09 10 2015 49 IT S MAGIC swarm intelligence with real drones turned out to be promis ing Small planes could move like a flock of birds said Frank Nieuwenhuizen who is working on a flying machine with Buelthoff in Tuebingen But the scientists are aware of the difficulties that an aircraft moving in three dimensions represents The task is not exactly trivial The solution is often a compromise and the attempts thus far have simply been not good enough Nieuwenhuizen said And that is why the Max Planck Institute would prefer not to make any compromises at all The EU supported MyCopter project is not an airplane but rather a gyrocopter which is a kind of helicopter Since it takes off and lands vertically it does not need a large landing strip but it can t be driven like a car A number of rotors ensure a stable flying attitude It is basically a manned drone that can be flown from door to door And like self piloted cars an on board computer is supposed to take over the job of flying We are hoping that automated driving also helps aviation Nieuwenhuizen said The concepts are opening up new transportation and business models As with car sharing the next customer could put in a request for the small aircraft after the flight this could greatly reduce mini aircrafts parking problems But another obstacle remains compatibility with the environment The former rally world champion Ari Vatanen who was for many years a mem ber of the European Parliament s transportation commission regularly raised eyebrows with his assertion that a helicopter is the most environmentally friendly means of transportation But if you don t want to simultaneously fight air and rolling re sistance and deal with the earth s gravity instead you have to expend more energy Some scientists warn that a helicopter s consumption of resources would be significantly higher than that of road vehicles On the other hand the light aircraft com munity in the US calculates that all the small flying machines would consume substantially less energy than traffic jams in metropolitan areas every day It is not an easy calculation If a flying car can in fact fly to its destination in a direct line while a traditional car may have to circumvent a body of water it could be more economical But if the airborne vehicle had to follow a predetermined air corridor for safety reasons like a car on a freeway the calculation takes a different turn Electric flight If Nieuwenhuizen has his way the powertrains of the multi functional flying machines would run on electricity The cyber neticist is certain that if you fly with gasoline we can forget it Electric powertrains also offer the advantage of easy con nection to the flying machine s controls and safety systems But this would require a significantly lighter battery technol ogy with greater energy density and once again this is still a long way off So are cars with nuclear powertrains Henry Ford even embraced the idea of atomic vehicles from time to time A mini reactor as an energy source behind the seats was supposed to solve all the difficulties with energy Whatever the powertrain flying cars have at least been part of daily life at the movies when Luke Skywalker launched his glider on Tatooine or when Bruce Willis transported his customers in a flying taxi through all three dimensions in The Fifth Element Anyone surfing the websites of suppliers of flying cars sees plenty of traffic an indication of the large number of customers and in terested parties The aviation pioneers mostly say it will only take a few million dollars or euros to bring the machines to pro duction readiness In 1903 even before the first motorized flight by the Wright brothers Romanian engineer Traian Vuia patented his dream of a car that could rise into the air on demand something that is still science fiction today But who knows people were say ing the same thing about a moon landing People had dreamt about traveling to our nearest neighbor in space for millennia but the American Neil Armstrong actually became the man in the moon in 1969 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT in Boston developed the computer for the Apollo 8 land ing vehicle The same legendary research institute is now be hind the Terrafugia project By Markus Stier Fliegende Autos Essay 63 02 2015 2 4 5 3 1 Das amerikanische Projekt Terrafugia TF X ist ein Senkrechtstarter mit schwenkbaren Propellern aber bisher reine Zukunftsmusik Geschätzte Entwicklungszeit acht bis zwölf Jahre 2 Der Terrafugia Transition braucht eine Startbahn von 518 Metern schafft laut Hersteller 160 km h und hat eine Reichweite von 660 Kilometern 3 Als Flugzeug hat der Transition eine Spannweite von acht Metern Im Fahrbetrieb werden die Flügel eingeklappt Das Gefährt ist dann noch 2 3 Meter breit 4 Das europäische Projekt MyCopter ist ein Gyrocopter mit mehreren Rotoren Er ist als reines Fluggerät konzipiert das keine Start und Landebahn benötigt 5 Das Cockpit des MyCopter sieht nicht viel anders aus als das eines Autos Er soll auch von Fluglaien möglichst einfach zu bedienen sein Fliegende Autos Essay 63 02 2015 2 4 5 3 1 Das amerikanische Projekt Terrafugia TF X ist ein Senkrechtstarter mit schwenkbaren Propellern aber bisher reine Zukunftsmusik Geschätzte Entwicklungszeit acht bis zwölf Jahre 2 Der Terrafugia Transition braucht eine Startbahn von 518 Metern schafft laut Hersteller 160 km h und hat eine Reichweite von 660 Kilometern 3 Als Flugzeug hat der Transition eine Spannweite von acht Metern Im Fahrbetrieb werden die Flügel eingeklappt Das Gefährt ist dann noch 2 3 Meter breit 4 Das europäische Projekt MyCopter ist ein Gyrocopter mit mehreren Rotoren Er ist als reines Fluggerät konzipiert das keine Start und Landebahn benötigt 5 Das Cockpit des MyCopter sieht nicht viel anders aus als das eines Autos Er soll auch von Fluglaien möglichst einfach zu bedienen sein The MyCopter s cockpit doesn t look much different from the inside of a car It is designed to be easily operated Ill us tr at io n M yC op te r

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