Page 8 of 8 FirstFirst ... 678
Results 71 to 73 of 73

Thread: What really "killed" General Aviation

  1. #71

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Lockhart, Texas, United States
    Posts
    69
    The first thing that comes to my mind when aircraft are discussed as a replacement for ground based vehicles is that in a time when fuel costs are going up and people are starting to talk about peak oil changing to vehicles that increase fuel consumption by multiples isn't going to fly (pun intended).

    Some sort of a virtual reality makes more sense in many instances.

  2. #72

    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Posts
    282
    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Marsh View Post
    Some sort of a virtual reality makes more sense in many instances.
    I believe that's what people thought 10 years ago. We are now realizing that life is all about people and our relationships. On a timely note, CNBC had a show on tonight about online dating. Many believe that it is not working as originally planned, but more as a way to find "potentials" to actually go out on face-to-face dates at a later time. There are even apps to find potentials within a certain radius of where you are at the moment ... GPS at its best.

    I attended an AOPA Aviation Safety forum tonight. One of the first points the presenter said was that 70% of aviation accidents were/are pilot error (I would have guessed much higher). With that he then said that people think, "Airplanes are unsafe." As a corollary, he said that in respect to automobiles people say, "I wouldn't ride with that driver." (as opposed to saying "Cars are unsafe."). So my contention would be that the decline in GA (in addition to really ridiculous lawsuits) is the general public opinion of flying being unsafe and pilots have to be super-human to fly them.

    How many times have you heard people on commuters (turbofan airplanes up to 50 passengers or so) say, "Oh, I hate being on these little airplanes.", and then tell you a story about how they survived a flight in the worst turbulence known to man, and that the airplane was thrown all over the place.

    IMHO, I know airplanes are safe. We need to share that with our non-pilot friends (I fly a lot of adults after I fly Young Eagles). I have 25+ years of flight test experience, and have said on more than one occasion, "I won't fly with that pilot."

  3. #73
    steveinindy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Indiana
    Posts
    1,449
    Good "Segway", don't forget the two bicycle repair guys (Wilbur & Orville) in Dayton that are the real "authors" of this website! Without them we might not anything to discuss related to flying
    People act like they were the only ones doing the research. It was inevitable that someone would have figured it out. If Lillienthal had not broken his neck, I'm pretty sure he would have beaten the Wrights to powered flight.

    Hi Ron, my Verticraft is designed to go to the store or any other place that you would normally drive, just like the old Jetson cartoon show. As I said before the auto will eventually become obsolete the only question is when.
    It's a nice dream, but it's not practical and never will be.

    I mean, can you imagine what would happen with drunk drivers in this setting?


    Writing from an American perspective, we really don't have a lot of high density areas outside of a belt in the Northeast and again out West. We like urban sprawl! Los Angeles, for example, has gridlock issues not because of a lack of public transportation but because the population has spread out to keep density down.
    Even in the worst metro areas of the US, the average commute time is under an hour. It takes longer to get a pizza delivered here in Indy than it takes the average person to get to work in New York or LA.

    I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not going to spend half an hour preflighting an airplane so I can spend 10 minutes flying to the store, when I could just spend 10 minutes driving instead...
    ....for that reason and plenty of others (the increased traffic saturation, lowering of the bar to accommodate people who probably should not be behind the wheel of a car let alone something capable of powered flight and the inherent limitations of see and avoid). You want to talk about what "killed general aviation"? You're pretty much describing what will do it.

    Yes, the personal automobile will become less important, but it will be replaced by mass transit (trains, buses, those tubes you see on Futurama) not by VTOL personal flying vehicles. That's the problem with every single permutation of the "flying car": the technology isn't the problem. It's the lack of a problem for the solution to fit or rather, the problem not being amenable by application that particular technology. We go through spurts where the flying car folks come out of the woods like some zombie in a low-budget horror flick and furiously work for a few years and then reality sets back in with all the subtlety of the killing blast from that movie's hero's shotgun to the brainstem of the zombie.

    The problem that we face as a group and why we bemoan the "killing of general aviation" is that it never had a chance to be what a lot of us would dream it would be and a lot of us can't get over that. We're never going to have flying cars (unless someone figures out a way to do it completely autonomously with the occupants not doing anything but turning it on; I don't know about you, but that's not flying to me); small planes are never going to be a mainstream primary mode of transport (unless you live in Alaska). Maybe I'm just jaded or lacking the benefit of growing up with the 1950s version of Popular Science laying around....but I don't think my love for flying is diminished any by viewing it as either a hobby (for those who want to scoot around the countryside) or a way to save the headache of a 2 hour wait at an airport and a groping that normally one would have to go to a fetish club for or a long drive. Airplanes are tools. Use them effectively and they work wonderfully and make people happy. Try to use them in a way they are not suited and things can get ugly real fast. I liken it to the difference between trying to hammer a nail into the wall and then you try to use that hammer to beat a screw into the wall. It doesn't work and you're likely to break the screw or the wall in the process.

    Do you really think that cars will "go away" and the "obvious" replacement will be something that flys
    Joe, don't even bother asking that. To paraphrase Robert Heinlein, questioning the "obvious" nature of the impending replacement of the car with a true believer is a lot like trying to teach a pig to sing: it's a waste of time, doesn't accomplish anything and it tends to piss the pig off.

    Look at the bright side (if you can call it that), if by some fluke he's right, I'm going to have no shortage of work in my chosen field of crash survivability.

    The fact that I have to use that as the one 'positive' that is almost absolutely guaranteed to be produced by mass use of flying cars makes me feel like I am unclean.

    I can't believe I'm going to ask this, but do you have a website with artist renderings?
    How much you want to bet the cockpit skin is made out of a super-thin aluminum alloy sheet?

    he estimated world population growth will demand the elimination of the car to prevent global gridlock on the ground. I envision that the major cities will have landing areas on the perimeter to lead to mass transportation in the city with no cars allowed. The aircraft will use the FAA's NextGen system for guidance to the high density areas. The whole process will be a natural progression to the air as more people purchase the aircraft to replace their car just as people switched from the horse and carriage to the auto.


    Giorgio, is that you?


    Hi Joe, yes cars will eventually " go away " as the primary mode of transportation just as the horse and carriage did when Ford made them obsolete in 1914.



    Hi Ron, the optimum cruise altitude for longer distances is FL250. The optimum flight path would be an arc depending on the distance traveled.



    I will not have a website until I find out about DARPA funding.


    All detailed information will only be disclosed to potential investors until the prototype is under construction. Of course any detailed info about a potential military vehicle is confidential, that is why the discussion is in general terms. I appreciate all of the comments so that I can address them if they are valid.
    No, seriously.....back on your medication please.

    stupidity is a self correcting process


    Not really....stupid people breed like Kaiser turned out Liberty Ships.
    Last edited by steveinindy; 02-10-2012 at 05:52 AM.
    Unfortunately in science what you believe is irrelevant.

    "I'm an old-fashioned Southern Gentleman. Which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-***** when I want to be."- Robert A. Heinlein.



Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •