Flying Car: Difference between revisions
other reasons why a flying car is impractical
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[[File:flying car.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|"''Roads? Where we're going we don't need -- roads.''"
|'''Doc Brown'''
So your hero needs a [[Cool Car]]. But what do you do when missiles, [[Nitro Boost]] and [[James Bond|ejector seats]] don't suffice to show just how much of a [[Badass]] he is? Simple: make it a flying car.
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The lack of flying cars in [[Real Life]] is a [[I Want My Jetpack|common complaint]]. The fact that they would for all intents and purposes be personal aircraft, and require the same regulations and specialized skill as planes and helicopters is a big reason why we haven't seen any in our lifetimes. Several flying cars ''have been invented'' in [[Real Life]], but [[Awesome but Impractical|the concept has always ended up getting scrapped]] because said flying cars used up a ''lot'' of fuel... and had a penchant for crash-landing when they ran out. Most fictional cars [[Hand Wave]] this by saying something about an [[Anti Gravity]] element in place.
In addition, flying cars make a lot of noise. Living next to a crowded highway is already bad enough. Now imagine dealing with that noise ''everywhere'' you go. People already have trouble driving their car in two dimensions; introduce a third one and it's a recipe for disaster. A slight bump to the wings of a flying car is a ticket to the nearest car repair shop. We can't have flying cars zapping around everywhere the same way we only have cars driving on roads. If flying cars are unregulated, there's a high chance they'll crash into each other, so we have to dedicate airways to them the same way we do with planes — at this point, you're better off buying a regular car. Needless to say, flying cars are simply impractical. But the wonderful world of entertainment ''isn't'' real life, so creators can make whatever they want — so long it [[Rule of Cool|looks cool]].
[[Flying Bike]] is either a subtrope or a related trope, depending on how you view the relationship between cars and motorcycles in Real Life.
{{examples}}
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* Wallace's Air Car in ''[[Pokémon Special]]''. It can even be controlled remotely, a fact Ruby exploited twice during the final battles of the Ruby/Sapphire [[Story Arc]].
* There's lots of flying cars in ''[[Dragonball Z]]''.
* ''[[
* ''Bakusou Kyoudai Let's & Go!'' has Magnum mini 4WD series' "Magnum Tornado", the [[Nitro Boost]] making them able to fly and spin in the sky for a short time.
* ''[[Trinity Blood]]'' has an aerodynamics-challenged version.
== Comic Books ==
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* ''[[Chassis]]'' was a comic book series built around the sport of rocket car racing.
* The Whiz Wagon, used by Jimmy Olsen and the Newsboy Legion during Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" tenure at DC in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
== Fan Works ==
* The police car on Dandond in ''[[With Strings Attached]]''. George wants to take it home with him.
== Film ==
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* Howard Stark presented a prototype in ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger]]''. It was still a couple years from being ready.
* The students of ''[[Sky High]]'' go to school in a flying bus.
== Literature ==
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* The [[Insistent Terminology|volantors]] of Chasm City seen in [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''Revelation Space'' series. Their most explicit appearance is in the novella ''Diamond Dogs''.
* Lowly Worm from the [[Richard Scarry]] books apparantly drives an apple-shaped car that also serves as a helicopter since its "leaves" actually function as the helicopter's blades. Except how the heck is he able to drive it if he doesn't have any arms?
== Live-Action TV ==
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* The third Doctor in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' (while grounded on Earth by the Time Lords) briefly used a futuristic flying car dubbed by fans as "The Whomobile".
** More recently, the new series has "New Earth", which features flying cars. In its second appearance, the cars have the worst traffic jam in the history of the universe in "Gridlock".
== Music ==
* In [[Jaga Jazzist]]'s [[Animated Music Video]] for "Animal Chin", the band travels in two ordinary-looking cars, which bounce wildly on the ground before inexplicably taking to the skies.
== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'': In one Sunday comic, Calvin daydreams that his parents let him drive the family car. He then makes the car fly simply by driving so fast that the speedometer breaks.
== Tabletop Games ==
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* ''[[Teenagers From Outer Space]]'' has spacesters: look like a car, move like a flying saucer. No teenager can afford to buy one—but a clever human/alien pair can ''build'' one by, yes, cannibalizing parts from a car and a flying saucer.
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' has "skimmers" - not quite free-flying antigrav vehicles. In the Imperium they are expensive and rarely seen outside Mechanicus and the elites of Hive Worlds. Armored ones are used as light attack craft. They are more common among the Tau and Eldar (Craftworld and Dark, anyway).
== Video Games ==
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* Common in ''[[Mass Effect]]'', due to the ubiquity of Element Zero-based technology. In the "Lair of the Shadow Broker" DLC for ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', you even get to pilot one in a scene reminiscent of ''[[Attack of the Clones]]''.
* ''[[Space Taxi]]''.
* ''[[Professor Layton and the Unwound Future]]'' features the Laytonmobile, a decidedly dated car...which, thanks to Don Paolo, can sprout wings and an airscrew and transform into a fully functional aeroplane.
{{quote|'''Luke''': "Professor, where did you learn to fly a plane?"
'''Layton''': "Plane? This is an automobile." }}
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* Hover cars seem to the norm in [[Future Cop LAPD]], even if they still use roads.
* The ''[[Rogue Squadron]]'' games have a cheat-only flying Buick Electra convertible as an [[Easter Egg]].
== Web Original ==
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* ''[[Fenspace]]'' has flying cars that are spaceworthy. They still need fuel, though they don't seem to need oxidizers for the fuel.
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' has [[Artificial Gravity]] developed to the point that flying cars are common (and flight ''belts'', but those are less common). Of course, those are powered by annihilation plants (which is a ball of superstrong alloy loaded with neutronium and antimatter, that is distressingly close to armor piercing low-yield nuclear shell) and some of the implications are that on anything that easily counts as a shuttle "manual operation under influence" is commonly a capital offence - of course, it requires tampering with the hardware to remove overrides, and customer vehicles may not even ''have'' manual controls to begin with - [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2014-09-30 their autopilots are pretty good at avoiding damage].
== Western Animation ==
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* Tracks' alternate mode in ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' was a Corvette Stingray with pop-out wings
** In ''[[Transformers Cybertron]]'', Optimus' vehicle mode has a flight configuration. The side panels swing out and then rotate down to become large wings, and the ladder/cannon on either one swings around so that it still faces forward. His vehicle mode? A fire truck. That's right, he turns into a ''[[Crazy Awesome|flying fire truck]]''.
* Bob's car in ''[[
* Due to being tricked out by her twin super genius brothers, [[Kim Possible]]'s car has this capability.
* Goldie of ''[[Goldie Gold and Action Jack]]'' has a flying limo.
== Real Life ==
* As pointed out at the top of the page, flying cars ''have'' been invented in [[Real Life]]. The idea has just never managed to get off the ground [pun intended] because the flying cars used up ''way'' too much fuel while airborne. Also, they had a nasty tendency to crash when they ran out (which happened ''much'' more quickly than one might think.) Add expense, complexity of operation, and the relative practicality of an automobile as transportation... and you see the problem.
** The critical problem with 'flying cars' is that they are ''aircraft''. As such you can't fly one without a pilot's license, and air traffic control would go insane trying to sort out millions of aircraft flying around each other in a small area. Most existing 'flying cars' are better described as roadable aircraft. Most small airfields are in rural areas, so you have the minor problem of arriving at an airfield and having no transport to the nearest town, except for a taxi or folding bicycle. The idea is that you could detach the wings and propeller, then drive the remaining vehicle by road into town. They are not really designed as a replacement for your normal car.
*** Not to mention that traffic collisions are bad enough with how cars are now. Imagine how much worse they'd get if you factored in the fact that the car's going to be falling from
* ''[[Top Gear]]''{{'}}s James May made a [https://web.archive.org/web/20110826092709/http://www.open2.net/jamesmay/come_fly_with_me.html documentary on the subject], concluding that despite the safety concerns the main problem with flying cars would be the paperwork.
* [[Vaporware]] example: the [http://www.moller.com/ Moller Skycar].
** The Moller website does have some lovely quotes, though:
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** Of course making it fly safely is only the first step, you then have to get FAA approval and find backing. the [[wikipedia:Taylor Aerocar|Taylor Aerocar]] managed the second step, but not quite the third.
* The closest Real Life equivalent to the flying car of science fiction is the helicopter. Unfortunately, they're expensive, hard to fly, and make much more noise than you would want to live next to, which is why the average person doesn't own one.
** The good news is that we now have computers that can make helicopters significantly easier to fly. Of course that doesn't help the noise, and actually makes them
** Actually, if one doesn't mind a little less fuel efficiency there's always tip-jet powered helicopters, whose rotor blades are not powered by a central shaft, but instead a jet at the tips. The Nazis tried it using ramjets at the end, but it's less complicated and safer to use compressed air pumped through the rotor assembly by a compressor inside the body. Not only is this system quieter, but the lack of a torqued shaft removes the need for a tail rotor and dramatically decreases the slow response time of control inputs, making it much easier to fly than traditional helicopters.
** Small airplanes, such as those made by Cessna, are also pretty close to the science fiction conception of flying <s>airplanes</s> cars in everything but ease of control and appearance. Also, they are very expensive.
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** This highlights an interesting, if subtle, distinction between "flying cars" and "road-able aircraft", which is a term you'll often read if studying this topic. The Terrafugia "''Transition''" is an ''airplane'' that happens to have compact, folding wings and the ability to drive on regular roads. You still need to take off and land at an airport, and fly the vehicle like any small plane—but you can ''drive it home'' from the airstrip after you land, too, as if it were a car. (You can also drive ''instead'' of flying if weather conditions are bad). Not quite as glamorous as a full flying car might be -- [[Boring but Practical|but in the end, far more practical.]]
* While other flying car designs are more like "airplanes you can drive on the road", [https://web.archive.org/web/20131107024540/http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=635469588001 this I-TEC design] is more like "a car that can also fly". It only gets 40 MPH in the air, but it's pretty speedy on the road (see around 2:50 in the video), and the company seems to have serious plans for what they want to do with it.
* The [[wikipedia:Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar|Avrocar]]. It never really took off, figuratively or literally.
* Volkswagen's China branch appears to have come up with [http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/05/09/volkswagen_s_people_s_car_project_creates_hover_vehicle_concept_video_.html a floating car]. This particular concept car relies on magnetic levitation instead of conventional engines, meaning it'll require a lot of specialized infrastructure to be drivable.
* Hovecrafts, technically. Well, they don't actually touch the ground when in motion. It happens that their flight ceiling is about an inch.
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