As humans we know how to make a plane. We also know how to make a car. It seems that with all of the technological advancements in our world we would be able to combine these two and make a flying car. Well this concept has been at our horizon of development for many years now and is yet to pleasure many futurists.
If you went back in time and asked somebody in the 1960's what vehicle transportation would look like today I would bet that they would be moderately disappointed. The 21st century unveiled many new technologies but none of them have been an effective flying car and I will tell you why.
What comes to mind when you try to reason the concept of a flying vehicle? Besides that fact that it would be extremely cool, it would provide an efficient method of traveling to a given destination by using a direct route. However there is a long list of reasons why this hasn't happened yet and some of them I will touch in this post.
First of all, the technology required to build this kind of machine that can just take off and land anywhere is going to make the product cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. With that only reaching a small percentage of the consumer market share, there is no drive to develop an infrastructure, which is my next point. Just like there being an infrastructure of roads, highways, and intersections for ground vehicles, there would need to be at least an enforced set of rules, procedures, routes, etc. Without any of that it would be total chaos. Just imagine the hectic rush hour of any major city in the nation. Now picture that without the many years of developed infrastructure and enforcement of laws, procedures, practices, etc.
With that being said I do think that there is one way that would allow flying vehicles to appear in our lifetimes and that would be with self-flying machines. I hesitate to call them vehicles because it would act more like a machine than what we know now as a vehicle. This machine would ask for the destination and then be able to communicate with every other flying object near them to avoid crashes. The "driver" would not be in charge of controlling any part of the machine while in transit. While some of this technology is starting to emerge with newer cars today, it has a good distance to go to be sufficient in this scenario.
I love the thought of flying cars but, in all honesty, we won't be seeing them as soon as we like. There are many things that need to happen before we see "cars" flying around but when that day arrives, it shall be great.
-Brady Feldman
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