Where we're going we don't need roads...
March 13, 2012 1:12 AM   Subscribe

Quadrotors? Check. Flying Delorean? Check. Roads? No need. While a full-size model may still be a few years away, this crafty Russian tinkerer has constructed his very own hover-conversion model Delorean, and the results are pretty darn cool. (SLYT)
posted by ShutterBun (16 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh man, I totally need to build some Batteries Not Included flying models...
posted by Chekhovian at 1:22 AM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]


Another hovering Delorean, he even enlisted Kickstarter to fund it.
posted by arcticseal at 2:18 AM on March 13, 2012


3 years to go..
posted by littlesq at 3:07 AM on March 13, 2012


It's a close call, but I think this is better than the flying quadrotor cat.
posted by Kriegsman at 3:14 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'm sorry, what did I just see??

Sorry to be a buzzkill but I hope hover cars never actually come about. Ever thought about what that would look like? You think highways are ugly? imagine one covering the whole sky. Really taking up any part of the sky with cars is something I can do without thankyouverymuch.

But hoverboards...that needs to happen. I'm all over that.
posted by dry white toast at 3:15 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


Kriegsman, thank you for that :)
posted by victory_laser at 3:53 AM on March 13, 2012


Definitely cooler at night, but most things are I guess -
posted by newdaddy at 3:57 AM on March 13, 2012


You think highways are ugly? imagine one covering the whole sky.

Also, people seem to have enough trouble driving in two dimensions. What makes us think that they'll be any better in three?
posted by Strange Interlude at 4:29 AM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]


The lights really make it, love the blue glow from the roters.
posted by octothorpe at 4:35 AM on March 13, 2012


I recall that there was an episode of Monster Garage where the contestants tried to build one of these. It was the only episode where Jessie James said, "This is stupid, I'm not doing it," and walked away to leave the contestants to flounder without his help. And at that moment I said to myself, "One day that man is goin to marry Sandra Bullock and several years later cheat on her with a Nazi tattoo model."

Wait, what were we talking about?
posted by 1adam12 at 6:43 AM on March 13, 2012


In all seriousness, hovering cars would be great. Instead of billions of dollars in road maintenance, just use grass. In places with low rainfall, you just need something to stabilize the soil to keep dust down.

Urban heat island problem solved. Hojillions of cubic feet of co2 to make concrete: not produced.
posted by BeeDo at 7:22 AM on March 13, 2012


This'll have to do. Delorean.com's online parts store's been out of stock on part #19852015 so long, they took it out of the listings.
posted by radwolf76 at 7:34 AM on March 13, 2012


What makes us think that they'll be any better in three?

If flying cars ever do, er, get off the ground, the experience of "driving" them will be more like riding Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin at Disneyworld than piloting a Cessna. You'll punch in a destination, and... do pretty much nothing else. Your ascent, descent, and flight path will all be computer-controlled, as you're routed to your endpoint like a data packet on the internet.

The kinds of conditions that cause most road accidents -- drunk driving, distracted driving, road rage, running red lights, blind intersections, potholes, etc. -- wouldn't even exist. About 40,000+ people die in auto accidents in the U.S. every year, which makes the idea of a genuine flying car seem a little less fanciful to me.

There's are some filmmakers trying to raise money for a flying car documentary on IndieGogo right now that looks surprisingly professional. They're titling it Volantor, Paul Moller's neologism for his never-quite-ready VTOL vehicles, and that's probably a mistake, given Moller's history. But a "Who Killed the Flying Car?" style documentary about the largely bureaucratic obstacles standing in the way of one of our fondest dreams seems like a good evening's viewing to me.
posted by Missiles K. Monster at 8:09 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


I see a whole lot of people don't realize that this is a *model* car, equivalent to an RC helicopter, and is just designed to look like a DMC-12
posted by leviathan3k at 9:07 AM on March 13, 2012


I recall that there was an episode of Monster Garage where the contestants tried to build one of these.

Yep, I remember that episode (actually, it's the only episode I've seen, since Don, the owner of the Delorean shop featured. is a friend) Jesse was a complete dick, and it was enough to convince me I had seen enough.
posted by ShutterBun at 10:53 AM on March 13, 2012


Also, people seem to have enough trouble driving in two dimensions. What makes us think that they'll be any better in three ?

In three words, Reason #1 why there will never be a flying car:

Household Collision Insurance.
posted by y2karl at 9:31 AM on March 14, 2012


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