, it would need twice that height. Their computer control seems a bit adventurous as well- the landing part of the VTOL is a bit rough. It simply doesn't seem doable with their setup now. And I don't really like the paint job.


What I will give them credit for is their marketing. The Skycar has appeared on many Discovery type programs, they have generated alot of interest, and they even have their own diecast models. They really have done a good job with pushing their hovercraft.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

What I will give them credit for is their marketing. ....

actually that is the thing I hold against Moller the most. He has taken a lot of 'investment' money from little old ladies retirement funds, and has not given back one cent of return on their investment.

I dont think he is selling flying cars, he is selling an idea that doesnt fly.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

High doses of marketing may lead to the availibility of grants, funding, extra resources...even if prospects are currently slim, a bit of advertising could go a long way.

[KenWittlief]

but here's the thing, the flight equations for VTOL and STOL aircraft are well known.

A college senior in an aerospace engineering course could run the equations on this thing in two or three days, and determine if it will fly or not

but this guy has been hawking this 'invention' for years and years and years, taking money from anyone he can sell the idea to

and all he has been able to do after all this time is get one to hover, while its hanging on tether wires?!

The Wright Brothers didnt take this long, and they had nothing to work with but hack saws, files and primative machine shop equipment.

If it wont fly then all the money in the world cant break the laws of physics.

[KelliV]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

this guy has been hawking this 'invention' for years and years and years, taking money from anyone he can sell the idea to
and all he has been able to do after all this time is get one to hover, while its hanging on tether wires?!

I actually got to meet this guy early last July while I was working NEXTfest, and asking for money seemed to be all he could do. He even asked me if I wanted to sponser him. My advice to everyone is not to get your hopes up. His "vision" included everyone having one of these and them being set on auto pilot 98% of the time. When asked how he would achieve this he said "watch and see"

[KenWittlief]

Its somewhat humorous that we have this thread, and another one talking about the Smart car that gets 60mpg

for this thing to fly at all would take hundreds of HP (at continuous full throttle), and you would be lucky to get 2mpg with something that flys like a brick.

I was thinking last night of real aviation innovators, like Burt Rutan, who has designed and produced many successful aircraft and the first commercially produced space craft "SpaceShipOne" over the last 20 - 30 years.

Its a great contrast between real engineers (Rutan) and WannaBees.

There is no magic involved in making things fly, you just gotta know what you are doing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Rutan

[=Martin=Taylor=]

During the build season, everyone on my team was hot to build a robot that could do everything. A robot that could be defensive, could pick up massive amounts of balls, could score with the camera, could score 1pt & 3pt balls.

We felt it was important to be diverse and to be able to accomplish all the tasks.

I think Moller feels much the same way.

He wanted to build a car that could fly.

But in building a car that could fly he was forced to sacrifice the design aspects that make for a successful car. And in building an airplane that could drive he was forced to sacrifice the design aspects that make an airplane successful.

In the end Moller ended up with a vehicle that wasn't much good as an airplane and wasn't much good as a car.

Unfortunately, this was also true for our robot. It wasn't that great at shooting 3pt. or 1pt. balls.

I think there is a great lesson to be learned here.

[sanddrag]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Hachiban VIII again.

Darn. Well, I like the nice comparison there. Just one more piece of evidence that FIRST easly relates to real world situations.

[GaryVoshol]

Maybe they could run this thing on HHO gas

We've heard for ages that future transportation will be flying cars. Does anyone really think the future will be like the Jetsons, with us trying to jam our "car" into the crowded "freeway" airspace? When there's no roads required, people will tend to want to go directly from A to B. What a mess that would be to regulate!

Oh, and you think you get lost now when you have directions like, "Get on I-AA, drive 20 miles, get off at Exit X, turn left, go east 2 miles, and turn left again." Flying directions would be, "Fly heading north 14.7 degrees west 18.2 miles." Try that in the fog or a snowstorm!