How many times have you heard some older person ask “Where’s My Flying Car?”
It’s true: Science fiction stories, and magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, did instill in many of us, the idea that one of the defining characteristics of “The Future” was going to be flying cars.
I have always loved flying cars in books, movies, comic books etc. They are so cool! Nothing says “in the future, anything is possible” like getting into a vehicle that magically lifts off, hovers, and then zips off to your next destination, neatly avoiding the hassles of surface traffic.
I don’t qualify for a commercial pilot’s license, due to a color-deficiency in my eyes, and I couldn’t afford a private license if it was not a step on the way to a career. But I have always loved flying. I have very much enjoyed flights in small aircraft, especially when allowed to take the controls. And I have spent more hours than I can count playing flight simulation games. So the flying car has definitely always appealed to me.
And now, here we are IN the actual future, and… where are they?!
It is very disappointing if you were looking forward to having one parked in your driveway.
And one does have the occasional fantasy, especially while sitting in a traffic jam.
How satisfying it would be, to lift straight up, then zoom right over the heads of all those other poor saps, still trapped on the ground.
There are a number of companies that have been working on the flying car, some of them, for decades. Now and then, a new one pops up with a new and different take on the idea, and it seems always just around the corner, but not today. Some of these companies, I suspect, actually gave up on really making their vehicles fly quite a while ago, and just make all their money by getting new “investors” to give them money.
Some of them do keep building new prototypes, and achieving successively closer approximations. But a lot of them experience goal-drift and end up making some sort of personal aircraft, but nothing anyone will be parking on the street or in their driveway.
This seems to be the case with jetpacks as well.
There are some reasons for this stagnation, above and beyond the difficulties in getting them to fly.
For one thing, it takes a lot of energy to hold an aircraft aloft. Too much energy. This is why, for short journey’s it’s not cost-effective to take a plane. If you’re going across country or across an ocean, packed into a single aircraft with a lot of other people, the cost is better than if you went by car or by boat, if only because of the time involved. “Time is money.” But distance, speed and numbers of travelers are required to make that true.
And if you are just travelling from one city to the next city over, any form of air travel would be much more expensive than any other way you might get there. So most of us drive, or, if there is sufficient public transport, you take a bus or a train. A flying car, unless one is travelling far and fast, will cost several times as much money per mile for fuel (or charge). And the necessity of keeping the weight light requires special materials and construction techniques, greatly increasing the cost of the vehicle itself.
Safety is another problem. Anything moving enough air fast enough to lift a vehicle off the ground is innately dangerous. Whether it’s a ducted fan, a jet engine, or an exposed propeller, anything with that much power driving it is potentially deadly, even as the vehicle just sits idling on the ground. This is a major issue with most aircraft. But keeping people away from the propeller or intakes is fairly easy at an airport. On a busy street, well… good luck.
And there is also the added danger that comes with altitude. Hundreds or even thousands of, hopefully, well-maintained and competently-piloted aircraft, is one thing… In fact, despite recent deregulation trends, aircraft in general have much better safety statistics than automobiles. Much better.
But if, like me, you have noticed the condition of many ground vehicles, and the frightening habits of some of their drivers, I think you will agree that millions of these things, (even if they are much lighter than most ground vehicles) zipping around overhead all day and night is not such a good idea. Most people, in my opinion, should not be trusted to pilot a vehicle in two dimensions, let alone add a third.
And while a self-driving (or self-flying) vehicle, guided by an advanced air-traffic control system might seem like a sensible alternative, the problem with such complex systems is their complexity. The more complicated any system is, the more ways there are for something to go wrong. A malfunction in a system that is guiding hundreds of thousands of vehicles could cause a catastrophe the likes of which we have never seen, and should hope never to see.
Even so, there are some very small personal air-vehicles making their debuts lately. The bad and good news is that they are very expensive, there are major restrictions on where they can be flown, they require licensing that is out of reach for most people, and they have very limited utility. So they are basically just toys for the very rich. This touches on a topic I will likely discuss in another post (or several), but let’s leave it out for now.
If you have read my About page, this little deconstruction of the Flying Car may seem to run counter to my purpose. Let me assure you, I really am all about a better brighter vision of the future. But I am also about a brighter future that is attainable and sustainable.
So what I’m suggesting here, is that, however much we may enjoy flying cars in some of our fiction (and for sure, in video games), we might want to adjust that optimistic vision, and leave them out.
With the energy demands we need to meet, the issues of global warming, and the other issues described above, it’s probably a good thing we don’t have flying cars. And the more optimistic vision of the future is probably the one with better and much more extensive public transportation, on, suspended above, and/or running under the ground. And if we see any flying cars at all in that future, we’re probably better off if they remain very few and far between.
It might be fun to watch the occasional flying car race, or jetpack race or whatever, but for getting around in our clean, efficient, beautiful future world, you’re better off taking the bus or the train.
