I do agree that trains and then streetcars created suburban corridors, but suburbia as we know it today became possible with highways and mainstream car adoption post WW2, at least in the US.
Ultimately the early generations of flying cars are not capable enough to replace all car use. The Tesla Roadster or even the Nissan Leaf did not replace a first or second car but was an additional vehicle for most buyers.
Yeah it's a strange term because it probably originated relative to fixed wing planes. Ie a VTOL plane. But now multicopters are the predominant species so VTOL can sound redundant to most drone builders today.
Aesthetics follows function in this case. And agreed VTOL is not beneficial at hobbyist scale for most because of the ease and short distances required to hand/runway launch and land an RC plane
Great question, but spinning lifting motors in cruise draws more power than it's worth for efficiency.
There's ways to use differential thrust for multiple cruise motors to roll if not positioned at spanwise Cg (e.g. wing mounted like in a commercial jet), but again, usually not efficient. Servos are a small mass fraction relative to other components.
I actually managed to batch print the wing sections which you can see in the video in the rebuild chapter. That works really well for wing sections because each takes up a minimal bed area
A1, 256 x 256 mm lets me print these wings in four sections (including a double walled thin section for the boom mounts). With a high AR glider you'd probably need a few more. Carbon fiber spars + CA glue will do the trick for attaching them
Yes and there is foaming ASA as well which is almost as light as foaming PLA. But I can't print ASA well on my A1 and the weight penalty was still enough that I didn't try, given the mission profile of flight time.
This actually has decent flight time! Could probably push close to 3 hours if using higher energy density (and cost) battery cells like the silicon anode ones I used.
I used single wall foaming PLA which has filament density of ~0.45 g/cm3 at 250 degree nozzle temp, about 64% lower than normal PLA. But it is even worse for impact resistance than normal PLA. Weight was the primary driver for this plane
Yes it really depends on the transmitter protocol. I was using SBUS, simple, cheap, familiar from my previous project. But limited to < 1 mile or so I believe, but ELRS and other protocols allow tens of miles or more.
Ultimately the early generations of flying cars are not capable enough to replace all car use. The Tesla Roadster or even the Nissan Leaf did not replace a first or second car but was an additional vehicle for most buyers.