Flying Cars more economical than SUVs

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[ I want one of these, though it's screwed for noise
abatement... -Ed. ]




Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/15/nextfest_wrap/

Flying car more economical than SUV

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
)
Published Saturday 15th May 2004 03:40 GMT

NextFest Inventor Paul Moller has pulled off an astonishing
achievement. He's found a parking spot in San Francisco. And we can be
grateful for this, because his Flying Car is undoubtedly the draw at
the technology exhibition NextFest (here until Sunday, at Fort Mason).

It's just a prototype, but judging by the queues of eager children -
of all ages - that clustered around his M400 SkyCar, he has the hit of
the show. Moller has spent $200 million and many years of his life on
this quixotic venture. We'll share the latest specifications with you.

The M400 needs 35 clear feet to take off but thanks to its 770 hp
engine can whiz to 365 mph - cruise control kicks in at 326 mph - and
climb at 6,400 feet per minute. You may hear it before you see it: it
emits a rather noisy 65 dba at 500 feet. Interestingly, with a fuel
consumption of 20 miles to the gallon on the road, it's rather more
economical than a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and looks positively
eco-friendly compared to a Hummer.

Moller said that today's economics give each M400 a theoretical price
tag of around half a million dollars, but in volume production it
could drop to $300,000 and in really large volumes to below $50,000.
At which point, uh, look out!
SkyCar
Mirror... signal ... manoeuver

Fans of dangerous vehicles may also want to see the EZ-Rocket that
graces the outside arena, especially for the very frank safety
literature that accompanies it (reproduced here
(http://www.xcor.com/ez.html)). The EZ-Rocket is a home-made plane
that crosses a rocket with a glider - the idea being to get up very
fast indeed using an isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen rocket.
Typical burn-out is within two minutes.

"The pilot can dump the LOX [liquid oxygen] through a manual valve
into the atmosphere," we learned. "Venting oxygen behind a 200 MPH
glider is not hazardous. We've done this during a safe-abort flight."
After drinks and light refreshments had been stowed away, we hope.

Elsewhere at NextFest, children danced on stage with a creepy robot
from Honda called Asimo (http://asimo.honda.com). Asimo looks
harmless, has a very lifelike gait but obviously, only a limited range
of movements and not very much to say for himself. It's a bit like
arguing
(http://radiocomments.userland.com/co...262&link=http%
3A%2F%2Fradio.weblogs.com%2F0107946%2F2004%2F01%2F 30.html%23a1262)
with a weblogger.

GM showed off a hybrid car, NASA showed off subvocal communications
(grinding your teeth will do, thanks to a tiny sensor and the magic of
wireless), and a DARPA-funded company showed off their iSwarms
(http://www.irobot.com/rd/p07_Swarm.asp). DARPA is obsessed with
swarms, because the military - mirroring Japan's long and fruitless
obsession with AI - pays them lots of money in the belief that it will
give them a competitive advantage. The military wants future wars to
be fit for TV, and hopes robots can fight them. Some scientists
including Bill Joy fear that nanoscale swarms will eventually swamp
humanity but there's a much more immediate problem with the
technology: the critters jump into Kevin Kelly
(http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/)'s beard
(http://www.edge.org/documents/dinner..._Pages/13.html), and
refuse to come out.

More seriously, Chris "teleportation" Anderson and his team at Wired
deserve praise for curating a splendid exhibition. It deserves to be a
great success. It runs until Sunday and tickets are $15 a head or $40
for a family ticket. All beside one of the most beautiful stretches of
waterfront in the world.

As your reporter departed, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was
praising risk-taking to great cheers from school-children, and Phil
Bronstein, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle promised the kids
that they could have tomorrow off. The children looked confused. The
Schools Superintendent whispered in his ear that since it was Friday,
they'd have tomorrow off anyway. Sometimes the future just rolls
around so quickly... ?

Related link

NextFest (http://www.nextfest.net/)

? Copyright 2004

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email:
Unix Systems Administrator, |
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! | http://www.sbcglobal.net/~tyketto
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"A Guy Called Tyketto" wrote in message
. com...
The M400 needs 35 clear feet to take off but thanks to its 770 hp
engine can whiz to 365 mph - cruise control kicks in at 326 mph - and
climb at 6,400 feet per minute. You may hear it before you see it: it
emits a rather noisy 65 dba at 500 feet. Interestingly, with a fuel
consumption of 20 miles to the gallon on the road, it's rather more
economical than a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and looks positively
eco-friendly compared to a Hummer.

What they conveniently neglect to mention is that the "SkyCar" has
just about the same payload capacity as, say, a medium-sized
scooter.

Bob M.