Science How i belive a flying car could be built

[Urwumpe]

The telescoping wing will have even LESS stability.

Look at the structure inside a normal wing. And then imagine how you can make this telescoping. For having the same stability, you would need to use MUCH more mass.

I recommend you to build a prototype out of paper and cardboard. Most problems of lightweight composite structure are actually pretty good approximated by cardboard prototypes.

 

[T.Neo]

although none will admit it, for large corporations it's pretty much the same

Yeah, but the difference is, when you lose lives, you lose money anyway. First there is the fact that people will want compensation, and also the fact that people will stop buying/using your product.

if a glitch aboard a car happens (and it will, Murphy never fails) one of the other three redundant processors will identify the fault and reboot the offending module

Right, three computers. That might work for a fighter jet or a space shuttle, but this is intended to be a far cheaper and far simpler vehicle...

I recommend you to build a prototype out of paper and cardboard. Most problems of lightweight composite structure are actually pretty good approximated by cardboard prototypes.

Actually many mechanical components can be simulated to an extent with a cardboard model- it gives a good feeling of the physicality of the situation.

 

[Urwumpe]

Three computers mean only one of them can fail and the system can identify it. If you have two left, and one of them starts to behave erratically (not just shutdown in a clean safe way, but go wild), it is impossible to say which computer is wrong.

Four computers can have just two computers failing. If both other computers would fail in the same way, you would even have a dilemma already.

 

[Moach]

Right, three computers. That might work for a fighter jet or a space shuttle, but this is intended to be a far cheaper and far simpler vehicle...

how are computers the expensive part? my cellphone has more computing power than the space shuttle had... there are pocket calculators ou there with hundreds of times the power of the Apollo guidance computer....

those things are getting cheaper by the dozen... that's why pretty much everything you can buy nowadays has some microcontroller or even a simple processor stuffed in it, even where it's questionably needed, like refrigerators... :lol:

in a vehicle such as this, having even a hexa-redundant setup would be pretty viable, given the cost of well, everything else :hmm:

Actually many mechanical components can be simulated to an extent with a cardboard model- it gives a good feeling of the physicality of the situation.

good thinking - i'll see if i can spare some of the cardboard boxes when i'm done moving all my junk to my new apartment.... (i'll post pics once it's inhabitable) :thumbup:

i was trying to model it in 3dsmax, but i've grown accustomed to the controls and UI scheme i have set on my home rig... using a "raw" install here at work feels incredibly cumbersome now
gotta get those UI files and bring them here, i guess...

 

[T.Neo]

Your life doesn't rely on a cellphone (at least, not usually and not in a similar manner to the flight computer of an aircraft).

I don't know the capabilities of 3DSmax, but a proper CAD program would probably be superior for mechanics work. A model in 3DSmax could give a rough idea though.

 

[Urwumpe]

how are computers the expensive part? my cellphone has more computing power than the space shuttle had... there are pocket calculators ou there with hundreds of times the power of the Apollo guidance computer....

Wrong.

Your cell phone can maybe play ring tones much better than a Space shuttle AP-101S, or browse your nude photographs much faster than a AGC, but if you expect it to handle dozens of I/O channels in real time, execute procedures with microsecond precision, and work despite getting a epic shaking, it just won't cut it.

Avionics are not the same as consumer electronics, the demands are actually pretty diverging. A good avionics computer would be useless for consumer electronics. Even the radiation hardened 80386SX CPUs in the ISS, which are similar to the CPU people used around 1988, is not at all put inside a normal PC. The ESSMDMs are precision instruments for handling input and output operations. Even with a weaker CPU, they still do such tasks way faster and better than how a modern PC would do them. And that even without cosmic radiation flipping memory bits.

(For example, try to execute a program every 80 milliseconds, with only 10 microseconds tolerance - your PC can only do this task with many seconds tolerance)

 

[RisingFury]

how are computers the expensive part? my cellphone has more computing power than the space shuttle had... there are pocket calculators ou there with hundreds of times the power of the Apollo guidance computer....

A custom built computer is usually pretty expensive, at least compared to industry standards. Then you have to take into account that the hardware isn't the most expensive bit. It's the software. If you want a buttload of autopilots and control units and whatnot, then it's gonna cost ya...

 

[Moach]

luckily for us, there's no cosmic radiation frying anything here... that's one of the advantages of atmospheric flight


now, i did not mean that my flying car would be guided by a conventional desktop computer - although that is conceivable with some proper interfacing hardware - it's probably not the most adequate thing to use... too much of it would be wasted, there's no need for text processing habilities to be built in to a flight controller

i've read that the Apollo computer was way ahead of it's day - but it was only that good because it was built with that one specific task in mind

i'd theorize the FBW core could be set up on something like a FPGA hardware...

specialized controllers are tons faster than generic processors....

still, the pilot-interface shell would be more akin to a conventional PC... even featuring a GPU for rendering a 3d situational display and with full sound support for radio and warnings



it's not a run-of-the-mill home PC - but shouldn't be something to worry about when it comes to the final cost of the vehicle... plus, it's not like there's much choice, anyways - without flight computers, this whole thing is a bust

so we can chalk up multi-redundant computers on the "essentials" list - right along with the engines and rotors :lol:

seat-heaters and mp3 players are sold separately :thumbup:

 

[Hielor]

luckily for us, there's no cosmic radiation frying anything here... that's one of the advantages of atmospheric flight


now, i did not mean that my flying car would be guided by a conventional desktop computer - although that is conceivable with some proper interfacing hardware - it's probably not the most adequate thing to use... too much of it would be wasted, there's no need for text processing habilities to be built in to a flight controller

i've read that the Apollo computer was way ahead of it's day - but it was only that good because it was built with that one specific task in mind

i'd theorize the FBW core could be set up on something like a FPGA hardware...

specialized controllers are tons faster than generic processors....

still, the pilot-interface shell would be more akin to a conventional PC... even featuring a GPU for rendering a 3d situational display and with full sound support for radio and warnings



it's not a run-of-the-mill home PC - but shouldn't be something to worry about when it comes to the final cost of the vehicle... plus, it's not like there's much choice, anyways - without flight computers, this whole thing is a bust

so we can chalk up multi-redundant computers on the "essentials" list - right along with the engines and rotors :lol:

Uh, you've got this very, very backwards.

Specialized computers for flight purposes, especially autopilots, are significantly more expensive than a comparably-powered desktop computer. They have to meet strict FAA requirements and go through a boatload of testing (thus, expense) before they can be used in a certificated aircraft.

Having things be mass-produced may reduce the price somewhat, but it won't happen automatically.

 

[Moach]

A custom built computer is usually pretty expensive, at least compared to industry standards. Then you have to take into account that the hardware isn't the most expensive bit. It's the software. If you want a buttload of autopilots and control units and whatnot, then it's gonna cost ya...

software is expensive, indeed - but it's not a per-unit overhead... you can program once and deploy twice, releasing "updates" when necessary...

if we needed to manually program each unit, then it'd be almost not worth it :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

software is expensive, indeed - but it's not a per-unit overhead... you can program once and deploy twice, releasing "updates" when necessary...

You have no clue about real-world software development, do you? Program once and deploy twice is something that only happens in the fairy world. In reality, you program once, deploy and then program much more. Either because you delivered bad work that needs fixing, or you delivered good work that is rewarded with more work.

Also, I doubt the Argon-16 is cheap despite being a mass-produced, throw-away flight computer, that is flying around since the early 1970s.

http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/argon16.htm

Also an average of 10,000 hours between two failures is a value that many web servers can only dream of.
(Thats one failure every 416 days, in reality the computers operate without failures since their first flight.)

 

[Moach]

Uh, you've got this very, very backwards.

Specialized computers for flight purposes, especially autopilots, are significantly more expensive than a comparably-powered desktop computer. They have to meet strict FAA requirements and go through a boatload of testing (thus, expense) before they can be used in a certificated aircraft.

Having things be mass-produced may reduce the price somewhat, but it won't happen automatically.

i am well aware this is not a lightweight investment.... like all major projects - it takes quite a toll before it's profitable


but still - mass production is a key factor to the "flying car" concept - so as long as production reaches a solid rate, having one or six computers aboard does not impact the final price that badly - even if at first they are VERY expensive to develop....

my point was, the UNIT cost of a flying car in the end, should not suffer too much from redundant computers and sensors... those would be manufactured at optimal amounts after all ends are tied and cleaned...

project cost and unit cost are completely separated matters, didn't they burn like millions to develop the Mach-3 razor, which costs like 20 bucks a pop? :lol:

it even makes sense to spend more to develop something that ends up cheaper for whoever's buying, if that means selling more of it :thumbup: - doesn't require business school to realize that (although some that do attend it, seem to be surprisingly unaware of such things)


now, back to topic...

---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:23 PM ----------

You have no clue about real-world software development, do you? Program once and deploy twice is something that only happens in the fairy world. In reality, you program once, deploy and then program much more. Either because you delivered bad work that needs fixing, or you delivered good work that is rewarded with more work. (...)

as a matter of fact i AM a programmer for a living - i wouldn't be very good at it if i had "no clue", would i? - and indeed, every time you think you've "finished" something - in comes an infinity of bugs to address, or if all goes well - ppl will want a 2.0 version

but if i had to program my games all over again for every kid that plays it, i'd have a long white beard reaching my feet by now :facepalm:

which is exactly my point - which seems so difficult to get accross - when things are mass-produced/copyed, even expensive developments can become cheap products

not that a flying car would ever really be "cheap"... it would be "accessible" - which means it appeals to more of general public (unlike regular aircraft) - a non-flying car will always be less costly than a flying one

 

[Urwumpe]

but if i had to program my games all over again for every kid that plays it, i'd have a long white beard reaching my feet by now :facepalm:

Which games are you responsible for? Duke Nukem Forever? :tiphat:

 

[Moach]

Which games are you responsible for? Duke Nukem Forever? :tiphat:

thank almighty that's not the case :lol:

but i still have my hands quite ful with bugs of all sizes right now... from typo's to major server meltdowns - you name it :thumbup:

 

[Urwumpe]

thank almighty that's not the case :lol:

but i still have my hands quite ful with bugs of all sizes right now... from typo's to major server meltdowns - you name it :thumbup:

You see, things don't get just done, they develop a life of their own. Its actually the same with all human creations. May it be a game, a ship, a house or a flying car.

 

[Moach]

You see, things don't get just done, they develop a life of their own. Its actually the same with all human creations. May it be a game, a ship, a house or a flying car.

wouldn't be any fun if it weren't so

 

[Urwumpe]

wouldn't be any fun if it weren't so

True - but that fun comes with a price:

You have only one way to do things, and that is the proper one.

 

[Moach]

i'd say you have only few ways to do things -RIGHT- in all others there are plenty of lessons to be learned, but very little success to be found :hmm:

but whatever the case: rocket! :rofl:

 

[Wishbone]

Getting back off-topic (and please mods move it to Random Comments if appropriate):

Urwumpe, how on Earth (or around the Moon) could astronauts view nude pictures on the AGC? It would take some very lively imagination to convert base-8 numbers into pictures.

 

[Urwumpe]

Urwumpe, how on Earth (or around the Moon) could astronauts view nude pictures on the AGC? It would take some very lively imagination to convert base-8 numbers into pictures.

You are far too young to know about this, but in the good old times, we had octal art. :lol: