The slower a plane flies, the more surface its wing must have. That's
why helicopters have such a huge lift surface (not the blades
themselves but the surface they sweep over). Even so a helicopter is
more energy consuming than an airplane. You can lift off vertically
with a narrower lifting surface. But then you must spend even more
energy and have a bigger motor. A skycar is supposed to have a very
little surface. That's why I think a vertical take-off and landing
skycar will not be suitable for everybody's private usage. Because it
would be far too expensive and polluting. To me the common skycar
should take of an land like an airplane. It should be a car with
folding wings. Such cars have already been conceived. A friend told me
he saw one in the Seattle Boeing Museum and I found some others on the
Web and in books. But they never went into production. I believe such a
skycar can become a hit anyway. A few differences should help:
It needs to have little wing surface. Because that way the wings
are easer to fold. A high take off and landing speed yields security.
It should use a ladder of wings like the Red Baron's fighter
plane, the Mignet formula or even the winggrid concept. Because such an
airplane configuration is easier to fly and has less wingspan. Short
and thin wing pieces are easier to fold.
Take off and landing runways should be build all across the
country. For example near highways. That way you simply leave the
highway like you would to go to a highway restaurant. You unfold the
wings, accelerate and take off. Such runways would be a connection of
the highways to the airways just like connections exist of the highways
to the streets. At the start of the common usage of skycars I suppose
only already existing local airports will be used. But automated
procedures should be established to allow the users to take off
directly and reciprocally go directly away to the streets once they
land.
The modern telecommunication and computer technology should be
used to make the airways easy to fly and secure. All procedures own to
airports and airways should be automated.
Variants and enhancements exist, like a wing rental system on the
runway strips or frequent public transport by STOL airplanes. Anyway, I
hope the airways will get into use more often.
The more I think about it the more I believe the future is in car and
airplane rental. With public transport, car parkings and little
airports all over the country. Using a cellular phone one can rent the
appropriate succession of cars and planes to get to a given
destination. Without loosing a minute: you drive the rental car aside
of the airplane, just transvase your luggage, fly to the next airfield
where another car awaits ten meters away from the airplane parking
zone. The rental cars' onboard computers drive them automatically to
their park zone and back towards a newly landed airplane. This is
roughly the way rich people travel today. Thanks to electronics this
will become a fluent routine for a lot of people. If you want optimal
speed, security and low power consumption, you cannot mix car and
airplane. At least not with current technology. Skycars are necessary
devices, for special purposes or some rich people. For common usage,
car and airplane should be kept separate I believe.