they work quite well, but they aren't as good a car as a regular car and they aren't as good a plane as a dedicated plane. They are a compromise jack of both trades average at none.

And you cannot fly off yoru driveway and land at the work parking lot either. Like flying cars in the futuristic 50ies would show us.

So no, I don't think they are true, practical flying cars at all.

1MJ = 277watt = 0.277kw
10MJ = 2777 Watt = 2.77 kw
59MJ - 16343 watt = 16.343kw

Ballpark indeed
but the comment was the flywheels generated more energy then entire UK..
I'm sure the Flywheels do a lot of power, but then that's not part of the power production, that's the input.

I do wonder how they come up with 59 megajoules.. it sounds like alot "mega" so all journalists go "WOW"
But it's not, it's 60 kettles ish

Where does the number come from
is it something like
(all all the energy generated by the fusion) - (the flywheels) = 59 megajoules?

I cannot imagine that the 59 megajoules eqates to (all all the energy generated by the fusion).. that would be just ridicioulous. We'de be better off investing in flywheels to capture and store solar , wind and hydro power :D

Already can do that with existing flying cars.

Just takes equipment that comes with very high maintenance thresh hold.

IF I had the $$$ I could take off with this flying car from my driveway to go to the work parking lot.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nYjxz0ihV...00/photo3m.jpg

Admittedly there are more practical flying car's than a MI-24 for such a purpose, but in the realm of stupid money why not a MI-24...
The MI-24 flying car Seats six in reasonable comfort, although in standard configuration it has benches to cram in eight.

Heck, these days I'd bet it would fit _under_ your fingernail. MEMS stuff is amazing (when it's not vaporware - we've cried those tears at the DOE/NNSA).

And here's another example of how something we all play with and benefit from every day, our phone for example, benefits from "big wasteful gubm't spending". It's not just Tang, kids...

it's not a flying car, its not road legal.
won't fit under tunnels
or in parking lots
or your own garage
can't get them to drive go through even the most basic red light intersection even if you took the rotors off !
hell I doubt most people have a driveway big enough for it :D

Y'know...

I think you have a narrower definition of "car" in this context.

But why would my flying car need to go through a red light intersection if I can fly over it?
Why would my flying car need to go through a tunnel if I can fly over the obstacle?T
The whole point of a flying car is to avoid these problems of a surface car.

As for parking lots, well, you're in a country that perhaps doesn't "super size" their parking lots or you may not visit locations that are not naturally wooded and instead have clear space nearby.
Plenty of landing space for flying cars already exists, but some gov agencies tend to frown on their use instead only authorizing more limited landing space and time for flying cars.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6337931/Police-pilot-investigated-landing-helicopter-KFC-car-park-buy-chicken.html

https://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/2017-05-29-phahlane-backs-helicopter-happy-cop/

What we have isn't because of a lack of tech for flying cars, what we have is because we're very narrow in where we allow them to go.

well you might need to drive it as car in certain areas that aren't accessible to land with a plane.
or because weather is not good for flying and you still need to get somewhere.

That's the entire point of the car part of the flying car... that you can drive somewhere that can't be flown too

if anything , you seem to have a narrow view of the flying car bit, in a way that it's just a helicopter :D

Jeeesh Tervuren...looks like you'd always be gettin' your parking space!

Nice BBC piece

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Talked to gal working on this stuff. Apparently, making the fusion run is lesser of problems. What they have issues with is reactor vessel and tapping the heat.

The stuff you build the walls with is either too soft (graphite?) or hard hard enough (Tungsten?) but gets activated and nasty when bombarded by fast neutrons. And then there is an issue of sputtering/erosion and also fuel breeding.

All technical problems that should be solvable but it takes ages, and all of this is government run so it is not exactly agile process.

Not the quietest ride for a DD, but you could blast Ride of the Valkyries from external loud speakers to scare off the locals.

I toured a fusion lab in the 80s and even back then the joke the tour guide told was that if someone asked how long it was until fusion was feasible for energy production the answer would be "20 years". Only that this answer would always be 20 years. Next year, and the year after ...

And here we are - almost 40 years later. And while I am not a total subject matter expert, I have some background knowledge and I think the 20 year rule probably still stands.

The future is in nuclear fission. We really should focus on that.

G

Amen.

Mass-produced and robust designs using modern technology with hopefully a more well thought out licensing process - as opposed to the last few decades of "onesey-twosey" designs of high performance (and lower safety margin) systems that require as many regulators and lawyers to start up as they took engineers to design and build.

Much like the sign at a local bar, "Free Beer Tomorrow" It is always tomorrow, not today.

Speaking of fusion:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/latest-success-from-googles-ai-group-controlling-a-fusion-reactor/

The numbers in that article are all wrong, the article conflates eV and MeV in the values and errors.

Standard model is 80,357 MeV, or 80,357,000,000 electron volts
Old measurement was 80,370 +/- 19 MeV, which means it could include the theoretical value.
New measurement is 80,433 +/- 9.4 MeV

That means the error range is 80,424-80,442 MeV, and the (best scenario) error compared to the standard model is 0.08%

Still...even saying 80,433 +/- 9.4 MeV is saying that the error range is 0.01%. That is amazing in any field of extreme physics.

For reference, the mass of the Electron is about 0.5 MeV, the mass of the Proton is nearly 1000 MeV. So, these errors are like seeing the mass difference between isotopes of atoms
For more reference, the famous Higgs Particle is 125,350,000 MeV, 1500x heavier than the W boson

Here is the same story at BBC.com

What do you think?

Shock result in particle experiment could spark physics revolution