Car Designers Inspired by 'The Jetsons' Dallas Morning News A group of top designers at the nation's largest automakers also predicted that consumers will want vehicles that look fuel-efficient, too – not unlike the Toyota Prius, which makes as much of a design statement with its aerodynamic kidney-bean shape as it does with its 46 mpg fuel rating.
Israel's Robotic Ambulance of the Future Wired A group of Israeli technology and defense firms are working on what could become the world's first robotic aircraft for evacuating, and even treating, soldiers injured on the battlefield.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Chorley Citizen Visitors to the school in Eaves Green Lane enjoyed a range of stalls and activities but the real star of the show was one of the cars used in the 1968 blockbuster film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
The re-emergence of the "Lazarus species," once considered extinct, shows that nature sometimes has the final word over science.
May 31, 2008
I've gone to my farm in Kentucky for the weekend. It's a great place to relax, do a little hard physical labor, and forget about the rest of the world. If you don't have such a place, I highly suggest you get one.
In the meantime, here's a little something that I found for you to read with your morning coffee.
See you on Monday.
J. Peterman
From the Boston Herald:
Woburn's Terrafugia Inc. hopes its futuristic car-plane business takes off in Massachusetts.
The maker of the hybrid car-plane contraption - which theoretically will both drive on roads and soar through the sky - plans to meet with officials from Gov. Deval Patrick's Massachusetts Office of Business Development next month to try to work out an economic-incentives package to keep the company in the state.
But Massachusetts may face stiff competition in its attempt to retain Terrafugia's future production operations here.
A number of states - eager to attract a cutting-edge manufacturer requiring potentially hundreds of highly skilled assembly and mechanical workers - are actively wooing the young aviation company, founded by an MIT grad and his colleagues.
"I'd rather stay right here in Massachusetts," said Carl Dietrich, co-founder and chief executive of Terrafugia, which hopes to start production of its two-seat car-planes sometime in 2009.
Share the Eye:
Flying Car at Paris Motor Show YouTube A new Skoda lifts off, hovers and lands at the Paris Motor Show.
How Flying Cars Will Work Howstuffworks.com Sitting amidst a sea of cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic on an endless expressway, have you ever daydreamed about your car taking off and flying over the road?
Moller's VSTOL YouTube Moller International has developed the first and only feasible, personally affordable, personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle the world has ever seen.
still thinking about today...
The idea of the car-plane is fascinating.
How will they be integrated into the existing traffic patterns, especially in a place like L.A.? Will it require a special type of hybrid license (driver/pilot)? What age will you be allowed to get the license? What kind of instructor from the DMV will risk a driving'flying test with you. In fact what kind of training will you get? The thought of a first solo in a car-plane by someone over L.A. doesn't excite me, that's for sure. Will there be an altitude restriction? What sort of fuel will it run on?
What kind of insurance premium will you pay for the priviledge of "flying" a car?
What will be the price?
What agency will handle "traffic" accidents involving these car-planes?
I see new government agencies coming into existence and new trade specialists to handle vehicles. And will you trust a used car-plane salesperson to sell you a reliable car-plane?
Car-jackers and car thieves love to give the police a run for it in L.A., won't it be fun to watch the police chase a car-plane-jacker around L.A.? Especially when he runs out of gas....
And what about the unintended consequences of the new technology. What will be the negative impact on stress levels, financial risk, pollution?
I think the concept is exciting, the possibilities endless, the consequences known, unknown, and unknowable. Possibly it will find a use in remote areas
of the world, law enforcement uses, military applications, and some industrial uses.
I'm intrigued but want to know more.
Here's an additional question: Would you want one? Where do you fall on the scale in between, "Sign me up no matter what the cost!" and "You couldn't pay me to get into that thing!"?
I admit, I'm not sure I would be too eager to drive a car that, if I hit the wrong pedal, might take a wrong turn upwards. But, of course, I am only speaking from the perspective of a world in which such things have yet to hit the market. I reserve the right to feel otherwise once they do.
I remember a colleague of mine, who said "Anything that can be conceived can be done. The reason they weren't building computers in Shakespeare's day was because no one could have conceived of such a thing. Once the conception was possible, so was the execution." We live this philosophy out everyday. The car-plane is one more example.
Spinner said...
A real spoil-sport, ExPat. I was all excited about the world as it will be with people flying around like in that Bruce Willis movie... what was that , DPR? The futuristic one where he goes after some sort of artifact and there is a girl (well, duh!) that pulls it all together at the end. Anyway, this seems to be another example of the invention following the conception, just like self-opening doors and Star Trek. Is anybody old enough to remember how we said, "Yea, sure" when the crew just went up to a door and it opened? Apparently, there were stage hands behind them and they pushed on cue. But now ExPat has brought the beurocracy into it and spoiled all the fun. My first question was how will the wings and such retract? And will that be fail-safe so that they won't retract in mid-air? Hummm... Another thought. I don't think this would be a good idea here because KY drivers can't drive in two dementions. Three would be way too much! But the turn indicators of left, right and up would be no problem as KY drivers don't use them now.
Since I am from the south, my mother taught me to be polite and always write a thank you note. But I don't think she for-saw interactive blogs. So I improvise. I do truely want to thank all of you for your kind responses on the title of my husband's book. They are all duly listed and will be submitted, including the more.... creative ones. Much appreciated. Thank you.
I could go on and on about how exciting the possibilities are . . . and it is truly exciting as previous posters have said - and I want to be a part of new concepts and births - both as a conceiver and implementer, as well as watching (and sometimes cheering) as others dreams unfold into reality.
I don't want to stand in the way of "progress", but I have to admit something. My mind puts on the brakes sometimes. Something in me resists instead of embracing whole-heartedly. I can't help but think of how much I enjoy peace and quiet and communing with nature (and then I oscillate and think, "how great would it be to be able to fly so easily at the flip of a switch?")
Commuter traffic in the sky. Everything would be so accessible. Would it be loud? Would there ever be clear patches in the sky for us to gaze at and clear our mental space? Instead of feeling small as we looked at the canopy of stars, would the sheer numbers and chaos of flyers overhead instead just make us feel insignificant? How would our sense of scale change?
Would we read billboards up there (a virtually untapped advertising market>although spoofy, see www.moonvertising.com<)? What about privacy? Our sense of privacy would have to be redefined. People are adaptable, right? Younger people would look surprised when older people told them the buzzing skies made them feel claustrophobic. I can't help but think of skies in 'The Jetson's' or 'The Fifth Element', or even scenes from the 'Star Wars' series.
Even as a little girl I liked to sneak off by myself with a blanket and hike into the woods around our house and lay on my back watching the leaves shake, the clouds float, hear the insects buzz . . . feeling alone, yet not alone. Now there are no woods around my childhood home (more change) . . . but I still hike when I can - and I still seek that cradle that nature provides.
Do you know what the difference is between “leading edge†technology and “bleeding edge†technology? ..... Luck, and letting someone else be the beta user.
This idea is exciting. I think my generation (the Boomers) grew up assuming we would have been flying around in our “Meet the Jetson’s†flying craft at least a decade ago. When I was a child, I couldn’t wait, but now, I think I’d only get in one that was driven/flown by a Chicago cab driver, because if anyone would know how to effectively maneuver and survive, it would be them.
ExPat has already identified the many of the risks/consideration and I totally agree with him that they are only the tip of the iceberg, especially in an urban setting and if made available to the general public. Some of the considerations that pop into my mind would be the possible onset of a plague of stiff necks from drivers always feeling the need to look up, and since I get sick on Ferris wheels, automatically deployed vomit bags would have to be standard equipment. But I too could envision them as special use vehicles such as ambulances, law enforcement and fire departments. That would be grand indeed.
To answer DPR’s question, I would probably be somewhere closer on the scale to “You couldn't pay me to get into that thing!"? Heck, I’d have to be twenty years younger before I’d even invest in this idea, no matter how exciting it is.
With all that said, I love the spirit of such ideas, making dreams come true, and I truly hope that these frontiersmen succeed. Since I have over 30 years of manufacturing in my blood, it pleases me that suddenly states are competing to keep some of it onshore.
Spinner:
The movie you're thinking of was a 1998 "Star Wars" rip-off (at least in my opinion, complete with tie-fighters, a brown-robed wizard in a white beard played by a knighted English actor, and a woman with her hair in side buns) called "The Fifth Element". In addition to Bruce Willis and Sir Ian Holm (the aforementioned knight), it starred Gary Oldman serving up one of his most delicious dishes of ham, complete with pineapple and honey glaze.
Your "Star Trek" reference is very apt and charming. There are wonderful blooper reels out there that show what happened in the early takes when the stage hands missed their cues and the doors didn't work. It's fun watching Mr. Spock lose his composure and start cursing as he slams headlong into the door.
DPR, "The Fifth Element" is so campy and well done I have to watch it whenever it's on TV, even though I have the DVD. The Gary Oldman character was awesome. He was so at ease and comfortable being oh so very evil.
girlinthemoon,
Your last paragraph reminded me of a line of a poem by Graeme Edge that served as a intro to a "Moody Blues" album which was "to fly to the sun without burning a wing, to lie in a meadow and hear the grass sing".
Probably has no relevance to anything we are talking about, but if you haven't noticed yet, I often just blurt out things that pop into my head.
In fact, in 1949, a flying car was built, called the Taylor Aerocar, but it never took off (pun intended). In fact, only six were built; though they did fly and drive, I think the repercussions of having these winged machines mixed in with the non-winged variety probably outweighed the benefits. Which isn't to say it wouldn't work today: the post-World War II / pre-Korean War government and economy and all of that mumbo-jumbo I'm not paid to understand mightn't allow it. I mean, right now the whole goverment-economy deal is going a lot more smoothly... right?
exactly ???
Two technologies depicted on Star trek have become a reality.
The communication devices look a lot like cellphones and the communication devises on Next Generation are similar to bluetooth.
The other technology is the computer. We function today with the computer as a partner in what we do, just like in Star Trek. In fact, I remmember when the captain on Enterprise would ask the ship's computer to locate a shipmate......"Ensign Jones is in engineering". Today, people can track where I am in a marathon by connecting to my race chip on my shoe. And if any one has been in a car with a talking GPS system, the satellite knows where you are.
Look at the recent Mars landing. Incredible! (But I still can't figure out how we have difficulty locating a nut case like Bin Laden in a cave on this planet).
I suspect that trekkies (and the more mature version: trekkers) are hidden away in a government think tank cooking up magic or just living the 25th century lifestuye as best they can.
Could phaser cannons and photon torpedoes be on the horizon?
DreadPirateRoberts:
I assume that the same person that would "want one" would be the same type of person that answers challenges with "because its there". We as humans answer personal challenges with our own perspective, ie "c;imb that mountain", "sail (or swim) across the ocean", "run marathons", or "run a yellow traffic signal". I guess it's why we are all different. Twenty years ago, I would have loved the chance to fly and drive. Now I try to avoid risk. To much responsibility. Maybe I'm a sloth.
Hahaha, Spinner! If ExPat is a spoil sport then I am the mighty wet blanket :)
Btw, I have been wanting to ask you (since I saw in a previous post that the reason you are Spinner is that you, well, spin) - have you heard of the John C. Campbell Folk School? It is such a marvelous place and although I have not taken a spinning class, I met some great people taking the spinning course while I was there.
SSJ: The lyrics/words are beautiful, but the spoken word delivery by MB makes me nervous. Not quite as relaxing as actually hearing the grass sing ;)
DPR: Did you see that I answered your post about my name/caftan the other day?