Comments on: Can personal aircraft beat gridlock?

NASA thinks so, and it's offering prize money for teams heading to the skies in a contest starting Saturday.

[mail man dave]

Moving traffic congestion to the air?

Doesn't it just make more sense to ditch a car for a city bus/train instead of clogging the skies instead? That would free up the streets, use less energy, many city busses already run on alternative fuels, and they'd still get you closer to your house/office than a landing strip. What happens after you land your PAV a few miles from your house? How do you then get home? How long would it take to land a couple dozen planes all heading to a large employer? What about safety concerns and current flight routes for commercial planes?

[CaptainX]

What better place for this . . .

. . .than at the airport named for the artist who brought us Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel!

[albertsoler]

Just stop it!

It's frightening enough that accidents do occur even with highly trained pilots -- some, even with state-of-the-art military training. The idea of some schmo with minimal instruction tooling around in the air above me, is something I'd rather not worry about. (Then again, you don't need an aircraft to fall out of the sky and land on someone's head: Remember the drunk that fell over a railing in some ball park and landed on a woman and breaking her neck?)

This is just a dumb idea. Let CAFE/NASA have their goofy contest. Just please -- PLEASE -- let's make the candidate pilot really have to earn his or her wings for any aircraft. Anyone that condones the idea of simplifying piloting program is just plain nuts.

[GEBERWEIN]

Amen to albert

Look to Phoenix last week. Two very well trained pilots in helicopters came together and four died. It could have been very much worse. The mess landed in a vacant park. Beside that park are two very busy streets. Because of what happened the pilots didn't have a choice of where they came down. And, luck was there because, who is usually in parks - kids. But the hour of the day (most people in Phoenix go inside when it hits 98) they weren't there yet.

When planes come down they usually make a real mess. The only difference is the bigger plane makes a bigger mess.

To your comment, a hearty Amen!

[albertsoler]

Naive Mission Statement

I just had to do a second post. Let's take a close look at their Mission Statement:

"Imagine a world in which you could routinely and safely travel anywhere, anytime at 150 mph and not encounter any traffic."

There is a flaw in their logic. If they assume that very few aircraft will occupy the air space, then maybe fliers wouldn't encounter "any traffic". If this dumb idea actually takes off -- pun intended -- it wouldn't take long before you have congestion. Unlike ground congestion with miles of unmoving traffic, aircraft still have to move at 150 MPH to stay in the air. Otherwise -- (insert sliding whistle sound here).

"Imagine a vehicle being so affordable, quiet, comfortable and easy to operate that it could be part of a rental fleet."

If only Hot Air Balloons can travel at 150 MPH, the contest would be over. But even they crash from time to time. Again, the implication to this statement is that any schmo with little training can get into one of these vehicles and take off.

There is one chance, and one chance only for this idea to possibly succeed. We will need huge breakthroughs, I mean HUGE technological breakthroughs in automated skyways, Artificial Intelligence, and anti-crash technologies. Right now, I'm equally dubious about inept humans flying over my head as well as bug prone computers flying above. It will take decades before this idea should even be considered.

"The Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Challenge is intended to promote the popular use of self-operated, personal aircraft for safe, efficient, affordable, environmentally friendly, and comfortable on-demand transportation as a future solution to America's mobility needs."

Like I said in my previous post -- Stop it! It should be very hard to earn a pilot's license -- not easy. If you want to fly, go hand gliding. By jumping off a cliff, the only danger would be to yourself and to the few brave souls that have to go rescue your butt when you make a turn just a bit too tight.

Dumb!

[itango]

Great!

soon, all the text-messaging, knob fiddling, personal grooming, cell phone yapping idiots we encounter on the road while driving will be up in the sky, running into each other and crashing down into buildings and pedestrians. Let's triple their Darwin awards if they have their whole family in the aircraft.

[DecliningUSDollar]

Most people are stupid

Most people are stupid and can barely navigate on the "2D" roadways.

How about this motto? "9-11 every day" because that is exactly what it would be like with car/planes flying into buildings every day of the week. Most people are simply too stupid for this.

[ethana2]

I had an idea:

A small glider using which a person has their arms out in the wings and their feet in the tail. They pedal and such, like a bike.

Leonardo DaVinci didn't have carbon fiber.

[martindawson]

Faulty premise

I really do sympathize with people who think that a PAV would be great and being able to take to the air at low cost and with maximal computer guidance and minimal skill/risk requirement is a very attractive prospect.

However, we have to be realistic about whether this is really a valid alternative as far as global heating, congestion, and oil dependency goes.

A pivotal premise appears to be articulated in the following - "We're burning up into smoke 6.7 billion gallons of gas annually (from being) stuck in traffic jams," said Seeley

This is very true - and we also burn up fuel going up hills, only to burn up the energy by applying brakes going down hill - and run engines inefficiently when accelerating from a standing stop in traffic. Hybrid vehicles like the Prius have addressed every one of these inefficiencies. They are such ruthlessly efficient energy scavengers that they actually get better fuel economy in city traffic than they do on the open road - because the average speed is so much lower.

Plugin-hybrid vehicles offer the immediate promise of virtually eliminating gas consumption for dense urban commuting. (see www.calcars.org). These vehicles can be introduced into the traffic system with absolutely no additional infrastructure (public or otherwise) being implemented.

PAV are a nice idea and, who knows, maybe they'll actually happen one day. However, they are not in any sense a solution to the urgent issues that we confront today.

[imhodudes]

"a more economical, environmentally friendly way for people to get around and circumvent auto gridlock" We have gridlock over our airports frequently already - inability to handle the number of flights we have. Get the same mileage as a car? the same cars we absolutely have to get off the road to handle climate change? by the time this fantasy could be realized, cars will need to be getting 100 mpg, not the 18 mph they are talking about in a plane. And I can't wait to watch the crack-heads doing their drive-by shootings in these things. The way to break gridlock is to get most of the cars off the road, not into the skies.

Why are we interested in replicating the private car fiasco in the sky? if you want to use the air to get rid of grid-lock and to improve the environment, *start* with air buses, not private planes.