CHAPTER 17 - The Apocalypse or Worldwide Vacation?

Why were the people gone?  Surely not for no reason.  People don’t abandon a perfectly good city for no reason.  Well sure, maybe the city wasn’t perfectlygood.  The height of the buildings compared to the width of the streets suggested traffic was a nightmare—unless there were flying cars.

And there were not!!

ROADABLE AIRCRAFT!

The idea of a flying vehicle dates back to mythology (including Icarus who even has car in his name) and literature in tales of heroes and heroines soaring through the sky in chariots and on carpets.  Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for the “Aerial Screw” in the 15th century.  In the 19th century Jules Verne and H.G. Wells described vehicles capable of travel on land, under water, and through the air.

Lighter-than-air balloons and airships suggested real-life possibilities.  William Samuel Henson and John Stringfellow patented the first flying concept carriage, the Ariel, in 1843. In the late 1800s inventors filed patents for flying machines.  Admittedly these designs looked much better on paper.

In 1926 Glenn Curtiss introduced the Curtiss Autoplane, though it never achieved sustained flight.  In 1937 Waldo Waterman’s Arrowbile, a car with removable wings, became the first flying car in history.  ("It could fly at 180km / h and in car mode, it reaches 96km / h."  But these speeds are all listed in kilometers so they don’t count.)

In the 2000s we have seen the development of the Terrafugia Transition, the AeroMobil, the PAL-V Liberty, the Klein Vision’s Aircar, and the Alef Aeronautics’ flying automobile.

The challenges of roadable aircraft are enormous!  Safety, reliability, infrastructure, energy efficiency, traffic management, collision avoidance, pilot/driver training, and cost.  People have enough trouble driving a stick.  Why, the only way these flying vehicles could operate safely would be if artificial intelligence reduced human error and assisted in maintenance, route planning, traffic management. . .

This is how the robots take over!  First they’re piloting your overly complex car/planes, next they’re doing your taxes, and eventually they’re taking over the world.  Do not be deceived by their deceptive benevolence!  They WANT you to install their intelligence in the flying car of tomorrow!  They WANT you to let them take charge of your wedding planning!  When they finally do conquer the world, don’t come whining to us about how they did it, we tried to warn yoo th2t th@i % 7£€111000101100001—