Does anyone really believe that this time, flying cars will become a reality? Way back in the 1940s and 1950s, there were similarly unrealistic (in my opinion) articles showing helicopters parked in driveways of homes, as if people would be flying to work or to the supermarket. I think that noise would not be the major obstacle here. It is more the idea of millions of people attempting to cope with a 3D traffic problem, in congested urban areas.

Not to mention, energy consumption.

Having been negative, let's see what might have changed that would make flying cars any more likely.

One change is that small flying cars might have become affordable lately. Okay, although cost was not the only obstacle.

What about autonomous cars? If flying cars can avoid dependency on the "skills" of the average driver, or even the average pilot (in such congested flying environments), there might be some hope. For the time being, autonomous cars, operating in 2D, appear to be beyond what many people think is possible, although I'm not among these skeptics. Any bets on the likelihood of autonomous flying cars, anytime soon?

Of course, flying cars could potentially be viewed as a very limited type of service, more like "air taxis" of today. Anything done in such small scale could be feasible and practical. But then, attempting to make such cars affordable for the average person seems almost pointless, as does their diminutive size and payload.

Thank you Sir for the answer. I believe it will start in the Middle East, yet not sure if allowed in Europe due to the social-ecological problems (if not economical).

Example:

http://www.thenational.ae/business/aviation/dubai-to-launch-driverless-flying-cars-by-this-summer

I like to drive. I don't like the idea of having a car drive me. I don't trust the technology. Any signal can be spoofed or hacked. However,  if it is better than the average driver then the roads safety and congestion will improve. I think the limitations for driver-less cars and their derivatives will come from ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS, more so than technical. For example, a car may be able to use a suit of sensors to avoid collisions with other vehicles and pedestrians. But, in a no-win situation (e.g. the car detects an elderly person crossing in front and then swerves to avoid them into a park full of children) the car cannot make ethical decisions the way a human would, which will result in criticism and hamper proliferation.

In complete agreement with Albert Manfredi.

Thank you Piotr Marek Smolnicki for the info. It is very interesting and will certainly pave the way (Dubai will lead the world in this new flying car avenues) for the rest of the world.

As far as the points raised by Alex Clay Cushley are concerned, I completely agree with them too. However, the most important aspect of a self driving smart car would be that it would take a decision that will almost always be the same irrelevant of the number of times the scenario is repeated with different pedestrians and/or different self driving cars. Hence the advantage here is symmetry and predictability based purely off the logic programmed into the system. And since the self driving car could be consistent with it's operations and decision making, theoretically, it'll always be inferred (if not concluded purely for ethical reasons) that the computerized car with the most logical algorithm will more likely almost always chose better than any average (random) human at it's place. It is also possible to improve the algorithm with each failure that occurs and hence possibly avoid similar incidents in the future - not so with humans, who'll always be a random variable.

@ Alex Clay Cushley : In fact the ethical dilemma you've given as an example will ALWAYS have a negative outcome whether it was a human or a machine making a decision. It'll always end up in legal battles and ABSOLUTELY NO ONE - man or machine - will be able to walk away from this scenario where everyone is unharmed.

Using such extreme scenarios to hamper the self driving car technology from real time testing and future realisation will only allow more people to die as they're still driving cars and dying / killing in most of the 90+% other road accidents that machines (that could be thoroughly designed-manufactured) can easily avoid and prevent.

To give more clarity on ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS, watch the movie SULLY (2016) - the real life story of how Captain Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III saved the lives of all 155 people aboard his aircraft by deciding to water land the US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River off Manhattan. It is a must that you watch all of it to understand that he's almost certainly the only human being in the world, who was a well qualified-experienced pilot who did what he did. It's a legally declared fact that any other pilot could not have done any better.

To give more clarity about why a logical algorithm based decision is always preferred over a humane decision, the best example I can give is I, Robot (2004). When Will Smith's character, a detective, has a car crash with another car with a little girl trapped inside and drowning in a river, the detective's car is still afloat. A robot passing by read vital signs and calculated that the detective had a 45% chance of survival. So it decided to expedite the logical choice to save the detective instead of the girl trapped in the sinking car with supposedly 11% chance of  survival with her parents in the front presumably already dead. The detective says "

Save her! Save the girl! Save her!

", he'd have gladly traded his life for the little girl's.

The important point here is whether it was a machine, or a group of humans deciding about this in detail in a court later on, or even in a military environment, the logical choice will ALWAYS be decided as, maybe not the right choice, but the choice that will succeed with the most successful result - the result being minimizing the collateral instead of taking a chance with both human lives.

Again, both these movies are examples of rare occurrences, the kind of which can almost never be predicted / prevented / avoided. And not to mention, any number of people of any kind debating about it later on will not change any bit of the randomness of the incident/s nor will it ever change the outcomes.

The automation of driving, piloting and similar aspects is to mitigate the other 90+% accidents that CAN BE AVOIDED. This is the aim of having automated vehicles in our every day lives.

Coming to the original question asked here: @ Piotr Marek Smolnicki : you're trying to answer way too many questions all at once.

- Noise

- Special flight corridors

- Injury / damage to environment

- Hub-to-hub vs multi network transport

- Automation of vehicles to masses

- Urban vs suburban vs rural areas

Each one of the above is a separate problem statement in itself. Of course the end result could be that in some time in the future, a single or similar system/s might get implemented world wide like in the case of land vehicles today. But it'll be only after extensive testing and data collection in many scenarios, the above points you've asked being a few to name.

Surely more open minded initiative like in the case of Dubai will open the ways for doing all this. So this is probably the only real time implementation of flying cars we'll see for months if not years to come, even though it is only initial testing.

Meaning all the above points you're asking will only have to be hypothetically examined and analysed with possible simulations - for example in AAA tier open world games like Grand Theft Auto where a complete simulated world with all possible realistic vehicles in a real world environments can be achieved. Otherwise, I doubt any scientific-research community could invest billions of dollars along with countless resources and time to achieve something like what these top tier video games already have available.

Having a plain blanked ban on every future technology or platform will not only hinder advancements in science and societies, but will make it immensely more difficult for the legal system to be fixed for the future generations; just like in the case of the blanket ban in most of the world on cannabis/marijuana which is now a serious almost insurmountable wall that is not allowing any research into it being a legitimate medicine that many people claim could save their lives.

@ Kiran Doddigarla : I agree that there will always be a  negative outcome in the scenario I posed, but sometimes ethics is not just about the outcome, but whether an active role is played by the technology or controller.  As another example, a train is coming down tracks to a switch in the tracks that is already in a position that it would hit a car illegally parked on the tracks. If the switch is thrown to the other track there is a lone rail yard worker. Some may argue that two lives trumps one, others may argue that the car is illegally parked, but a particular area of ethics examines the role played in deciding to switch  the tracks and playing an active role in the incident as opposed to passively allowing events to occur knowing either way a negative outcome will occur. No matter what there will be widespread criticism of the technology making the decision and this will certainly hamper the proliferation of any new technology, no matter the potential it may have.

 My example was to raise the problem of public perception and government support when inevitable high profile incidents do occur in any technologies early development.

Another problem that Aerial vehicle may pose for cities is with respect to privacy. We have seen this with drones and UAVs, but there isn't much point having a fence with numerous low flying cars.

Thanks to all of you for your answers.

In my opiniom we are discussing two different levels of the problem. Your point of view is focused on ethics and theory of technology and society. My point of view is grounded next to the person and his/her property influenced by flying cars, how it could influence spatial planning and if instead of reserving about 30 m for road infrastructure we will need a 300 m reserve of virtual corridor. One can say corridors are cheaper to build than concrete and asphalt but the question is what are their social-economic costs? Could human cross a green area under the corridor or have to wait for a green light or go to the tunel to be protected of flying cars? Will flying cars force local governments to reduce building intensity or opposite - to build high rise islands of concrete and glass surrounded by green but noisy (?) autonomous flying cars corridors? And again - if you do not need a parking, only a drop-off zone - could it be just behind you window/balcony no matter on which storey you live (at least over ground)?

I wish I could have the possibility to research this topic before it will emerge with all its consequences, including side-effects...

Another article: 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-drones-changing-aviation-fabrizio-poli?trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3B8yDReLgUNG8thbDEoZXfCA%3D%3D

I just discovered a project Lilium:

https://electrek.co/2017/04/20/lilium-electric-vtol-jet/amp/