[phatbyte]

I never understood the appealing of flying cars. Not only it looks much more dangerous than cars in case of accidents, but also picture yourself living in a city with millions of these flying around, always covering sun light, noise, just visually horrible

[CodeWriter23]

Don’t confuse this with George Jetson’s flying car. These are primarily for flying from helipad to helipad. Getting the bigwigs to meetings during the day and perhaps from/to a suburban airport or landing pad for commute, with the last mile issue addressed with a standard car.

There are inherently many constraints in this type of market. Building owners are going to charge for access to their helipads. The fare is going to compare closer to hiring a helicopter than hiring an SUV rideshare. The approximate 50% duty cycle means roughly doubling the fleet size to eliminate gaps in availability. And finally, Aviation Authorities will limit the number of craft simultaneously operating in a given airspace.

[MrZongle2]

"...much more dangerous than cars in case of accidents..."

To not just the occupants of the vehicles, but pedestrians below, too.

When walking along a road, there's always the (admittedly slight) chance of being either hit by a car or struck by debris from a nearby accident. Now imagine if that road (perhaps several) is above you! What previously might have been stopped by friction from the road now flies much farther....

[cr0sh]

> Now imagine if that road (perhaps several) is above you! What previously might have been stopped by friction from the road now flies much farther....

I work near a small regional airport, which used to be "in the middle of nowhere" but is now surrounded on all sides by office parks, malls, etc. Much like many airports, I suppose.

A couple of years back we had an accident where a small plane pilot lost control (I never found out the cause) and his plane crashed just beyond the end of the runway as he was taking off.

His plane "landed" in a small tree next to the sidewalk of a busy road. Shut it down for hours.

Nobody was seriously injured or killed; pilot and passenger "walked away" with minor cuts and scrapes, and nobody on the road or sidewalk was involved. Had it been a few hours later when rush hour occurred it might've been a different situation...

My employer is right below one of the flight lines for takeoffs and landings (my boss is working on his pilot's license); I can hear planes flying over, taking off, etc every day. I sometimes wonder about the idea of a plane crashing into the building, but there's nothing I can do about it, so it isn't something I dwell on.

That's just from one small regional airport. I can only imagine accidents from so-called "flying cars". I can believe such vehicles overall could be made safe, and accidents rare - but they will happen occasionally, that I don't doubt.

[legohead]

If noise was solved somehow, I think it would be awesome. I think you're underestimating just how much space there is above you. Guided cars in air-lanes wouldn't block much, and personally I think it would look pretty cool in a metropolis.