Flying cars swoop to the rescue

　

  

Flying cars may be 25 years or more away

。Next generation small aircraft may look like this Farnborough F1 concept。

As motorways become more and more clogged up with traffic, a new generation of flying cars will be needed to ferry people along skyways.

That is the verdict of engineers from the US space agency and aeronautical firms, who envision future commuters travelling by "skycar".

These could look much like the concept skycar shown in the picture, designed by Boeing research and development.

However, such vehicles could be some 25 years from appearing on the market.

Efforts to build flying vehicles in the past have not been very successful.

Such vehicles would not only be expensive and require the skills of a trained pilot to fly, but there are significant engineering challenges involved in developing them.

"When you try to combine them you get the worst of both worlds: a very heavy, slow, expensive vehicle that's hard to use," said Mark Moore, head of the personal air vehicle (PAV) division of the vehicle systems program at Nasa's Langley Research Center in Hampton, US.

But Boeing is also considering how to police the airways - and prevent total pandemonium - if thousands of flying cars enter the skies.

"The neat, gee-whiz part is thinking about what would the vehicle itself look like," said Dick Paul, a vice president with Phantom Works, Boeing's research and development arm.

"But we're trying to think through all the ramifications of what would it take to deploy a fleet of these."

Past proposals to solve this problem have included artificial intelligence systems to prevent collisions between air traffic.

Nasa is working on flying vehicles with the initial goal of transforming small plane travel.

Small planes are generally costly, loud, require months of training and lots of money to operate, making flying to work impractical for most people.

But within five years, Nasa researchers hope to develop technology for a small plane that can fly out of regional airports, costs less than $100,000 (￡55,725), is as quiet as a motorcycle and as simple to operate as a car.

Although it would not have any road-driving capabilities, it would bring this form of travel within the grasp of a wider section of people. Technology would automate many of the pilot's functions.

This Small Aircraft Transportation System (Sats) would divert pressure away from the "hub-and-spoke" model of air travel.

Hub-and-spoke refers to the typically US model of passengers being processed through large "hub" airports and then on to secondary flights to "spoke" airports near their final destination. 
 

由于高速公路上的交通堵塞情况越来越严重，一种能够载人穿梭在“空中高速路”上的新一代“飞车”将成为需要。

这就是美国国家航空航天局和一些航空公司的工程师们的意见，他们预测未来人类将会乘坐“飞车”旅行。

这些车可能会和图片中见到的波音公司研发中心设计的概念飞车很相像。

然而，这样的交通工具可能需要25年左右的时间才能投放市场。

人类在过去制造飞车的努力一直都不是很成功。

这样的交通工具汽车耗资不菲，而且要求驾驶者具备像训练有素的飞行员一样的驾驶技巧；不仅如此，在研制过程中还面临工程学方面的严峻挑战。

马克·摩尔是美国国家航空航天局兰利研究中心（位于汉普顿）汽车系统项目组“个人空中交通工具（PAV）”小组的负责人，他说：“当你试图将各个方面组合起来时，得到的是一辆最糟糕的车：非常笨重，速度又慢，价格还高，总之驾驶起来很不方便。”

但波音公司同时也在考虑，在上千辆“飞车”进入空中的情况下如何对空中通道进行管理，防止交通陷入彻底的混乱。

波音公司研发部门“幻影工程队”的副总裁迪克·保罗说：“最关键和最精彩的是设计出这种交通工具本身，但是我们也在全力考虑当这样一支车队投入运行后可能出现的所有情况。”

关于如何解决这个问题，以往就有一些建议，包括使用人工智能系统来防止空中交通工具之间发生碰撞。

美国国家航空航天局正致力于飞行交通工具的开发，其初步目标是对小型飞机的旅行方式进行改革。

小型飞机通常都很昂贵，噪音也大，驾驶这种飞机还需要数月的训练和不少资金，这一切都使得“飞去上班”成为大多数人不切实际的幻想。

不过，美国国家航空航天局的研究人员希望在今后的五年内能够开发出一种技术，使小型飞机不受地区机场的限制，花费不到10万美元，而且噪音与汽车相当，操纵起来也和开汽车一样简单。

尽管这种交通工具将不具备在马路上行驶的功能，但它能使更多的人可以享受这种新的旅行方式。（这种新的）技术将使许多飞行员的操作步骤实现自动化。

这种“小型飞机运输系统（Sats）”将可以为中心辐射型（Hub-and-spoke）的空中旅行模式分担压力。

中心辐射（Hub-and-spoke）表示一种典型的美国空中客运模式：乘客在大型的中心机场（hub）之间被运送，然后再转机前往靠近目的地的支线机场。