Where are the Flying Cars?

I’m about to risk any credibility that I might have by talking about this, but I’m going to do it anyway. Futurists get asked, “Where are the Flying Cars?” all the time so I’ll put in my two cents. The October 2007 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine had a one page article giving the latest progress on the flying car, so I feel compelled to talk about it. I bought the magazine while I was camping in my in-law’s RV. This thing is something like 30 feet long, has 3 slide-outs to expand the interior room, has automatic leveling gear that descends from under the vehicle, and too many other features to name. It’s probably even more advanced than most of our permanent homes. For instance, the refrigerator can run on propane or electricity. Can yours do that? Mine can’t. In any case, my point is that we can build very sophisticated vehicles. So why don’t we have flying cars? Short answer – they’re just not practical.

Think about it, do you really want your average person zipping around overhead? I know I don’t want cars driving over my house anymore than I want the present cars driving through my yard. I have enough air traffic from the small airplanes and helicopters that are already in the air. Therefore, flying cars would have to stay on designated paths (i.e. roads). We would probably just use the same pathways we have now. If this is the case we wouldn’t get anywhere any faster than we already do. Sure, a flying car might be able to achieve higher speeds than a wheeled car, but the cars we drive now are capable of higher speeds than we are allowed to or can safely drive. Another thing that makes a flying car impractical is that it would require more energy to stay suspended in the air than to sit on the ground. With the energy situation being as it is flying cars aren’t the prudent choice unless there is an advantage of great magnitude which I have yet to see.