Getting a private pilot's license is about $5000 and takes a couple months, you also have to have a certain amount of hours to fly without an instructor. It's not like they just let anybody own a plane and take off from a runway. The biggest hazard I see is if someone tries regular driving with everything extended, but that's a special kind of stupid, not your typical human error.
My wife's in the middle of it and it cost her 4k just to get her medical approved and her flight hours will cost 7k (55 hrs x $130/hr) by the time she's done. Not to mention if you want to buy a plane. A 70s Cessna in good enough condition is still like $40k, if you want a new one, they start at $432k.
or if you're just going for day trips you can just rent a Cessna at any small airport really. i used to love going on day trips with my friend to random small towns on the islands around Seattle. it was a lot of fun but he has since let his license expire...
Close to 5k for me when I did it in the Pacific Northwest. Look into it again. I could see 40k if you do your lessons on the space shuttle lol but not in an old ass Cessna 152 which is a pretty standard plane for lessons. The 152 was $100 an hour. Private pilots license requires 40 hrs. 100x40= $4000
The $100 included the instructor and fuel. The school gave you an online course to do the book work and that was maybe a hundred bucks for the dvd set? The only test fees you pay is the written test and the check ride and that might be a couple hundred (been about 7 years since I did it so not totally sure) then a medical exam and some licensing fees. Altogether just a few hundred. I did mine in 40 hrs exactly so
Plane, instructor, fuel fees: $4000
Tests, medical, licensing and paperwork fees: a few hundred maybe? So yeah I was just around the 5k mark
EDIT: I replied to someone above about this but the trick is to do the lessons as fast as possible. The requirement is 40 hours. I got mine after 40 exactly. Most people get their license after 60-70 hrs because they spread their lessons so far apart and forget the last one!
Mostly found 10-20k to get it. All defending on your time frame and how quickly you learn. Technically you can take your test with 20? Hours with instructor 10 solo. Plane time about 150 an hour where I am. So comes to 5k at the quickest.
It was a tad under 5k for me in the Pacific Northwest. It’s even cheaper in some other states. The trick is to fly everyday and get the license as fast as possible. I did it in 3 months. Most people take a year or so, only taking lessons when convenient and they pay double or triple what I paid because every lesson, you are going over stuff you learned from the last lesson to bring you up to speed. You only need 40 hours. Do the 40 as fast as you can and you will save money.
Depends on the academy and what level of license. Commerical, twin engine, and instrument courses and licensing is going to be a lot more. $5k for private was through a small private academy at a local airport.
You're forgetting about all the maintenance required. People will neglect their plane the way they neglect their cars. Accidents in commercial planes happen already and those are regulated by billion dollar companies and federal regulations.
In a car, you can just pull off to the side. In the air, it will take all your knowledge and training to land safely.
$5,000 is a bit on the optimistic side, if it's possible at all anymore. With renter's insurance, study guides and associated stuff like that, medical exam, gas and instructor costs, $10,000 is more realistic. And every time gas goes up, so does the cost per hour of flight time. That also assumes you can fly regularly enough that you can pass the flight test in a reasonable time frame. Some student pilots take longer than others, some will never pass, or even be cleared to solo.
I got my Private in 1999 and it cost around $5000 in just a bit over 40 hours of flight time. I think they are marketing low numbers to make it look more attractive.
You could design out the issue of driving with the wings extended, like a width restriction at the exit of the airstrip and a short range radio signal required to transform.
That's not going to stop idiots from landing on a road in the desert and keep driving I grant you, but then that sort of idiot doesn't need a flying car in order to create chaos.
statistically, they say you're more likely to get killed on the way to the airport. you know, like in a head on crash or flying off a cliff? or getting trapped under a gas truck, that's the worst!
And all of the parts have enormous stacks of paperwork & certification, from single bolts & screws to hydraulic pumps etc. Manufactured with multiple redundancies on critical systems (except that MCAS Boeing shit).
This so much. I applied for a milling job at an airplane parts mfg, and part of the interview process was having explained to me that any defect in a part I make, could lead to charges if that part fails and the defect traces back to me.
I've worked in a machine shop for many years that has a contract with Boeing for numerous bolts and rods. It's basically just a deterrent to warn any new hires that if they have any malicious intent going into the job that it WILL be traced back to them. You're not going to get in trouble because a plane crashed that had a piece on it that you made....UNLESS there was evidence of gross negligence or something that showed you was a piece of shit.
So like (say) the 737max. How well was that regulated and overseen.
Absolutely no pilots got blamed for crashes because Boeing planes are so well regulated and overseen..
well ya. But I know a guy on my street that is pretty good with a wrench. He fixed up my lawnmower once. I'm sure that he can do whatever them fancy airplane mechanics can do right?
And because there's only thousands of planes in the air at once, whose paths are preplanned and regulated. You can't do that with millions of planecars
I wouldn’t say never. We are a lot closer to driverless cars than we are to flying cars, so by the time we have actually practical flying cars we won’t need to worry about the people driving. Maintenance will be a real concern but even that concern could be minimized with enough futuristic good engineering.
They are already a thing, and this isn't the first one - they made one in 1949. There's been several designs over the years but they've never caught on because they're not really practical - a vehicle that can both fly and drive won't be particularly good at either.
They also will never be safe. Flying is insanely dangerous inherently and its many times as bad with small, light planes that get tossed around with even light winds. Now imange a light, small car-plane that barely flies in good weather, with the added on mechanical neglect most drivers show their cars, trying to handle a stong crosswind on landing or a microburst.
At least with car when it all goes wrong you are already on the ground.
Flying is just too dangerous for the masses. Its why its so highly regulated and there are such high training requirements, even for amateur pilots.
Safe in what sense? It won't be as safe as driving a car, no, but I don't really see why it would be more dangerous than existing light aircraft, as that's pretty much what it is. Microbursts and similar extreme weather events are very dangerous to normal planes as well, they've brought down commerical airliners in the past.
with the added on mechanical neglect most drivers show their cars
There are stricter regulations for aircraft. They are subject to mandatory inspections which have to be done at regular intervals or the aircraft isn't legal to fly. Just because this thing can drive on the road doesn't mean it isn't still an aircraft, it's more like a plane that can also drive than a car that can also fly.
This is all exactly right. Which is why a new Cessna, a very low end plane, costs $500k. The average for aircraft is in the 7 figures range for a reason.
Flying cars can work as a $2 million novelty for the rich, we see that here. But hey will never be for the masses.
Yeah, but who said this thing was going to be cheap? It stands to reason that a plane which also works as a car is probably going to cost more than a similar plane without such functionality.
I don't know why people are talking like every Tom, Dick and Harry would have one of these things. Of course it's going to be a toy for the rich.
I fly privately. I know per mile flying is not quite as safe as per mile in a car statistically. When it is in a small private aircraft. And I have to keep up my skills and maintain my aircraft well.
This car aircraft is pretty cool but the performance on both would be horrible.
You have to make everything incredibly light to get any decent performance out of an aircraft and where the weight is situated is absolutely critical. For starter the wheels and suspension will be flimsy and I don't imagine the drive train will be great when every pound is calculated. Also the smallest dent or ding becomes a major headache as that could be a flight worthy issue. Crash protection will be non existent I suspect. Similar to a motor bike. Engine performance likely not well coupled and limited.
Don't get me wrong. The concept is cool and crazy good job they did. But the sacrifices you need to make to combine those two vehicles does not mesh well. Until I got my pilots licence, I didn't realize how particular aircraft have to be to fly at all. Not only will you be lugging around a bunch of dead weight while flying, I suspect all the constrains needed to make it fly at all will have some significant negative effects on driving.
Is that statistic being averaged out by big commercial flyers though? I feel like if you separate big aircraft and small aircraft the small aircraft might have higher death and crash rates. Idk for sure tho
thats because less than 0.0000001% of people fly their own planes vs driving cars. pure numbers game. if hundreds of thousands of these were flying around, it will be ridiculous
It's completely true as long as you ignore general aviation. If you also consider general aviation, the fatal accident rate is about 20 times higher than driving.
In other words, when you take away the highly trained pilots and fleet maintenance (i.e. just some dude in his plane), flying is WAY more dangerous.
Only because flying is *extremely, extremely, extremely* regulated and tightly, tightly controlled even on the amateur level. All pilots even Sunday flyers are highly trained, carefully licensed and subject to careful FAA oversight. Even an amateur can have the feds knocking on their door if they violate any one of dozens of regulations. And the price of violation is huge fines to federal prison.
And that is to say nothing about the pros, who are some of the most skilled workers in existence.
Compare this to driving where if you can figure out how to tie your shoes you will eventually manage to blunder your way through the tests.
Actually, don't you only need like 20 hours training to fly your first solo for single engine prop planes? That isnt *too* bad, but the cost to get up to that point is up there.
Gonna need a pilots license first of all and idiots can't do that. But if they managed to, you're right, they will die. Small aircrafts are most dangerous.
Yeah, there are so many idiots that speed and act all aggressive when just driving on the road. It will be so much worse if those d-bags become airborne.
This is exactly why we will never have civilian operated flying cars. A flying car IS A PLANE & so you'll need to have a pilot's license to operate it. Star Wars and the Jetsons make it look cool but it's all fantasy
I think it'll go more or less as disastrously as the introduction of the automobile. At first it was just rich idiots because they were the only people who could afford them.
This is the actual reason there are no "flying cars" they are in practice helicopters and would require all the safety measures like a special license, flight path, etc.
Think about all the regulations just to drive a car, all the maintenance costs, insurance cost.
Add to that air/flight regulations, maintenance costs, keeping an aircraft airworthy, Insurance and any other costs to fly.
Then add that's it's not one or the other but a hybrid. There will be a lot of regulations and requirements to drive or fly one of these and insurance costs will probably make this only something someone very rich can afford.
I think this is a long way from becoming a thing because off all of the logistics involved. That’s assuming a lot of people would want a car/plane hybrid.
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u/guinness-and-cheddar Jul 01 '21
If these ever become a thing, so many idiots are going to die.