The Iron Yuppie

Amazon.com: Books: Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel via TMQ

I've thought that flying cars would be upon us any number of times. And certainly now that we're in the 21st century, you'd think we'd be flying everywhere! However, due to any number of problems (mostly engineering I would imagine), we have yet to walk out our door, get in our car and fly to work. However, this is an interesting book on the subject that posits that by 2010, we'll have door to door aircraft flown by professionals.

Two quick comments on this. One, why are big things always predicted to happen in years ending in zero? This is usually the first indication that a prediction is, as we like to say in the scientific realms, pulled out of one’s ass. If 2009 rolled around and the necessary developments had been made, do we really think they would not launch? Are the necessary improvements really five years and one month away? I’d be much more comfortable making a prediction on how long it would take manufacturing to ramp up, even if it meant that the prediction was going to happen in 2011 rather than the nice big round number.

Two, people need to understand how fundamentally personal flying cars will change security as we know it. Today, prisons, nuclear reactors, military bases, etc all have large open areas surrounded by miles of razor wire and fences. Which is fine, as long as you do not have a way to (fairly cheaply) get about 15 feet up in the air. Once you can fly in and fly out, what is to prevent some crazy person from staging a mass prison break? Or flying into a military base? Are these facilities going to be manned with aa guns or surface to air missiles? Suffice it to say, if you add the third dimension to things you need to care about in regards to security, the problems you now have to worry about grow exponentially.