This is not a “flying car”

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Jul 162021

XPeng shares footage of its X2 electric flying car

A Chinese company has shown off their “flying car.” But it’s not a “flying car.” It’s a passenger-carrying VTOL (assuming it actually works), but it’s no more a “car” than a Huey is a Jeep or a Harrier is a sports car.

Words mean things.

The Unwanted Blog

Locked outta Twitter October 20, 2024
So I backed off blogging so much because yapping on Twitter was so much easier. But then…
Orion Battleship: found at last September 15, 2024
Rumored and discussed for years, in 1962 General Atomic reportedly built a “Corvette sized” display model of the 4,000 ton Orion spacecraft as a spacegoing battleship. This model was shown to President Kennedy, and the reported reaction was… not great. The model was described by a few who had seen it, but all evidence of […]
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Space Sustainment & Maneuver: Advancing Strategic Superiority in Orbital Operations August 28, 2024
The USSF wants to actually be able to do their job. Could we see the return of the heady days of the Star Wars program? Now that we have actual almost-affordable and mostly-reusable space launch, we just might. Get ready for the pages of Aviation Week to be filled with artists concepts of space based […]
Destruction of nuclear weapons with a neutrino beam August 27, 2024
A scientific paper published more than 20 years ago was recently rediscovered by the internet: Sugawara et al. 2003, “Destruction of Nuclear Bombs Using Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Beam” https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0305062 A lot of this goes over my little post-Covid head, but the summary seems to be that, theoretically, an advanced high energy collider, similar to but […]
Polaris Dawn August 26, 2024
A reminder that at o-dark thirty tomorrow morning, SpaceX will, hopefully, launch the first all-private manned orbital mission. It’ll be the highest humans have orbited Earth (discounting Apollo astronauts who broke Earth orbit to head to the Moon), and will include a spacewalk with new spacesuits. Currently scheduling 2:38 AM central time. https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=polarisdawn
1/18 scale Skybolt ALBM kit August 20, 2024
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Sunset August 13, 2024
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First Metal Minis July 19, 2024
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