Will New Hampshire become the Mecca for flying cars?
No, it wonât nor will any other area. Cars make lousy airplanes and airplanes make lousy cars. Combine the 2 and they will do nothing well.
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I agree. Years ago, I worked at a private airport (Piper dealer) and took flying lessons as a perk. I had 20+ hours of solo time and cross-country solo time in a PA-28-140 when I stopped and went on to bigger and better things.
I canât picture a bunch of week-end warriors bombing around in cars, let alone flying cars.
These vehicles would be strictly hobby items.
Weather is such a big factor in aviation (and a factor in many accidents) compared with driving cars that people could not rely on them for transportation as they do automobiles. Add to that, people texting while flying and flying with dogs in their laps.
We had a saying at the airport, concerning private pilots, general aviation, and aircraft, and weather. If you have time to spare, go by air! Delays are frequent and inconvenient.
When people donât face this reality then accidents occur. Think: Lebron James (is that his name and how you spell it? I donât watch sports.).
There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots!
CSA
No, think Kobe Bryant. LeBron is still out there ballinâ in the NBA.
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Oops! Thatâs it. Good one. Thanks!
My apologies go out to anybody affiliated in any way with either of them. Did I mention I donât watch sports? I donât watch much of anything. I participate. I get bored easily. Sitting is the new smoking!
(However, last week, I did kayak past Paul Azingerâs home on Tampa Bay, sitting down, in a kayak!) 
CSA
And if you want really lousy transportation, combine them with an Amphibicar.
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A 3 time loser!
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At $350,000-$400,000 these would be still a toy for those who could afford it. About double what you could spend to buy a decent small plane, affording the maintenance is another thing. The rally/stunt driver Tanner Foust uses a Bonanza F33A as a commuter to certain airstrips where he either parks the plane and meets up with the VW Guys on the tarmac or rents a car from the FBO to get to his meetings.
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Sort of like a âdual sportâ motorcycle. Off road it feels like a street bike, on the highway, it feels like a dirt bike.
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Yeah that will be great when you have a malfunction and one of these comes plunging thru your roof !!!
I think thereâs no real market for âflying carsâ. What I worry about are âflying taxisâ, basically large drones thatâll carry someone from one place to another. Could be a HUGE noise problem.
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Flying cars, if they ever happen, will either require a pilotâs license and type rating like any other aircraft or theyâll be fully automated - essentially big drones with chairs - while in the air.
I suspect an electric multi-rotor might have some utility - for example, alleviating rush hour in metro areas - if fully automated and under centralized control. After all, if you suddenly have âlanesâ going up to 10,000 feet or so thatâs a lot more room to get vehicles through without ending up in traffic jams.
But itâs going to require even better autopilots than we have now, as well as a central traffic control system (also automated) to coordinate it all. And they wonât be flying cars so much as helicopters that can fold their rotor arms and ground-taxi.
Yeah, I agree with this, but I donât think itâll be a deterrent. Unless itâs an airport, no one seems to worry much about noise pollution. Iâve seen people lobby to shut down an airport when the dryer at the car wash next door makes far more noise all day long than the occasional Cessna taking off ever does. But no one ever worries about the car wash.
flying multirotors wonât use an airport, so what will people crusade against? 
I know of several of those guys mentioned in the article. Two are way out there. Their idea of Live-Free-Or-Die is âAllow me to do what I want, when I want and if someone diesâŠso what.â They have publicly stated that if you want to drive 100 miles an hour on public highways you should be allowed to. They want to abolish ALL traffic laws.
The biggest problem I have with this is WHERE they want to do this. Manchester Airport. Itâs the busiest airport in NH and is considered a Boston regional airport. I think Concord or even Portsmouth would be better suited. No where near the traffic (ground or air) as Manchester is.
Our company use to be right near the Worburn plant.
A scaled up four rotor drone similar to the ones in testing for package delivery might work, but youâd still have to be very well paid to buy or lease one. Then there is the problem of where to park on both ends. The time youâd save in the commute could be lost in flying from home to a remote air park and then drive to work from there. A friend used to work in Sunnyvale, CA. There was a runway right next to the buildings her company owned, and at least on guy owned a small plane that he used from commuting from the Central Valley to Sunnyvale. He had three neighbors that commuted with him. The had a junker they kept at the airport for the short drive to work. Thatâs a very unusual circumstance though.
Most people wouldnât have their own. Theyâd be air-taxis, so that would eliminate the purchase cost problem as well as parking spaces.
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I work with a couple guys who are pilots. They fly when then can on weekends. They do NOT own a plane. They rent by the hour.
That still doesnât eliminate the need to switch to ground transport at both ends of the commute. A neighborhood friend drives to the train station, takes the train to Union Station in DC, then takes to subway to his job in the federal district. Thatâs a very long commute, but at least he doesnât have to drive for most of it.
Another option is to own a plane with one or more others and share the cost. My wifeâs cousin did that until he could afford his own plane. Since heâs an airline pilot doing European runs, he can afford his hobby plane.
True, but theyâd land just outside of down town and then youâd take the subway/light rail/bus in. Or possibly the air taxi itself if it really is a âflying carâ and traffic isnât too heavy.
Or you can buy a plane for the price of a Honda Civic if youâre willing to get one that was built during the Truman administration.
Small planes wonât be landing at airports that I know of that have a rail system. Those are large airports and many small planes are not allowed to land there or itâs too cost prohibitive.
We arenât talking about fixed-wings here. Weâre talking about multirotor VTOL craft. Get the right infrastructure/regulatory framework in place and they can land in a parking lot.
If they take off (pun intended), I would imagine there would be dedicated parking lots with landing zones. You land (or more accurately, the âflying carâ lands itself) and then you drive away from the LZ, either to a parking place or off somewhere like a normal car. Itâd probably involve some sort of physical barrier with retractable doors/walls around the landing zone just to keep dopey pedestrians away from the rotors.
Itâd be complicated as heck to set up efficiently and safely, but it would also be run by computers end to end, so the safety margin should be well within acceptable limits, and you wouldnât have to set up a whole new human-staffed ATC system.
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