Where are all the flying cars?
I grew up thinking that George Jetson's future was right around the corner. Surely the screens and cellphones are here. We've got the robot maid now, and the moving floors, video newspapers, video phone calls. Oops, the wife is still a housewife, though. But possibly most disappointing of all, the flying cars just aren't here!
But what if the flying cars ARE here and I just didn't recognize them? What if they're only the domain of the incredibly rich? Because today I realized that people are using helicopters for commuting. I've seen a few people use helicopters for transportation, but on such limited scale that I hadn't really considered it their "flying car". The King of Jordan used helicopters to fly to his graduation a few years ago, for example. And there's someone on Peaks Island who gets there by helicopter, but they're in the business of flying so it doesn't seem that strange. Other than that, I just see helicopters for emergencies and occasionally for work (electrical linemen, police on a manhunt.)
Several years ago I did WFR training that was designed primarily to help us to know when a situation was serious enough to warrant calling for a helicopter medical evacuation. It was impressed on me that this was a very serious thing to request, as helicopter pilots routinely died. People in the room with me had just lost several friends from a helicopter crew. It was not something to take lightly. Years later, my son actually DID need a helicopter medi-evac, and the cost was over $60,000.
Today when I hear a helicopter I usually say a prayer. Once in a while I'll burst into tears, because the emotions surrounding my son's broken spine are tied up with the sound of a med-evac in my head now. (I have a blog entry about this somewhere, I think.) But more and more, the helicopter isn't going to be an ambulance. It's going to be a rich person getting to his country home.
So, there. I figured out where the flying cars are. They're the domain of the very rich.
But what if the flying cars ARE here and I just didn't recognize them? What if they're only the domain of the incredibly rich? Because today I realized that people are using helicopters for commuting. I've seen a few people use helicopters for transportation, but on such limited scale that I hadn't really considered it their "flying car". The King of Jordan used helicopters to fly to his graduation a few years ago, for example. And there's someone on Peaks Island who gets there by helicopter, but they're in the business of flying so it doesn't seem that strange. Other than that, I just see helicopters for emergencies and occasionally for work (electrical linemen, police on a manhunt.)
Several years ago I did WFR training that was designed primarily to help us to know when a situation was serious enough to warrant calling for a helicopter medical evacuation. It was impressed on me that this was a very serious thing to request, as helicopter pilots routinely died. People in the room with me had just lost several friends from a helicopter crew. It was not something to take lightly. Years later, my son actually DID need a helicopter medi-evac, and the cost was over $60,000.
Today when I hear a helicopter I usually say a prayer. Once in a while I'll burst into tears, because the emotions surrounding my son's broken spine are tied up with the sound of a med-evac in my head now. (I have a blog entry about this somewhere, I think.) But more and more, the helicopter isn't going to be an ambulance. It's going to be a rich person getting to his country home.
So, there. I figured out where the flying cars are. They're the domain of the very rich.