If we assume this means "in the next 50 years", they wouldn't be totally wrong. You could make the case airplanes were only on the cusp of being "a meaning[ful] part of life in America" by 1953 – planes only overtook trains for domestic US travel in 1955, and 1957 for trans-Atlantic.

https://airandspace.si.edu/explore/stories/commercial-aviati...

Isn't the point of flying cars that they don't need roads?

Hope China floods the markets with cheap DIY drones big enough for people that will be impossible to regulate. A bit like e-bikes heh.

Super late to this but I'd take bipedal bots. That's not to say I'm particularly bullish on that idea though. Seems like it might be simpler to build purpose built robots for specific tasks. They'd probably be faster.

Corrected link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncRFPd69rg&t=1110

Which doesn't rebut the point at all.

If it's autopilot you could probably also channel the vehicles to specific routes such that they maintain a road like set of channels where they're flying so the rest of us can not worry about random flying cars zooming around our yards and playgrounds.

We already do this with planes which have corridors they fly along.

Yup, there's a bunch of Chinese startups building that rn. EHang [0] is one of the bigger ones.

[0] https://www.ehang.com/

Not sure about the autopilot part (even planes autopilots follow a flight path). I'm not an expert either, but with roads, there are clear lanes and markings. And ability to generally see around you, and judge distance.

Is what sets the lanes in the air are traffic controllers and flight plans? We're already short on traffic controllers. And there are already lots of near-misses (and not near-misses) even with the heavy regulation and control. Can't imagine having it as mass personal transit driven manually. There'd need to be a mass central system that controls everything, and in that case, might as well just keep it commercial

The energy efficiency isn't great either on personal aircraft

not an expert, just shooting the crap

The big limitation of autopilots is that they can't handle emergencies. By their nature emergencies are unpredictable so programmers can't reliably code for emergency situation handling in advance. An experienced human pilot at least has a chance to figure out a solution by reasoning from first principles and reacting intuitively to novel situations. These new eVTOL aircraft have a certain amount of redundancy built in but realistically if anything goes seriously wrong they're just going to spin and crash (or maybe pop a recovery parachute if so equipped and within the flight envelope for those to work).

Autopilots also can't handle VHF voice comms (with a very narrow exception for the Garmin Autonomí system in certain situations) or perform "see and avoid" traffic management in VFR.

Sentence is two words too long.

Not just after an incident, but what sort of maintenance requirements and burden will there be now? Can there be an equivalent to the beater for flying cars?

It's not a loop hole: this was an intentional move by Congress and the FAA. Ultralights have been a legal category for decades. The operating limits in terms of altitude, speed, weight, and airspace are strict enough that when one crashes it usually only kills the (expendable) pilot and there is minimal risk to innocent bystanders.

The Pivotal BlackFly and similar aircraft are merely toys for wealthy thrill-seekers. Which is fine and could make for a viable niche industry. There is no viable path yet for "flying cars" to see widespread transportation use.

Part 103 vehicles can't be operated over congested areas. FAA considers anything more than sparsely populated as congested. A single church in the middle of nowhere might be sparsely populated.

I'm not even sure you can take off or land in your own neighborhood. Is a neighborhood a settlement? shrug

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-103.15

See Simmons (2010 legal interpretation from the FAA chief legal counsel. https://drs.faa.gov/browse/excelExternalWindow/FAA000000000L...

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Also, no operations in common types of airspace: no bravo, charlie, or delta (or class e surface area). This may not be difficult seeing as they tend to exist over congested areas which must be avoided anyway.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/section-103.17

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Part 103 ultralights are vehicles, not aircraft, therefore not general aviation. Therefore, I'm not sure who will insure these operations. It may be the realm of self-insured.

Not only is it heard of, it exists, and is also the first line of the Wikipedia article for "flying car".

> A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_car

Often times the ground capability is limited but it means your landing strip doesn't need to be next to your hanger - you can drive it down the road a few miles (usually after folding the wings in).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-V_Liberty

It's a combination of the definitions for "flying" and "car".