hi, former engineer here, I used to work in the automotive industry and the simple answer to why there are no flying cars and never will be is how y'all drive them on the ground. Can you imagine that carnage and chaos in the air? Do you trust your neighbours to drive safely over your house? Do you trust yourself? Even if you answered yes there are regulators already rushing to make it impossible that obviously did think about this and answered hell no
I suppose there would have to be a largely automated traffic control system in place, with computers doing most of the flying. I'm more skeptical about people maintaining their aircraft properly. Then again, if those aircraft would be basically just oversized drones, meaning they are basically just a bunch of electrical motors and a battery pack, then they would require a lot less maintenance than a car with a combustion engine.
Making self driving cars flying and keeping them a certain distance away from buildings would effectively fix the problems with self driving (not able to respond to the unpredictability of humans effectively) and flying cars (the unreliability of humans in general)
I'm a paraglider pilot. Paragliders are quite slow (around 40 km/h most of the time). And still pilots manage to fly into each other surprisingly often, often enough to have multiple dozen cases documented on video (and I'm not even talking about comp gaggle flying). Regular joe flying in the sky with a multiple ton vehicle ... fuck that!
@squibbelsmcjohnson even regular cars have a heck lots of accidents, I won't trust a regular joe to fly it. Unless the regulations are as strict as aircraft, but at that point might as well take a ride on a private helicopters
@squibbelsmcjohnson Only passenger planes fly along airways. In VFR airspace, which most smaller planes fly through (and cars would share), you can fly wherever you like, following some basic rules of course. If cars can't fly in VFR, nobody will use them. You could only takeoff and land at predefined places and fly through restricted airspaces where VFR is no allowed. Completely useless and VFR pilots would rebel against it (as they already do against commercial drones for package deliveries).
Powered flight is a bit more controlled than paragliding where you just have two ropes to pull. You could assign directions to different altitudes so if you are traveling 210 degrees from North you travel at 210 feet, 73 degrees from north at 73 feet or 360+73 feet etc. With present day technology you could mandate that every flying car have a GPS transponder broadcasting its location heading and speed so collisions could be automatically predicted..
Why anyone thinks people will "drive" flying cars is beyond me. Stop being silly. That will be entirely automated, which is a far easier problem to solve than doing the same on the ground.
Personal flying is a bad idea. 1. When was the last time you did a walk around and check list of all the controls on your car? Pilots have to di it before EVERY flight. 2. One break down and you die 3. Sounds good until every person is up there at the same time.
@GrandDawggy an engine out is only one of many breakdowns that could occur. Not to mention if you engine out driving, your already on an open road, just pull over. In a plane you can't land just anywhere.
@squibbelsmcjohnson Planes are logically designed to fly. They have wings, they can glide in case of emergency. If you look at most of the proposals these days it's a giant drone with a car body on top. So between the people with zero patience who jump out when the blade are still spinning and the whole thing falling out of the sky like a brick due to malfunction because it has zero portance ... Same for jetpacks, happily cruising at 200 feet and suddenly the thrust dies ... The future is going to be so gory =-)
Most people don’t even understand (or take serious) the inherent dangers in automobiles… or the responsibilities of operating one. Are we to expect that to change if we transition to flying vehicles? Only when the technology becomes reliable enough for fully autonomous operation… only then should this even be considered.
I know that they teach pilots the walk around in school but I wonder if they do things like purposely "break" things that were the cause of accidents in the past to train the pilots to actually pay attention. There is a difference between just looking and noticing (that alone would help though) and having a critical eye towards discovering potential problems. I was watching some documentary about a plane crash where the pilot did do the pre flight inspection but simply missed the thing that caused the crash but he should have noticed it. I forgot exactly what it was or what plane it was but the lesson stuck. Glad I'm not a pilot, I'd crash for sure because I tend to overlook things. I've had car problems that I actually knew about but thought would go for a while but didn't.
As someone who is just starting to get a pilot license, I can tell you that just adding an extra dimension of travel makes things so much more complicated. And that's before you start factoring in things like, no traction, power to weight, and the inability to safely stop if something goes catastrophically wrong. If we ever get flying cars, autonomy will be mandatory.
Self driving cars are actually still extremely far behind, there have been so many errors by AI and people getting seriously injured. We aren't even there yet in reality. I think automatic flying cars might be worse. Just require extensive training and high requirements so those who want to fly have to put in the effort to be certified just like getting a pilot's license. A vehicle is a weapon pretty much, it requires proof that you are capable of operating that vehicle through written tests and driving tests.
@@americanfreedomworldpeace Flying taxis are actually be easier presuming they'd either only be flying or that a human would take over for any traditional driving. The main problems with self driving cars are: Idiot drivers, cultural differences, and in a similar vein inconsistent signage/rules. Cars that drive on the ground have to deal with a lot of contradictory information (in some places you can turn left on red for example) and existing drivers. Most commercial airplanes have been (for the most part) flying themselves for decades now with takeoff and landing being the last hurdles (and we're getting close).
Speaking of Henry Ford, He also created the first concrete runways, first Airport terminal, first airport hotel, the first regularly scheduled airline service (using the Ford Trimotors) and first radio airplane communication system. All of this was at the Ford Airport, which also had a dirigible mast! This airport, after Ford left aviation, became the Ford Proving Grounds, adjacent to Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, Michigan. The hotel, the Dearborn Inn, still exists (it's a Marriot, currently undergoing extensive renovations). The terminal building became part of the aerodynamic testing lab, now torn down, and the hangers became special engine labs, which were more recently demolished. The very last airplane to land at Ford Airport was an original Trimotor, which flew in during Ford's 100th anniversary celebration in 2003. One of the Ford Flivver's still exists in the Henry Ford Museum.
The issues with flying cars are numerous and nearly insurmountable. 1. Aircraft need lots of open space without any obstructions to take off and land. Regular cars already don’t fit well in cities, so flying cars would be way worse. The “flying cars in the city of the future” concept looks cool until you realize that there’s only like 10 of them in even the most cluttered renderings. Look at the amount of cars on the street in an actual city and you quickly realize that flying cars would either be restricted to the top 0.1% or else the sky would be so crowded it would be impossible to safely navigate. 2. Noise pollution. Imagine dozens and dozens of helicopters every hour right outside your window. 3. Bad drivers. You’d be seeing dozens of these crashing into each other or into buildings every single day in every major city. After the first couple people got squashed by falling debris and the first couple buildings fell, they’d be pretty quickly outlawed. Edit: 4. Flying is super energy intensive and people are heavy. So you’re looking at huge energy requirements. Which means either enormous vehicles to lift the amount of batteries they require or that they all have to be powered by fossil fuels.
From what I recall form old movies... 'flivver' was pronounced with a short 'i' as in liver. A word that was meant to indicate a cheap vehicle, whether car or airplane.
The origin of the word Flivver: flivver (n.) 20, 1910] A character in a comical column from The Philadelphia Inquirer of Aug. 16, 1909, says it is "... from the verb 'to fliv,' meaning a foul, a bungled miss." also from 1914. Also possibly a nickname for the Model T (ref. slang).
@@willowen5781… The introduction of catalytic converters correlates directly with the discontinued use of lead in gasoline (it would burn the catalytic converter, and probably set the car on fire), so… You’re also spot on 😊
Ah, yes, the catalytic converter. An attempt to keep GM afloat (they had the patent) and a way to pretend that hilariously inefficient engines polluted less while simultaneously making them even more inefficient (because now they had to pump the exhaust out through the converter, and that's energy you can't use to move the vehicle.) It's worth noting that the first year that catalytic converters were mandated the Honda Civic had worse mileage, less power, and greater emissions than the last year they weren't... even of the pollutants that the catalytic converter was designed to scrub. It's a repeated government failure where rather than demand an outcome (lowered emission of pollutants) they demanded a method (run the exhaust through a catalytic converter.)
When I was a kid watching the Jetsons, I was convinced that by "the year 2000" we will have flying cars. Now the way i see people drive on the roads, I realize that they could never handle navigating in 3 dimensions, so I now am GLAD that there are not flying cars. Not to be contrary, but "Flivver" is pronounced with a short "i" and rhymes with Liver. Hey, nice segue into the commercial.
When in doubt, consult the famous movie, Chitty chitty bang bang. Great flying car movie with Dick Van Dyke. Highly fictional as the wings were no where near large enough to get the required lift but a fun movie just the same.
According to Walter Isaacson's bio of Da VInci, the helicopter drawing was actually part of a set/pageant and not meant for practical use. Da Vinci designed loads of theater sets and pageant stuff filled with practical special effects. The Ornathopter was real and meant to fly. He got exceedingly close. Never built it though. He tended to not follow through on a lot of his ideas.
The primary reason we will not see flying cars in the foreseeable future is efficiency: An aircraft has to produce the energy to lift its own weight but a ground craft does not. The most popular small aircraft (Cessna 172) requires 180 horsepower to move ~600 pounds of payload and it gets about 14 MPG. A small car will move the same payload and get up to 50 MPG. Then, let's talk about noise. Most of the noise made by a helicopter or a quad rotor drone is made by the rotors. A small "personal" drone will make almost as much noise as a small "personal" helicopter (like the Robertson R-22), the only difference being the engine noise. The noise made by a few hundred (or thousand) helicopters buzzing around a city would make it fairly unlivable.
Once repulsor rods are invented you can just push the ground away with the tractor beam and lift your car as efficiently as an elevator, then all roads, railways, canals, wings, rotor-blades, boats and wheels become obsolete.
my tech would be much greater efficiency than both ground transport and current flying tech, it doesn't rely on 'drag' for lift, it's electric and completely internal. If you do the calculations for the energy to 'lift' something in the air 10 feet it is very little... having to produce drag and lift then it becomes very inefficient
multirotors are also much less efficient than traditional helicopters due to the mucth higher disk loading. The US Army experimented with a man carrying multirotor called the VZ-7 in the 1950's, it used three mechanical gyros for stability and a central turboshaft engine to drive four constant rate variable pitch props. The only advantage it offered over a traditional helicopter was that it was apparently "easy to fly" other than that it was more complex than a helicopter and less efficient so the program was ended.
I was in a flying car once. “Oh my golly, goodness gracious me!” and other slightly more colorful exclamations I muttered as I went over a humpback bridge in a car I’d bought not 4 hours earlier. My Dad never did figure out why it sat at a weird angle when I got back home! 😛
You're thinking with the mindset of a human who is aware of the fact that there are 8 billion other humans on this planet. It wasn't always so crowded here
Hello Mr Scott. Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your wonderful storytelling manner and your unequivocal puissance to get the facts and details accurately. You’ve made a subscriber out of me and likely the friends and family with whom I will be sharing your channel with. The internet desperately needs high quality, balanced informative and entertaining educational channels such as this. You bring the fun as well as the respect that the great minds and participants who’ve dedicated their lives both successfully and tragically to this lofty endeavor. Please keep it up man! I can’t wait to see more. Thank you!😊
Which operate out of very specific takeoff and landing installations under careful group coordination and are not used near land infrastructure anywhere else
@@personzorz and are more prone to crashes and other accidents. If anything, there already is an argument for more restrictions on small aircraft. Once we add the coming drone swarms, oof. yeah, flying cars are a no.
@@adrianwebster6923statistically, aka, using data, small aircraft is safer than driving. Might have to do with the requirements for licensing and maintenance of vehicles, but they are NOT prone to more accidents.
@@michaelkaster5058 I think he meant more prone than large aircraft commercial. Also yes being in the air is inherently more dangerous if everything else is equal (same with space).
For 10 years there has been a pneumatic tram line operating in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Its called Aeromóvel, and it connects the airport to the subway system. The tecnology has been developed by a Brazilian called Oskar Coester in the 70s. Its currently being implemented at the São Paulo airport as well, and in the 80s they even implemented a line at Jakarta, Indonesia, where it's still in operation.
Brilliant Joe! One of your best videos yet. And considering your videos are of such a high standard anyway, it’s refreshing to see you’re consistently improving. Thank you and take care. Cheers!
Can you possibly imagine the air traffic control problem if everyone on the freeway of your normal commute was somehow in the air, unconstrained by lanes and speed limits. And add to that how many of them have poorly maintained vehicles. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'just dropping in'.
Not only do we need to have every car pilot be competent, but every backyard mechanic working on one be competent and qualified as well. Imagine Dave thinking he can modify his flying car in his garage.
Competence is a dirty word nowadays, imagine if drivers were required to be competent to pass their driving test like it was when i was a kid, all the insurance company's and there adjacent business partners would go bankrupt. Idiots keep insurance a scam.
@JohnnyWednesday Why are you assuming that someone will decide they know better than the manufacturers, and try to fix one or modify it themself? ~ "I tinker with computers, I've got this."
Some sci-fi writers from way back when sure did predict our present ability to communicate at lightning speed across great distances. Just not many people read those books nor saw how impactful it would have been. Seems obvious in hindsight, but this ability has had probably the biggest impact on all other progress combined.
Thanks for another great instalment. Here in the UK, we're supposed to be getting our first airport flying taxis, from Heathrow I think it was. Keep up the all the good work and most of quickfire QnA rounds lol 🙏❤️🙏❤️
I know it had a tube and a partial vacuum, but beyond that the historic atmospheric railway system in Devon UK has little to do with hyperloop as it was specifically for propulsion, with the air sucked out on demand in front of each train. Other proposed train IN tube systems use permanent lower air pressure solely to reduce aerodynamic drag, while using other means of propulsion. The original system was going to be extended to my hometown Torquay and over the hilly section of the South Devon Railway to Plymouth, but although some of the pumping stations were built, the tech had been abandoned before those sections were opened to public service. In addition to technical bugs like the top slot sealing, atmospheric propulsion was soon found to be far more limited in power and capacity than anticipated. Another short local route in south London, part of the London and Croydon Railway, used the technology for a short period, the only other installation in mainland Britain. Examples in Ireland and France lasted a little longer, but atnmospheric propulsion was extinct soon after the middle of the 19th century. There are some modern incarnations: Brazilian 'Aeromovel', using a square pipe beneath the track in the beams of elevated rail structures has been deployed for airport people movers and similar applications, and US-based 'Flight Rail Corporation', whose solution incorporates an innovative magnetic coupling between the train and a free piston running within the tube so there's no need for a slot in the top.
@@johnn3542 seriously? I thought "maybe it's not used in the USA all that much"... then I remembered Johnny Cash. "There'll be no more sorrow, no grief and pain, and I'll be happy, happy once again."
FYI repeated consonants make the preceding vowel short not long, so flivver rhymes with sliver. I think the word was used in a song from that era, maybe?
That's right, way too many people blaming others for being an idiot (whatever that means) and looking down on them. Have more empathy towards those who were unable to get a proper science education and help them understand.
The SwissMetro-NG has nothing to do with a hyperloop or that metro between Geneva and Lausanne. It is actually called "Cargo Sous Terrain" (Cargo sub terrain) and will be a tunnel system only for small and medium size cargo (hence the word cargo in the name) that is transported by selfdriving electro carts. There will be several hubs along the tunnel and the initial plan is to get as many trucks off the roads and highways as possible. They already started the preparations.
Indeed. Not to mention how disruptive it would be. A flying car pretty much HAS to be a VTOL craft, 4000+ lbs of downward thrust from thousands of air craft would be… noticeable at ground level.
@@ToxicTerrance you would think, but how many times have you had to move aside three or four times because you and another person were walking toward each other and you both moved in the same direction?
I spent a year with Paul Moller as the investors I was working with bought his building and we’re working to get him out of the building and turn the place into a business incubator. Amazing guy, he had raised over 200 million over the years trying to build a 8-engine flying car with wankel rotary engines. I played racquetball with him in the court he had built into his factory every week, and at 80+ years old he still schooled everyone. Amazing person.. spent a lifetime chasing a dream that would never work, because you know… physics… but still what a way to live a life.
@@Pixeleyesthe first one was actually pretty decent and had a great identity with a artist called BT doing the music. As a a stand alone film I can highly recommend watching the first one.
I think the humorous part of your video was the comment at 21:00 that we could not have imagined 50 years ago all the changes in communications technology. Here I think you are quite wrong. Most of the underlying transmission technologies were invented in the 1940s and 1950s. They have been expanded on and refined over the years, but the underlying science was created in the 1920s. About the biggest change post the 50s, was the laser in 1960. Really the change has been in the economics underlying the implementation of these technologies. I worked for a company that developed telemetry for NASA for Gemini. They turned that technology into what were known as leased-line MODEMs that ran computer networks in the 1960s for IBM mainframes. Over time this went from custom analog circuitry that was hand tuned to digital signal processing and miniaturized thus cost (and power) reducing them. But the tech in your cell phone is essentially the same as that leased-line MODEM than ran 9,600 bits per second.
There were a few works of fiction that also envisioned a much more connected future. The first one that came to mind isn't quite 50 years old but Serial Experiments Lain envisioned a future where people had portable computers that were connected to the net and people more literally plugged in to the net, considering the heavy use of symbolism in the series I presume that was meant to show just how integrated the network and society would become. Haven't actually thought about that series in a while but it's a short watch that I would certainly recommend.
I think Joe's comment was more about the impact on society as a result of the lower cost you mentioned. If you go back 50 years it would have been difficult to extrapolate the infant and expensive technologies you mentioned 50 years into the future and then predict the current internet and phones. On that basis I'd consider his comment quite right.
@@Mark_Bridges Actually, I completely disagree with you here. Let's go back 50 years. That is 1974. Or about 10 years after Star Trek (Original Series).
@@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344 I never watched Star Trek so I probably missed your point. I assume you're saying something similar to internet and phones existed in Star Trek? If so, fair enough.
I'm working on that right now.... not maglev, GeoLev, geomagnetic levitation propulsion.... flying using the earth's magnetic field... which is wayyyyy more simple than flying using the air.... and would basically have no altitude ceiling...
3 reasons we don't have flying cars: 1. Mechanical complexity. Flying cars (planes, quadcopters, helicopters, etc) are mechanically complex. They're very expensive both to buy and to maintain (e.g. vibration). 2. Danger. When a car breaks down, it rolls to a stop. When an aircraft breaks down, if falls down. Plus flying in the air is much more complex that driving on the road. 3. People. People are stupid. The same people who cause accidents because they text and drive or ignore the law or cannot comprehend responsibility? Don't let them fly.
It's interesting to see how some of these ideas can fuel each other. I've seen people present the idea of vacume rail systems to launch rockets which would in turn lower launch costs so we could send up larger payloads.
THANK GOD!!! This is the one prediction that should never come true! Theres no way to air traffic control all of those cars, it would be utter chaos…drunk fliers….a bloodbath.
omg, underwater tunnel hits hard. I once dreamt I took a trans-pacific high speed train like that. The experience blew my mind, thank you for reactivating that memory. ☺️
There are underwater tunnels with trains (famously between France and England). Its just way too costly for trans Atlantic connections. And if its too costly, people will invest in a cheaper alternative ... like planes and freight ships.
@@RHLW more like medications or lab samples. There's usually a big sign over the tube port at the nurse's station that says "Do not send stool samples through the pneumatic tubes!" in big letters. 🙂
@@texastaterbug5395 Ok, that makes more sense. I guess thats why Ive never seen an episode of chicago med where theres some premature birth and the doctor says, "We need to get this baby up to the OR now,. Nurse, prep the tube!"
Similar systems have also been used in big stores for sending money from cashier stations to a central office for counting and safekeeping. Historically, there were citywide pneumatic postal systems and Victorian London had some larger pneumatic postal railways for carrying packages underground within pipes.
A civil engineer friend once asked if we could imagine a world where no one died from cancer. He explained how bad that would be from an infrastructure stand point. And... yeah, that was an interesting insight...
Nothing insightful about that because it same argument of the population behind the population bomb and beside heart diseases is a far bigger issue than cancer.
I live in Newton Abbot where that first atmospheric railway was. I can't believe I've only just found out about it! The drawing showing it looks very much like Teignmouth which would be the town before Newton Abbot on the line.
Which is exactly what Your grandchildren will quote you as saying as they laugh hysterically at your old timey ignorance at a Christmas gathering they all arrived at... In their flying car 👀
I think a vacuum train is the future. Definitely not in 10 years, maybe not in 100 years, but in 1000 years it will be increasingly hard to argue with physics and next to zero friction.
Biggest mistake people make is using today science to predict that far out. Besides with automated transport why bother all cargo will move autonomously at some point.
There *is* a flying car. Its currently a prototype, but has had many successful flights. Its called AirCar, and acts as a functional car, then you can change it into a small plane. The car takes about 2 minute to change and can fly around 600 miles In the air it has a cruising speed of 170kph (a little over 100mph)
true, the real breakthrough comes with a radically new propulsion system that doesn't use air for lift, ie like my tech, geomagnetic levitation, or flying using the earth's magnetic field, AND it makes it so simple that it can be flown using computers. has to be automated, cause people be dumb lol
Really? Most people drive safely to and from work everyday. Are there way too many accidents? Yes, of course. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t figure out how to safely have the public fly. Or, at least with no more accidents than we have with cars. The way it’s going with the constant Crazy people who are causing so much trouble in commercial flights, people may be willing to fly their own plane or helicopter. I vote helicopter.❤️🤗🐝
@@RR-in7do Earth. No they aren’t. If they were, they would all have accidents everyday, and they don’t. There ARE people who are terrible drivers, but it’s not everyone. Our mistake as a society is we give the car, which is a huge lethal weapon, to any adult who wants one and can prove basic operating skills. We never consider temperament, which is why we have road rage. There should be another test for that before a license is issued. Every car should have a breathalyzer that keeps the car from starting if you’re drunk. Those two things would stop a lot of accidents and should be part of flying car licenses too.
i looked at the jetson one and i thought that i want one but then i started to question what you're supposed to do if it suddenly stops working for any reason when you're 100 feet in the air and looking into it further i dont think there's anything that you even can do, i think its simply not accounted for. im all for personal flying vehicles but i dont think i trust these companies to not make death traps.
This video reminds me about what they said about cheap, plentiful nuclear fusion; that it has been 20 years away for the last 50 years (and still continues to be).
When Jesus was resurrected, an angel escorted him to heaven in a flying car As the car ascended to the skies, it suddenly stalled and fell. One of the disciples looked up and said, "Guess he shouldn't have driven Immanuel."
Airplanes are built on airfoil technology, which requires a wide wingspan to lift a relatively light weight. Neither of those requirements fit well into the concept of a flying car, which is basically a levitating box. Back in the 60's, we were anticipating breakthroughs in anti-gravity technology, which of course, never came to pass. Current drone technology minimizes the need for wings, but is saddled with rotor noise and safety issues, along with weight limitations. For Earth-bound transportation of heavy objects, it's always going to be a challenge to come up with something better than wheels and boats.
there are quieter rotors out there as concepts, closed loop or elliptical, they're more efficient to, downside is their design is harder to manufacture. Boat props too. YT has several videos on this.
Joe, please do a short video on the carbon footprint of these ubiquitous meal services. More people should just buy bulk groceries and microwave or bake a meal that can last 2 or 3 days. Every meal in a service seems to have a single use metal or plastic container. That can't be good for the planet.
Hi. You forgot about the Cayley flier Sir George Cayley, was an eminent inventor. He designed a practical flying machine 50 years before the Wright brothers. In 1853 he built a machine that could carry the weight of a man. This glider, the “Cayley Flier”, paved the way for the Wright brothers' powered flight in 1903, as the Wrights acknowledged. Been binge watching video past few days and loving it
As an oncologist, great summary Joe. Super exciting to ride the wave of advancements over the last 5-10 years and apply those to patients in clinic today. We are doing better.
I designed a tube for transportation using a similar idea to the others, but this one would have a series of constrictors along its path that would push the passenger capsule along as it passed by each section containing a constrictor. There would be no need for a track as the sides of the tunnel would be almost frictionless. This was achieved by using a special reusable fluid on the tunnel's surface. I only had one problem with my test tunnel, from time to time gas would build up inside the tunnel. This was caused by the capsule rubbing against the sides of the capsule. This was allowed to escape using a special valve. I called this invention the A-sTrain.
Hey Joe: a well known comedian said, "if you really want to know why we don't have flying cars, I urge you to go to your local Walmart, and just watch us at the self checkout stalls for 10 minutes "... we as a species will never have personal flying cars...because (in no specific order) #1.the stupids outnumber the rational and logical few. #2. Can you imagine road rage in our skies? #3. Cost #4. Licensing #5. Danger to the public. #6. Traffic laws and traffic flow, including infrastructure...we can barely take care of roads and bridges now, imagine adding hundreds of thousands of landing areas and laneways.... #7. Stupid people, I know I mentioned them already but...man there are a lot of them. 😅 P.S. so many parameters behind flying cars that it too should be in a list as mentioned in your show about being a dystopia dream. Only really stupid people would think in our current global condition, that flying cars are just around the corner. The closest we will get in our lifetime is the helicopter...so fly at it. Love ya Joe.😊
Fantastic video Joe! Speaking of futuristic ideas, I have more than 40 flight footage videos of ion thrusters that are patented for lifting their power supplies against Earth's gravity! The technology will work great for silent lightweight drones or even unmanned space probes. Someday, if the thrust can be increased enough, it might even make Jetsons like cars possible.
I agree with the f-cancer statement. I would add f-neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and PSP (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy). In a span of 3 months I lost a friend who was only 41 to ALS (December 2022) and then my 67 year old dad to PSP (February 2023).
Being involved with a few flying car projects the problem is not that it can't be built but our regulatory environment. The yearly insurance premium would be about 10% of the vehicle's cost, so if the plane sold for $250,000.00 that would be $25,000 a year. Another issue was getting access to the airport, no way you could take-off from the road and many airports restrict driving onto the runway. Then there is the problem of who can maintain them. An example of the Ford plane is at the Ford museum in Dearborn MI.
Molt Taylor made the Aerocar in 1949, six were built. Price was $15,000. Mass production was planned but never started. Air speed was 100 mph, on land 60 mph.
I like this because just a couple of hours ago I watched "Back to the Future II" on an airplane and even though they got everything completely wrong for 2015, the flying car thing literally pulsated in its not-yet-not-yet-not-yet-ness. Since I work in aviation I think viable quiet fan-blade units are still possible. But Air Traffic Control/Not Bashing Into Each Other will be the real hurdle. Plus I had to check my bag and the wifi didn't work
@Joe Scott - Correction there is a private space station based of the original rotating design called the Gateway foundation. They just can't get the funding and support to make it.
There was an underground atmospheric railway in a tube under London, that used a large fan to create a partial vacuum to suck Railcars along the tube. today no one knows exactly where it was located, the stations were demolished and built over but the tube itself is still there, somewhere.
We have ultra lights now, lots fly around southern illinois, people fly around their corn field to see when to harvest, and look at flooded property during all this rain
Hi Joe, love your content as always, glad you clone army keeps delivering despite inevitable ego clashes! I believe a person with your interests is familiar with the writings of Polish sci-fi author and futurist Stanislaw Lem. He had tonnes of predictions for the future, alongside crazy and absurd takes on many subjects, naturally. Perhaps looking at some of his predictions could make for a cool and thought-provoking video? All the best from Warsaw!
We do kind of have flying cars, they are called helicopters. About the same sizes, similar roles, it's just really hard to get a "driving" license for them.
You mis pronounced flivver... I went to a high school in a town with a Ford plant, and the mascot was a it's fl-IH-vver. And you are correct about the cheap car, but it was a model a. Awesome to mention that.
“Flivver” when referring to an automobile, was pronounced with a short “i” sound, as in “sitter.” I have no idea how the aircraft version was pronounced at the time.
So, looking at the history of what in the United States is called "general aviation", we did technically get flying cars. We got small, (relatively) low cost vehicles that can be flown around safely. We even built out a surprising amount of infrastructure to support it. What we didn't get was much of a compelling reason to mass adopt it, like we did with regular cars. One reason is that the car itself came to dominate day-to-day transportation, and we kept building out the support structure for it. Lots of people compare long-distance driving with options like trains or jetliners. But a lot of these trips would be hugely inefficient if not for the massive network of roads, highways, freeways, and interstates that exist. All that road building ate into the market for passenger rail and generally makes it more practical to drive than fly for less than 500 miles. And when the airlines were deregulated in the 1970s, the price of airline travel dropped too. A small flying vehicle that seats less than 6 people just can't compete, especially if you are basically trying to buy another (more expensive) car that can't use the same systems as your Volkswagen.
Wow, I live near to the last of the pumping stations for the Atmospheric railway in Starcross in Devon. I never thought that Joe would mention Exeter and Newton Abbot on one of his videos.
They should just make big busses that fly, where the drivers can be monitored by the people who hire them. Yeah…that would be awesome, you could fit a couple hundred! You could serve food and drinks…HOLY SHIT! IM HAVING A BANGER IDEA!
As a kid I read Gerard K O'Neill's "The High Frontier", from which I first learned about Lagrange points. It was a wonderfully inspiring book for a nerdy 11yo. His ideas at the time seemed so possible and plausible. Someday we will become an interplanetary civilization, expanding out a'la "The Expanse" (before the exotic alien tech).
hi, former engineer here, I used to work in the automotive industry and the simple answer to why there are no flying cars and never will be is how y'all drive them on the ground. Can you imagine that carnage and chaos in the air? Do you trust your neighbours to drive safely over your house? Do you trust yourself? Even if you answered yes there are regulators already rushing to make it impossible that obviously did think about this and answered hell no
"Hell no" is the only obviously sane and correct answer to anyone asking for a flying car.
I suppose there would have to be a largely automated traffic control system in place, with computers doing most of the flying.
I'm more skeptical about people maintaining their aircraft properly. Then again, if those aircraft would be basically just oversized drones, meaning they are basically just a bunch of electrical motors and a battery pack, then they would require a lot less maintenance than a car with a combustion engine.
I mean, the real answer is, "We do have flying cars; they're called airplanes." And people struggle to learn to fly airplanes already.
Making self driving cars flying and keeping them a certain distance away from buildings would effectively fix the problems with self driving (not able to respond to the unpredictability of humans effectively) and flying cars (the unreliability of humans in general)
I’m holding out for teleportation.
I'm a paraglider pilot. Paragliders are quite slow (around 40 km/h most of the time). And still pilots manage to fly into each other surprisingly often, often enough to have multiple dozen cases documented on video (and I'm not even talking about comp gaggle flying). Regular joe flying in the sky with a multiple ton vehicle ... fuck that!
@squibbelsmcjohnson even regular cars have a heck lots of accidents, I won't trust a regular joe to fly it.
Unless the regulations are as strict as aircraft, but at that point might as well take a ride on a private helicopters
Never drink and fly... That's what I always say...
@squibbelsmcjohnson Only passenger planes fly along airways. In VFR airspace, which most smaller planes fly through (and cars would share), you can fly wherever you like, following some basic rules of course. If cars can't fly in VFR, nobody will use them. You could only takeoff and land at predefined places and fly through restricted airspaces where VFR is no allowed. Completely useless and VFR pilots would rebel against it (as they already do against commercial drones for package deliveries).
Powered flight is a bit more controlled than paragliding where you just have two ropes to pull. You could assign directions to different altitudes so if you are traveling 210 degrees from North you travel at 210 feet, 73 degrees from north at 73 feet or 360+73 feet etc. With present day technology you could mandate that every flying car have a GPS transponder broadcasting its location heading and speed so collisions could be automatically predicted..
Why anyone thinks people will "drive" flying cars is beyond me. Stop being silly. That will be entirely automated, which is a far easier problem to solve than doing the same on the ground.
Personal flying is a bad idea.
1. When was the last time you did a walk around and check list of all the controls on your car? Pilots have to di it before EVERY flight.
2. One break down and you die
3. Sounds good until every person is up there at the same time.
Although I agree, most engine outs aren't fatal even in helicopters because they don't just fall out of the air.
@GrandDawggy an engine out is only one of many breakdowns that could occur. Not to mention if you engine out driving, your already on an open road, just pull over. In a plane you can't land just anywhere.
@squibbelsmcjohnson Planes are logically designed to fly. They have wings, they can glide in case of emergency. If you look at most of the proposals these days it's a giant drone with a car body on top.
So between the people with zero patience who jump out when the blade are still spinning and the whole thing falling out of the sky like a brick due to malfunction because it has zero portance ...
Same for jetpacks, happily cruising at 200 feet and suddenly the thrust dies ...
The future is going to be so gory =-)
Most people don’t even understand (or take serious) the inherent dangers in automobiles… or the responsibilities of operating one.
Are we to expect that to change if we transition to flying vehicles?
Only when the technology becomes reliable enough for fully autonomous operation… only then should this even be considered.
I know that they teach pilots the walk around in school but I wonder if they do things like purposely "break" things that were the cause of accidents in the past to train the pilots to actually pay attention. There is a difference between just looking and noticing (that alone would help though) and having a critical eye towards discovering potential problems. I was watching some documentary about a plane crash where the pilot did do the pre flight inspection but simply missed the thing that caused the crash but he should have noticed it. I forgot exactly what it was or what plane it was but the lesson stuck. Glad I'm not a pilot, I'd crash for sure because I tend to overlook things. I've had car problems that I actually knew about but thought would go for a while but didn't.
As someone who is just starting to get a pilot license, I can tell you that just adding an extra dimension of travel makes things so much more complicated. And that's before you start factoring in things like, no traction, power to weight, and the inability to safely stop if something goes catastrophically wrong. If we ever get flying cars, autonomy will be mandatory.
Self driving cars are actually still extremely far behind, there have been so many errors by AI and people getting seriously injured. We aren't even there yet in reality. I think automatic flying cars might be worse. Just require extensive training and high requirements so those who want to fly have to put in the effort to be certified just like getting a pilot's license. A vehicle is a weapon pretty much, it requires proof that you are capable of operating that vehicle through written tests and driving tests.
@@americanfreedomworldpeace Flying taxis are actually be easier presuming they'd either only be flying or that a human would take over for any traditional driving. The main problems with self driving cars are: Idiot drivers, cultural differences, and in a similar vein inconsistent signage/rules. Cars that drive on the ground have to deal with a lot of contradictory information (in some places you can turn left on red for example) and existing drivers. Most commercial airplanes have been (for the most part) flying themselves for decades now with takeoff and landing being the last hurdles (and we're getting close).
As a pilot. . . I wish you well. You understand the situation
Student pilot as well.
Student pilots represent 😊
Speaking of Henry Ford, He also created the first concrete runways, first Airport terminal, first airport hotel, the first regularly scheduled airline service (using the Ford Trimotors) and first radio airplane communication system. All of this was at the Ford Airport, which also had a dirigible mast! This airport, after Ford left aviation, became the Ford Proving Grounds, adjacent to Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, Michigan. The hotel, the Dearborn Inn, still exists (it's a Marriot, currently undergoing extensive renovations). The terminal building became part of the aerodynamic testing lab, now torn down, and the hangers became special engine labs, which were more recently demolished. The very last airplane to land at Ford Airport was an original Trimotor, which flew in during Ford's 100th anniversary celebration in 2003. One of the Ford Flivver's still exists in the Henry Ford Museum.
One of my favorite places on the planet... Henry Ford Museum
And most of those planes in the video are at the Henry Ford Museum
The issues with flying cars are numerous and nearly insurmountable.
1. Aircraft need lots of open space without any obstructions to take off and land. Regular cars already don’t fit well in cities, so flying cars would be way worse. The “flying cars in the city of the future” concept looks cool until you realize that there’s only like 10 of them in even the most cluttered renderings. Look at the amount of cars on the street in an actual city and you quickly realize that flying cars would either be restricted to the top 0.1% or else the sky would be so crowded it would be impossible to safely navigate.
2. Noise pollution. Imagine dozens and dozens of helicopters every hour right outside your window.
3. Bad drivers. You’d be seeing dozens of these crashing into each other or into buildings every single day in every major city. After the first couple people got squashed by falling debris and the first couple buildings fell, they’d be pretty quickly outlawed.
Edit: 4. Flying is super energy intensive and people are heavy. So you’re looking at huge energy requirements. Which means either enormous vehicles to lift the amount of batteries they require or that they all have to be powered by fossil fuels.
From what I recall form old movies... 'flivver' was pronounced with a short 'i' as in liver. A word that was meant to indicate a cheap vehicle, whether car or airplane.
yes!
Thank you! I was doubting my own memory there for a while...lol
Huh... Seems like I saw it pronounced the other way. Maybe that guy was wrong too. 😕
The origin of the word Flivver: flivver (n.) 20, 1910] A character in a comical column from The Philadelphia Inquirer of Aug. 16, 1909, says it is "... from the verb 'to fliv,' meaning a foul, a bungled miss." also from 1914. Also possibly a nickname for the Model T (ref. slang).
In the year of Our Ford - Ford is in his flivver- both from Brave New World. Correctly pronounced like “liver“.
"There must have been something in the air in the 70s"
Catalytic converters were introduced around '75 or so...
Ah, I was going to make a similar joke... "lead"
@@willowen5781…
The introduction of catalytic converters correlates directly with the discontinued use of lead in gasoline (it would burn the catalytic converter, and probably set the car on fire), so…
You’re also spot on 😊
Leaded gasoline my dude.
Ah, yes, the catalytic converter. An attempt to keep GM afloat (they had the patent) and a way to pretend that hilariously inefficient engines polluted less while simultaneously making them even more inefficient (because now they had to pump the exhaust out through the converter, and that's energy you can't use to move the vehicle.)
It's worth noting that the first year that catalytic converters were mandated the Honda Civic had worse mileage, less power, and greater emissions than the last year they weren't... even of the pollutants that the catalytic converter was designed to scrub. It's a repeated government failure where rather than demand an outcome (lowered emission of pollutants) they demanded a method (run the exhaust through a catalytic converter.)
@@boobah5643somehow the EURO pollution standards (that don't make this mistake) still converges manufacturers on the same solutions...
When I was a kid watching the Jetsons, I was convinced that by "the year 2000" we will have flying cars.
Now the way i see people drive on the roads, I realize that they could never handle navigating in 3 dimensions, so I now am GLAD that there are not flying cars.
Not to be contrary, but "Flivver" is pronounced with a short "i" and rhymes with Liver.
Hey, nice segue into the commercial.
Joe's segues are always really good!
When in doubt, consult the famous movie, Chitty chitty bang bang. Great flying car movie with Dick Van Dyke. Highly fictional as the wings were no where near large enough to get the required lift but a fun movie just the same.
Best Channel on TH-cam! Joe, thank you soooo much for all you and your support crew do with this channel and content.
According to Walter Isaacson's bio of Da VInci, the helicopter drawing was actually part of a set/pageant and not meant for practical use. Da Vinci designed loads of theater sets and pageant stuff filled with practical special effects. The Ornathopter was real and meant to fly. He got exceedingly close. Never built it though. He tended to not follow through on a lot of his ideas.
The primary reason we will not see flying cars in the foreseeable future is efficiency: An aircraft has to produce the energy to lift its own weight but a ground craft does not. The most popular small aircraft (Cessna 172) requires 180 horsepower to move ~600 pounds of payload and it gets about 14 MPG. A small car will move the same payload and get up to 50 MPG. Then, let's talk about noise. Most of the noise made by a helicopter or a quad rotor drone is made by the rotors. A small "personal" drone will make almost as much noise as a small "personal" helicopter (like the Robertson R-22), the only difference being the engine noise. The noise made by a few hundred (or thousand) helicopters buzzing around a city would make it fairly unlivable.
Once repulsor rods are invented you can just push the ground away with the tractor beam and lift your car as efficiently as an elevator, then all roads, railways, canals, wings, rotor-blades, boats and wheels become obsolete.
my tech would be much greater efficiency than both ground transport and current flying tech, it doesn't rely on 'drag' for lift, it's electric and completely internal. If you do the calculations for the energy to 'lift' something in the air 10 feet it is very little... having to produce drag and lift then it becomes very inefficient
multirotors are also much less efficient than traditional helicopters due to the mucth higher disk loading. The US Army experimented with a man carrying multirotor called the VZ-7 in the 1950's, it used three mechanical gyros for stability and a central turboshaft engine to drive four constant rate variable pitch props. The only advantage it offered over a traditional helicopter was that it was apparently "easy to fly" other than that it was more complex than a helicopter and less efficient so the program was ended.
Interesting...@@atomicskull6405
@@MrMonkeybat What?
Given how bad so many drivers are in 2D, it's horrifying to picture the same lack of driving ability in 3D.
I jumped a railroad crossing in the country once. That was enough air for me, I'll leave the rest to the pros.
which is why some are saying we need self-driving cars first.
@@autohmaeYou read my mind.
I was in a flying car once. “Oh my golly, goodness gracious me!” and other slightly more colorful exclamations I muttered as I went over a humpback bridge in a car I’d bought not 4 hours earlier. My Dad never did figure out why it sat at a weird angle when I got back home! 😛
Bingo
What kind of sociopath looks up at a quiet, clear blue sky and thinks to himself, "You know what that's missing...a traffic jam!"
Great point! 💯
To be fair Henry Ford really didnt know what a traffic jam was
You're thinking with the mindset of a human who is aware of the fact that there are 8 billion other humans on this planet. It wasn't always so crowded here
Hello Mr Scott. Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your wonderful storytelling manner and your unequivocal puissance to get the facts and details accurately. You’ve made a subscriber out of me and likely the friends and family with whom I will be sharing your channel with. The internet desperately needs high quality, balanced informative and entertaining educational channels such as this. You bring the fun as well as the respect that the great minds and participants who’ve dedicated their lives both successfully and tragically to this lofty endeavor. Please keep it up man! I can’t wait to see more. Thank you!😊
Seeing as there are over 200k private airplanes in America, I guess it just comes down to your definition of a "flying car".
Which operate out of very specific takeoff and landing installations under careful group coordination and are not used near land infrastructure anywhere else
Exactly! How we can pigeonhole our perspectives. Other than that there are people jumping off of things all the time.😂
@@personzorz and are more prone to crashes and other accidents. If anything, there already is an argument for more restrictions on small aircraft. Once we add the coming drone swarms, oof. yeah, flying cars are a no.
@@adrianwebster6923statistically, aka, using data, small aircraft is safer than driving. Might have to do with the requirements for licensing and maintenance of vehicles, but they are NOT prone to more accidents.
@@michaelkaster5058 I think he meant more prone than large aircraft commercial.
Also yes being in the air is inherently more dangerous if everything else is equal (same with space).
For 10 years there has been a pneumatic tram line operating in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. Its called Aeromóvel, and it connects the airport to the subway system. The tecnology has been developed by a Brazilian called Oskar Coester in the 70s. Its currently being implemented at the São Paulo airport as well, and in the 80s they even implemented a line at Jakarta, Indonesia, where it's still in operation.
Oh, man, I should have included that. 😄
" . . . spice MUST flow . . . " = Perfect Joe. Thanks!
Brilliant Joe! One of your best videos yet. And considering your videos are of such a high standard anyway, it’s refreshing to see you’re consistently improving. Thank you and take care. Cheers!
Can you possibly imagine the air traffic control problem if everyone on the freeway of your normal commute was somehow in the air, unconstrained by lanes and speed limits. And add to that how many of them have poorly maintained vehicles. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'just dropping in'.
Not only do we need to have every car pilot be competent, but every backyard mechanic working on one be competent and qualified as well.
Imagine Dave thinking he can modify his flying car in his garage.
I don't repair my own car.
Why are you assuming that such vehicles wouldn't be piloted by AI?
Competence is a dirty word nowadays, imagine if drivers were required to be competent to pass their driving test like it was when i was a kid, all the insurance company's and there adjacent business partners would go bankrupt. Idiots keep insurance a scam.
@JohnnyWednesday Why are you assuming that someone will decide they know better than the manufacturers, and try to fix one or modify it themself?
~ "I tinker with computers, I've got this."
I'd like to see a rednecks engineered flying cars
I'm 40. In 1st grade, Bob Barker promised we'd have flying cars in 7 years. Yep. Steve Wynn wanted to turn the Las Vegas Strip into a river too.
Some sci-fi writers from way back when sure did predict our present ability to communicate at lightning speed across great distances. Just not many people read those books nor saw how impactful it would have been. Seems obvious in hindsight, but this ability has had probably the biggest impact on all other progress combined.
Thanks for another great instalment. Here in the UK, we're supposed to be getting our first airport flying taxis, from Heathrow I think it was. Keep up the all the good work and most of quickfire QnA rounds lol 🙏❤️🙏❤️
I know it had a tube and a partial vacuum, but beyond that the historic atmospheric railway system in Devon UK has little to do with hyperloop as it was specifically for propulsion, with the air sucked out on demand in front of each train. Other proposed train IN tube systems use permanent lower air pressure solely to reduce aerodynamic drag, while using other means of propulsion. The original system was going to be extended to my hometown Torquay and over the hilly section of the South Devon Railway to Plymouth, but although some of the pumping stations were built, the tech had been abandoned before those sections were opened to public service. In addition to technical bugs like the top slot sealing, atmospheric propulsion was soon found to be far more limited in power and capacity than anticipated. Another short local route in south London, part of the London and Croydon Railway, used the technology for a short period, the only other installation in mainland Britain. Examples in Ireland and France lasted a little longer, but atnmospheric propulsion was extinct soon after the middle of the 19th century. There are some modern incarnations: Brazilian 'Aeromovel', using a square pipe beneath the track in the beams of elevated rail structures has been deployed for airport people movers and similar applications, and US-based 'Flight Rail Corporation', whose solution incorporates an innovative magnetic coupling between the train and a free piston running within the tube so there's no need for a slot in the top.
One day there'll be elderly people in flying cars. And that's when I'm moving in with the Ninja turtles.
watch out for the old people in tunnel boring machines!
There'll?
@@johnn3542there will be* fixed that for your old noggin
@@johnn3542 seriously? I thought "maybe it's not used in the USA all that much"... then I remembered Johnny Cash. "There'll be no more sorrow, no grief and pain, and I'll be happy, happy once again."
@@brick6347No, it's a decently common contraction here in the US. Not sure what that guy is going on about.
I just want my hover board... Forget a flying car.
Really tho ..I want one too, imagine the possibilities
"where we're going, we don't need....flying cars"
i'm working on that too but not anytime soon.... same tech though
Indeed,,, problem is I'm closer to 50 than not so they better hurry up
@@clint330how far along are you? anything we can see? Keep it up, I believe in you! 😊
0:55 Wait... this doesn't sound like chock full of existential dread.... where is my existential dread Joe?
Oh, it's there...
...it's there.
The real reason that there are no flying cars is that it would be raining trash and lit cigarettes.
FYI repeated consonants make the preceding vowel short not long, so flivver rhymes with sliver. I think the word was used in a song from that era, maybe?
Because we need a near-zero idiot rate. And that’s not possible.
Only idiots cars break down on the side of the road? 🤦🏻♂️
We have bigger issues to address first, such as .. wind.
That's right, way too many people blaming others for being an idiot (whatever that means) and looking down on them. Have more empathy towards those who were unable to get a proper science education and help them understand.
@@erzsebetkovacs2527bruh 😂 a better science education to learn how to not be stupid while driving? You’re just projecting
To be fair if we had flying vehicles we might get to a close to zero idiot rate much faster.
Just saying.....😂
The SwissMetro-NG has nothing to do with a hyperloop or that metro between Geneva and Lausanne. It is actually called "Cargo Sous Terrain" (Cargo sub terrain) and will be a tunnel system only for small and medium size cargo (hence the word cargo in the name) that is transported by selfdriving electro carts. There will be several hubs along the tunnel and the initial plan is to get as many trucks off the roads and highways as possible. They already started the preparations.
a better translation would be "underground cargo"
Oh, interesting. Thanks for the clarification!
unterbergzug
People get in enough crashes when their vehicles can only move horizontally.
If they could go in all directions, wouldn't avoiding things be easier?
Indeed. Not to mention how disruptive it would be. A flying car pretty much HAS to be a VTOL craft, 4000+ lbs of downward thrust from thousands of air craft would be… noticeable at ground level.
This would only work if the cars were fully automated, people just can't handle this level of tech.
@@ToxicTerrance you would think, but how many times have you had to move aside three or four times because you and another person were walking toward each other and you both moved in the same direction?
@@ryanmichaelhaley I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly wouldn’t be good if it was too available.
I spent a year with Paul Moller as the investors I was working with bought his building and we’re working to get him out of the building and turn the place into a business incubator. Amazing guy, he had raised over 200 million over the years trying to build a 8-engine flying car with wankel rotary engines. I played racquetball with him in the court he had built into his factory every week, and at 80+ years old he still schooled everyone. Amazing person.. spent a lifetime chasing a dream that would never work, because you know… physics… but still what a way to live a life.
I believe he’s still alive and still hasn’t completely given up
The black and white note taking skit ... you do such a good job 😉👍
The old "flyver" nickname for Ford vehicles was pronounced with a short "i" (it rhymed with "river" or "giver").
Double consonants usually make the preceding vowel have its short sound. Flivver more commonly referred to a motor car.
Yes! Wow, that brought back core memories of my Dad, and Grandparents.
What's the etimology? Or was it an invented word?
I said, "...rhymes with liver." :D
“Cars don’t fly, Dom!”
“They can when you have…family”
😂😂😂😂
I _thoroughly_ enjoy the fact that I genuinely cannot tell if this is a joke or a line from the most recent F&F movie.
@@idontwantahandlethoughI haven't seen any of them but I've heard references to this scene for years so I assume it's from a previous installment.
Thank you for this! I genuinely burst out laughing...
@@Pixeleyesthe first one was actually pretty decent and had a great identity with a artist called BT doing the music. As a a stand alone film I can highly recommend watching the first one.
I think the humorous part of your video was the comment at 21:00 that we could not have imagined 50 years ago all the changes in communications technology. Here I think you are quite wrong. Most of the underlying transmission technologies were invented in the 1940s and 1950s. They have been expanded on and refined over the years, but the underlying science was created in the 1920s. About the biggest change post the 50s, was the laser in 1960. Really the change has been in the economics underlying the implementation of these technologies. I worked for a company that developed telemetry for NASA for Gemini. They turned that technology into what were known as leased-line MODEMs that ran computer networks in the 1960s for IBM mainframes. Over time this went from custom analog circuitry that was hand tuned to digital signal processing and miniaturized thus cost (and power) reducing them. But the tech in your cell phone is essentially the same as that leased-line MODEM than ran 9,600 bits per second.
There were a few works of fiction that also envisioned a much more connected future. The first one that came to mind isn't quite 50 years old but Serial Experiments Lain envisioned a future where people had portable computers that were connected to the net and people more literally plugged in to the net, considering the heavy use of symbolism in the series I presume that was meant to show just how integrated the network and society would become. Haven't actually thought about that series in a while but it's a short watch that I would certainly recommend.
I think Joe's comment was more about the impact on society as a result of the lower cost you mentioned. If you go back 50 years it would have been difficult to extrapolate the infant and expensive technologies you mentioned 50 years into the future and then predict the current internet and phones. On that basis I'd consider his comment quite right.
@@Mark_Bridges Actually, I completely disagree with you here. Let's go back 50 years. That is 1974. Or about 10 years after Star Trek (Original Series).
@@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344 I never watched Star Trek so I probably missed your point. I assume you're saying something similar to internet and phones existed in Star Trek? If so, fair enough.
@@Mark_Bridges Yep. And just for clarity. Phones were invented in the 1800s. Wireless phones in the 1950s. The Internet was first used in the 1970s.
All of those planes, and the wright Brothers, are at Henry Ford museum in Detroit. One of my favorite places in the world.
Thank you for making such a wonderfully informative and enjoyable video.
Never been this early to a Joe Video! We don't need Flying Cars. We need Maglev Cars.
*don’t read my name* 🌛
@@DontReadMyProfilePicture_I can’t see your profile picture so 🤷♀️
I'm working on that right now.... not maglev, GeoLev, geomagnetic levitation propulsion.... flying using the earth's magnetic field... which is wayyyyy more simple than flying using the air.... and would basically have no altitude ceiling...
If they’d just release the flying saucer technology to the public we’d be all set 😊
Inductrak passive maglev cars like in Minority Report with track embedded in roads...
People have enough trouble driving in two dimensions, imagine adding a third? Yea....
we do not need to imagine. personal plains do exist. and have for a long time.
We have flying cars, they're called helicopters.
They need a lot of improvement before everyone gets one. How many people do you know that you would trust to fly a helicopter.
3 reasons we don't have flying cars:
1. Mechanical complexity. Flying cars (planes, quadcopters, helicopters, etc) are mechanically complex. They're very expensive both to buy and to maintain (e.g. vibration).
2. Danger. When a car breaks down, it rolls to a stop. When an aircraft breaks down, if falls down. Plus flying in the air is much more complex that driving on the road.
3. People. People are stupid. The same people who cause accidents because they text and drive or ignore the law or cannot comprehend responsibility? Don't let them fly.
It's interesting to see how some of these ideas can fuel each other. I've seen people present the idea of vacume rail systems to launch rockets which would in turn lower launch costs so we could send up larger payloads.
De-chonify is that a technical term, lol. We love you just the way you are. Thank you for another interesting video.
Chonk is a little excessive weight - so De-Chonk-ify seems like the correct term ...
Thanks Joe ! Excellent opening this time 😉
That Ford Pinto joke cracked me up.
Pintos were good cars. I learned to drive in one built long after the problem had been solved.
THANK GOD!!! This is the one prediction that should never come true!
Theres no way to air traffic control all of those cars, it would be utter chaos…drunk fliers….a bloodbath.
omg, underwater tunnel hits hard. I once dreamt I took a trans-pacific high speed train like that. The experience blew my mind, thank you for reactivating that memory. ☺️
There are underwater tunnels with trains (famously between France and England). Its just way too costly for trans Atlantic connections. And if its too costly, people will invest in a cheaper alternative ... like planes and freight ships.
@@vast634 Yeah the Channel Tunnel is 50km long. What I dreamt was like >8000km, hah. It's the scale that makes it a cool sci-fi fantasy.
I hate taking the Chunnel (channel tunnel). Took it once, found out what claustrophobia was. Now I just take the boat, like a sane person
Just FYI, most hospitals still use pneumatic tubes for transporting small objects between floors/units.
Small like... babies?
@@RHLW more like medications or lab samples. There's usually a big sign over the tube port at the nurse's station that says "Do not send stool samples through the pneumatic tubes!" in big letters. 🙂
@@texastaterbug5395 Ok, that makes more sense. I guess thats why Ive never seen an episode of chicago med where theres some premature birth and the doctor says, "We need to get this baby up to the OR now,. Nurse, prep the tube!"
@@RHLW 🤣
Similar systems have also been used in big stores for sending money from cashier stations to a central office for counting and safekeeping. Historically, there were citywide pneumatic postal systems and Victorian London had some larger pneumatic postal railways for carrying packages underground within pipes.
A civil engineer friend once asked if we could imagine a world where no one died from cancer. He explained how bad that would be from an infrastructure stand point. And... yeah, that was an interesting insight...
Nothing insightful about that because it same argument of the population behind the population bomb and beside heart diseases is a far bigger issue than cancer.
Cool, did not know about Fords flying car!
I live in Newton Abbot where that first atmospheric railway was. I can't believe I've only just found out about it! The drawing showing it looks very much like Teignmouth which would be the town before Newton Abbot on the line.
Feel like there was a missed opportunity for a Futurama reference during the Vactube section, but great video as always!
Because flying cars are one utterly stupid idea
People can barely drive cars as they are I shutter at the thought of anyone having access to a flying car
Which is exactly what Your grandchildren will quote you as saying as they laugh hysterically at your old timey ignorance at a Christmas gathering they all arrived at... In their flying car 👀
I agree. It's people that think too deeply into things or think they have to over achieve to over compensate for something. We don't need it.
@@TwoPaw-Shapurr Bro assuming people have grandchildren with global birthrate at all time low...
It's not stupid...it jhus has many complications that make it not viable
George Jetson worked three hours for three days a week. Talk about what we thought the future would be like.
I think a vacuum train is the future. Definitely not in 10 years, maybe not in 100 years, but in 1000 years it will be increasingly hard to argue with physics and next to zero friction.
Yeah, but the tunnel stations positively suck...
😉
Biggest mistake people make is using today science to predict that far out. Besides with automated transport why bother all cargo will move autonomously at some point.
We won't be here in 1000 years if we are we would have had an event that would set the world back to the stone age
There *is* a flying car.
Its currently a prototype, but has had many successful flights.
Its called AirCar, and acts as a functional car, then you can change it into a small plane.
The car takes about 2 minute to change and can fly around 600 miles
In the air it has a cruising speed of 170kph (a little over 100mph)
You're the man Joe. This was great! 👍🏽🙂
We have to many idiots to have flying cars. Let's improve common sense first
good luck with THAT LOL
If you have ever attempted to become a pilot… which I am… you would never question why everyone isn’t flying around in cars.
true, the real breakthrough comes with a radically new propulsion system that doesn't use air for lift, ie like my tech, geomagnetic levitation, or flying using the earth's magnetic field, AND it makes it so simple that it can be flown using computers. has to be automated, cause people be dumb lol
People can't drive in 2 dimensions. How do you expect them to drive in 3?
Really? Most people drive safely to and from work everyday. Are there way too many accidents? Yes, of course. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t figure out how to safely have the public fly. Or, at least with no more accidents than we have with cars. The way it’s going with the constant Crazy people who are causing so much trouble in commercial flights, people may be willing to fly their own plane or helicopter. I vote helicopter.❤️🤗🐝
@@deborahdanhauer8525 I don't know what planet you're on, but most people are absolutely abysmal drivers.
@@RR-in7do Earth. No they aren’t. If they were, they would all have accidents everyday, and they don’t. There ARE people who are terrible drivers, but it’s not everyone. Our mistake as a society is we give the car, which is a huge lethal weapon, to any adult who wants one and can prove basic operating skills. We never consider temperament, which is why we have road rage. There should be another test for that before a license is issued. Every car should have a breathalyzer that keeps the car from starting if you’re drunk. Those two things would stop a lot of accidents and should be part of flying car licenses too.
i looked at the jetson one and i thought that i want one but then i started to question what you're supposed to do if it suddenly stops working for any reason when you're 100 feet in the air and looking into it further i dont think there's anything that you even can do, i think its simply not accounted for. im all for personal flying vehicles but i dont think i trust these companies to not make death traps.
This video reminds me about what they said about cheap, plentiful nuclear fusion; that it has been 20 years away for the last 50 years (and still continues to be).
It was always viable, but the oil lobby was powerful enough to destroy it in the public opinion.
I don’t care, i will make the first commercial flying car company.
*don’t read my name* 🌛
So just the commercials then? 😂
@@DontReadMyProfilePicture_oh.. but I did!
Bet
When Jesus was resurrected, an angel escorted him to heaven in a flying car
As the car ascended to the skies, it suddenly stalled and fell.
One of the disciples looked up and said, "Guess he shouldn't have driven Immanuel."
"...a cure for cancer" well... we know why that one hasn't happened. Oncology is the highest earning sector of the medical industry.
Airplanes are built on airfoil technology, which requires a wide wingspan to lift a relatively light weight. Neither of those requirements fit well into the concept of a flying car, which is basically a levitating box. Back in the 60's, we were anticipating breakthroughs in anti-gravity technology, which of course, never came to pass. Current drone technology minimizes the need for wings, but is saddled with rotor noise and safety issues, along with weight limitations. For Earth-bound transportation of heavy objects, it's always going to be a challenge to come up with something better than wheels and boats.
there are quieter rotors out there as concepts, closed loop or elliptical, they're more efficient to, downside is their design is harder to manufacture. Boat props too. YT has several videos on this.
I thought you were going to go into the energy multiple needed for such a vehicle, but kudos to those arguing the death increase multiple over cars.
Flying cars are a problem because of gravity, brakes and skills 🤣
Who wants Grandma flying her own car ?? LoL
I look forward to going outside and hearing the beautiful sounds of nature......
I meant the horrendously loud buzzing of drone cars.
Love this topic, love the “where are they now” look at technology and just as interesting, how people envisioned the future.
AWESOME THUMBNAIL JOE!!!!!! LOVE IT!!! 😊😊😊😊😊😊
Joe, please do a short video on the carbon footprint of these ubiquitous meal services. More people should just buy bulk groceries and microwave or bake a meal that can last 2 or 3 days. Every meal in a service seems to have a single use metal or plastic container. That can't be good for the planet.
Hi. You forgot about the Cayley flier
Sir George Cayley, was an eminent inventor. He designed a practical flying machine 50 years before the Wright brothers. In 1853 he built a machine that could carry the weight of a man. This glider, the “Cayley Flier”, paved the way for the Wright brothers' powered flight in 1903, as the Wrights acknowledged.
Been binge watching video past few days and loving it
As an oncologist, great summary Joe. Super exciting to ride the wave of advancements over the last 5-10 years and apply those to patients in clinic today. We are doing better.
Bro. Almost 2M followers... That's pretty-pretty good 💪🏽
I designed a tube for transportation using a similar idea to the others, but this one would have a series of constrictors along its path that would push the passenger capsule along as it passed by each section containing a constrictor.
There would be no need for a track as the sides of the tunnel would be almost frictionless. This was achieved by using a special reusable fluid on the tunnel's surface.
I only had one problem with my test tunnel, from time to time gas would build up inside the tunnel. This was caused by the capsule rubbing against the sides of the capsule.
This was allowed to escape using a special valve.
I called this invention the A-sTrain.
Hey Joe: a well known comedian said, "if you really want to know why we don't have flying cars, I urge you to go to your local Walmart, and just watch us at the self checkout stalls for 10 minutes "... we as a species will never have personal flying cars...because (in no specific order)
#1.the stupids outnumber the rational and logical few.
#2. Can you imagine road rage in our skies?
#3. Cost
#4. Licensing
#5. Danger to the public.
#6. Traffic laws and traffic flow, including infrastructure...we can barely take care of roads and bridges now, imagine adding hundreds of thousands of landing areas and laneways....
#7. Stupid people, I know I mentioned them already but...man there are a lot of them. 😅
P.S. so many parameters behind flying cars that it too should be in a list as mentioned in your show about being a dystopia dream. Only really stupid people would think in our current global condition, that flying cars are just around the corner. The closest we will get in our lifetime is the helicopter...so fly at it.
Love ya Joe.😊
Fantastic video Joe! Speaking of futuristic ideas, I have more than 40 flight footage videos of ion thrusters that are patented for lifting their power supplies against Earth's gravity! The technology will work great for silent lightweight drones or even unmanned space probes. Someday, if the thrust can be increased enough, it might even make Jetsons like cars possible.
I agree with the f-cancer statement. I would add f-neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and PSP (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy). In a span of 3 months I lost a friend who was only 41 to ALS (December 2022) and then my 67 year old dad to PSP (February 2023).
Being involved with a few flying car projects the problem is not that it can't be built but our regulatory environment. The yearly insurance premium would be about 10% of the vehicle's cost, so if the plane sold for $250,000.00 that would be $25,000 a year. Another issue was getting access to the airport, no way you could take-off from the road and many airports restrict driving onto the runway. Then there is the problem of who can maintain them. An example of the Ford plane is at the Ford museum in Dearborn MI.
It needs to be stol or vtol. Personal (autonomous) drones are the closest I see to this ever becoming reality as imagined
Molt Taylor made the Aerocar in 1949, six were built. Price was $15,000. Mass production was planned but never started. Air speed was 100 mph, on land 60 mph.
I like this because just a couple of hours ago I watched "Back to the Future II" on an airplane and even though they got everything completely wrong for 2015, the flying car thing literally pulsated in its not-yet-not-yet-not-yet-ness. Since I work in aviation I think viable quiet fan-blade units are still possible. But Air Traffic Control/Not Bashing Into Each Other will be the real hurdle. Plus I had to check my bag and the wifi didn't work
@Joe Scott - Correction there is a private space station based of the original rotating design called the Gateway foundation.
They just can't get the funding and support to make it.
In a world when warning labels are required on cups so people don't burn themselves with "hot" coffee....flying cars for the masses will never happen.
There was an underground atmospheric railway in a tube under London, that used a large fan to create a partial vacuum to suck Railcars along the tube. today no one knows exactly where it was located, the stations were demolished and built over but the tube itself is still there, somewhere.
I, for one, can’t wait to scarf up some hallucinogens and go for a spin in my flying car! Beep beep!
We have ultra lights now, lots fly around southern illinois, people fly around their corn field to see when to harvest, and look at flooded property during all this rain
Hi Joe, love your content as always, glad you clone army keeps delivering despite inevitable ego clashes!
I believe a person with your interests is familiar with the writings of Polish sci-fi author and futurist Stanislaw Lem. He had tonnes of predictions for the future, alongside crazy and absurd takes on many subjects, naturally.
Perhaps looking at some of his predictions could make for a cool and thought-provoking video?
All the best from Warsaw!
We do kind of have flying cars, they are called helicopters. About the same sizes, similar roles, it's just really hard to get a "driving" license for them.
You mis pronounced flivver... I went to a high school in a town with a Ford plant, and the mascot was a it's fl-IH-vver. And you are correct about the cheap car, but it was a model a. Awesome to mention that.
“Flivver” when referring to an automobile, was pronounced with a short “i” sound, as in “sitter.” I have no idea how the aircraft version was pronounced at the time.
So, looking at the history of what in the United States is called "general aviation", we did technically get flying cars. We got small, (relatively) low cost vehicles that can be flown around safely. We even built out a surprising amount of infrastructure to support it. What we didn't get was much of a compelling reason to mass adopt it, like we did with regular cars. One reason is that the car itself came to dominate day-to-day transportation, and we kept building out the support structure for it. Lots of people compare long-distance driving with options like trains or jetliners. But a lot of these trips would be hugely inefficient if not for the massive network of roads, highways, freeways, and interstates that exist. All that road building ate into the market for passenger rail and generally makes it more practical to drive than fly for less than 500 miles. And when the airlines were deregulated in the 1970s, the price of airline travel dropped too. A small flying vehicle that seats less than 6 people just can't compete, especially if you are basically trying to buy another (more expensive) car that can't use the same systems as your Volkswagen.
Wow, I live near to the last of the pumping stations for the Atmospheric railway in Starcross in Devon. I never thought that Joe would mention Exeter and Newton Abbot on one of his videos.
They should just make big busses that fly, where the drivers can be monitored by the people who hire them. Yeah…that would be awesome, you could fit a couple hundred! You could serve food and drinks…HOLY SHIT! IM HAVING A BANGER IDEA!
As a kid I read Gerard K O'Neill's "The High Frontier", from which I first learned about Lagrange points. It was a wonderfully inspiring book for a nerdy 11yo. His ideas at the time seemed so possible and plausible.
Someday we will become an interplanetary civilization, expanding out a'la "The Expanse" (before the exotic alien tech).
16:46 I never thought the hyper loop idea would hold air.
Great video!! As always joe