pigeonbeaks.com

Interesting article on the BBC site today about the “M 200G” a flying car which is being built by a company in Davis, California. Apparently it will go on sale in a few months time for $90,000 (£44,700).

It is unclear which agency will authorise its use - the Federal Aviation Administration or the Department of Transport. It is also unclear how much it would cost to run - eight engines initially suggests that it would cost x 8 as much as would a regular car…but this is probably wrong because there’s a lot less friction in the air. It would be very interesting to see some figures around MPG and how it compares to various classes of road-car. Presume owners would also save that most precious of resources - time.

Other thoughts:

Programmes (over wireless internet by then of course) around flying cars? A new Top Gear? Pimp my Saucer?

Good uses for them: rescue teams (as mentioned in the BBC article), air ambulances, emergency police response vehicles etc.

Bad uses for them: makes get-aways from crime scenes a whole lot easier and faster, opens a whole new can of worms around using them for terrorist activity etc.

So the question becomes, are we going to get together and brainstorm these issues before they arrise? We won’t be able to identify all of the issues (some of them may be “emergent” and therefore invisible to us at present) but we can at least try.

Further reading:

Wikipedia article on flying cars

News.com article (from 2005) on why flying cars WON’T take off (pun presumably intended)

Blogs - I could not find any blogs specifically around the topic of flying cars….opportunity?