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artdigital • last Friday at 10:32 PM • 25 replies • view on HN

“Parlor trick” - it’s a flying car ffs. It’s an incredible engineering accomplishment, even if just for a few seconds


Replies

sertsa • last Friday at 10:59 PM

"Just a good ol' boys, Never meanin' no harm". Cars have been flying for a few seconds on a regular basis since the 70s.

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nixass • last Friday at 10:49 PM

It's barely a shell of a proper car, complete gimmick for "car people" who think car industry came to be with Tesla two decades ago

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boringg • yesterday at 2:38 AM

Right? People here cant enjoy the show. I don't see anyone else having soo much fun engineering a car. Too be on that team would be legit fun.

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lisper • last Friday at 11:20 PM

> It’s an incredible engineering accomplishment

Many of the best parlor tricks are.

swagasaurus-rex • last Friday at 10:37 PM

It’s falling with style

mirrir • yesterday at 12:42 AM

Its a hollow shell RC car with air canisters.

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AngryData • last Friday at 10:52 PM

If this is the metric of a flying car then we had working prototypes in the 60s.

joshchngs • last Friday at 11:15 PM

Any car can be made to fly if "just for a few seconds" is as stringent as your requirements get.

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BigCatStuff • yesterday at 12:25 AM

It is certainly an engineering accomplishment, but calling it a 'car' is a stretch. Do you believe that this vehicle has a 100kWh battery pack in it? When Tesla demonstrates this vehicle driving two hundred miles on city streets and recharging to repeat the test, I'll gladly change my mind.

Until then, this is simply a purpose built drone, powered by compressed air to perform specific tricks in order to grift and hype up interest in the company.

I can buy a drone from DJI that performs more impressive flying maneuvers than what Tesla showed.

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wookmaster • yesterday at 11:10 AM

Yeah just the same way the rides at amusement parks are that go faster and higher. The end result won't change anything for the rest of us. It's entertainment.

isthatafact • yesterday at 2:48 PM

It is a few notches beyond sitting in a wagon and emptying a fire extinguisher to go for a little ride, and about as practical, but I do not see what makes it some incredible feat of engineering.

throwawayffffas • yesterday at 8:21 AM

It's a car with rocket thrusters attached. Mythbusters did it 20 years ago.

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nashashmi • last Friday at 10:57 PM

> It’s an incredible engineering accomplishment

Yeah just like the Tesla screen in the car. Quite a problem since it lacks physical buttons.

amanaplanacanal • yesterday at 1:10 AM

I dunno. We have all kinds of flying machines. What exactly makes this a car? The shape?

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Forgeties79 • yesterday at 1:46 AM

That’s a very generous interpretation of “flying” tbh.

agoodusername63 • last Friday at 11:21 PM

my honda civic can fly too if I floor it on the hill nearby.

chabska • last Friday at 10:59 PM

Rockets have been around for a hundred years.

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throwaway27448 • yesterday at 2:20 PM

In what way is this an engineering achievement? Presumably two thousand years ago people understood that flight requires lift. It's not like anything novel is occurring here.

WesolyKubeczek • yesterday at 12:41 PM

Flying car… That was Aerocar back in what, 2011?

queenkjuul • last Friday at 11:03 PM

It's not a flying car in the way that anyone ever imagined growing up. When people think flying cars they think blade runner or fifth element. Not a car that can jump, interesting as a jumping car may be.

And frankly I'm not sure the engineering is all that impressive. I'm sure someone could've done similar a long time ago, there's just no point to it beyond, well, the parlor trick. Even millionaires have no use for a single seat, road-illegal vehicle with no storage that happens to be able to jump

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mschuster91 • yesterday at 9:34 AM

Basically, KITT from Knight Rider turned real.

SecretDreams • yesterday at 1:50 AM

I think I've seen some undergrad capstones also make flying cars that would never actually be produced or sold...

But they lacked a lot of the showmanship here.

You can basically engineer almost anything with enough money for a demo. It's a lot different to engineer something that'll actually get commercialized.

Sometimes I think this sub, being software heavy, downplays the achievements of their own field and overplays the achievements of other fields they lack experience in.

SonOfKyuss • yesterday at 1:39 AM

Very impressive. You might even call it Full Self Flying

LightBug1 • last Friday at 10:45 PM

It's a joke. A clever trick. To what end? ... absolute joke.

Do you know what gets me excited? Have you seen the new Porsche Mission S?

Form, function and beauty ...

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gf000 • yesterday at 8:25 AM

What's the accomplishment here? It's 50 years old tech.

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