Flying Cars and The Noise Pollution

Flying cars, things that was a sheer fruit of our imagination, are becoming a reality sooner than expected. This means, by 2029 we’ll already have seen the tangible signs of their inevitable presence. But still, they are likely to introduce a number of challenges to the existing, often outdated infrastructure as well, which is still one of the most significant hurdles of having new means of transportation regardless of the level of autonomy.

One of the most troubling issues faced by the manufacturers and regulators alike, will be the amount of noise that can be made by these vehicles in an urban setting. The amount of noise for a small delivering drone is significant, let alone a bigger scale of such a machine that carries humans. This problem is hardly addressed except by a couple of concepts: one by Uber which was featured in their promotional video, that is a designated helipad on top of a high-rise building; and the more private ownership PAL-V flying car for which solution is just driving the vehicle out of an urban setting before switching to the flying mode using its propellers, thereby reducing the noise pollution.

As the number of concepts being introduced increases, so does the maturity to pragmatically approach the whole design process; At the same time the regulatory bodies are posed with a multi-faceted set of problems to consider and noise is one of the biggest ones.