Flying car (aircraft)

INTRODUCTIONA flying car is a type of personal air vehicle that provides door-to-door transportation by both road and air. The term "flying car" is often used to include readable aircraft and hover cars.Many prototypes have been built since the first years of the twentieth century, but no flying car has yet reached production status.

HistoryIn 1926, Henry Ford displayed an experimental single-seat aero plane that he called the "sky flivver". The project was abandoned two years later when a distance-record attempt flight crashed, killing the pilot.The Flivver was not a flying car at all, but it did get press attention at the time, exciting the public that they would have a mass-produced affordable airplane product that would be made, marketed, sold, and maintained just like an automobile. 

In 1957, Popular Mechanics reported that Hiller Helicopters was developing a ducted-fan aircraft that would be easier to fly than helicopters, and should cost a lot less. Hiller engineers expected that this type of an aircraft would become the basis for a whole family of special-purpose aircraft.

Modern developmentsAero Mobil currently fly-tests a prototype that obtained Slovak ultra light certification. When the final product will be available or how much it will cost is not yet specified.Urban Aeronautics' X-Hawk is a VTOL turbojet powered aircraft announced in 2006 with a first flight planned for 2009.

The Explorer PX200 is a French project of single-seater VTOL aircraft without rotating airfoil, relying on the Coandă effect and using an array of small jet engines called thermoreactorsembedded within tilt wings' body. Announced in 2007, the project has been funded by the Government of France and is now supported by various aerospace firms. 

DesignA practical flying car would have to be capable of safely taking off, flying and landing throughout heavily populated urban environments. However, to date, no vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle has ever demonstrated such capabilities. To produce such an aircraft would require a propulsion system that is quiet, to avoid noise complaints, and has non-exposed rotors so it could be flown safely in urban environments. Additionally, for such aircraft to become airborne, they would require very powerful engines.

EconomicsDue to the requirement of propulsion that is both small and powerful, the cost of producing a flying car would be very high and estimated by some as much as 10 million dollars. In addition, the flying car's energy efficiency would be much lower compared to conventional cars and other aircraft; optimal fuel efficiency for airplanes is at high speeds and high altitudes, while flying cars would be used for shorter distances, at higher frequency, lower speeds and lower altitude. For both environmental and economic reasons, flying cars would be a tremendous waste of resources.

SafetyAlthough statistically commercial flying is much safer than driving, unlike commercial planes, personal flying cars might not have as many safety checks and their pilots would not be as well trained. Humans already have problems with the aspect of driving in two dimensions (forward and backwards, side to side), adding in the up and down aspect would make "driving" or flying as it would be, much more difficult; however, this problem might be solved via the sole use of self-flying and self-driving cars

Where's my flying car?The flying car was and remains a common feature of conceptions of the future, including imagined near futures such as those of the 21st century. Complaints of the non-existence of flying cars have become nearly idiomatic as expressions of disappointment in the failure of the present to measure up to the glory of past predictions.

FictionThe flying car has been depicted in many works of fantasy and flying cars appear in Star Wars where they are called air speeders, such as those that can be seen on the planet of Corus cant in all three Star Wars prequel movies, from 1999's Star Wars: Episode I science fiction.

In The Fifth Element, set in 2263 New York City, flying cars are used as main mean of transportation. 

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs A scientist Flint Lockwood attempts to build a flying car, but it crashes in the ocean. Later on, Flint Lockwood finally succeeds in building a flying car which he uses to fly up to his machine causing raining food disaster

Star Trek Into Darkness: Many flying cars are seen in the skies of San Francisco and London, including flying garbage trucks. The final action sequence showed Spock fighting Khan on top of a couple of flying garbage trucks

Phones and Fern: In the episode My Ride From Outer Space, the series' title characters repair and modify a crashed alien spaceship into a Hot-Rod themed flying car, they also modified their mom's station wagon into a flying car called The Flying Car of The Future, Today

Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Auk 2004: For Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2. In the futuristic city of Auk, Samurai Jack has to jump on flying hover cars to get from building to building and must be careful he doesn't fall to his death