multitude

no speed limits

In the last two years I have been com­mut­ing, daily, 97.6 km to work.
That’s the dis­tance between Rot­ter­dam and Antwerp. I first cov­ered it by car even if it was impos­si­ble to get passed third gear, since in rush hours the free­way can get more crowded than a vernissage with open bar.
Then I decided to turn to the famously effi­cient pub­lic trans­port, con­fi­dent that a respon­si­ble cit­i­zen should make use of a col­lec­tive mode of trans­port. And that’s when things went really nasty.
Despite many years of Euro­pean Union, the sched­ule of the trains between Hol­land and Bel­gium, two coun­tries the size of a donut, is planned by peo­ple who seem to hate one another, and every­one else on those trains too.
After the Fyra dis­as­ter, involv­ing a big draw­back for the ital­ian engi­neer­ing pride, there was only one ride every 2 hours to reach my des­ti­na­tion. And most of the time these trains were can­celled, result­ing in long and frus­trat­ing waits at the plat­form. You know your fel­low com­muters by the des­per­ate look they have when con­fronted with the fact that NO, they won’t be able to kiss good­night their kids, again.
So, I was think­ing, is there a solu­tion to this con­gested mobil­ity? If we can’t save the com­mon man while he is at work, we can per­haps free him on his way there.

How? fly­ing.

First of all, fly­ing is much cooler than dri­ving, or sit­ting in a stinky train wagon. Infact it’s three dimen­sional free­dom of move­ment.
How­ever, there is one major prob­lem with fly­ing, and that’s land­ing. You can only land in des­ig­nated air­fields, which are usu­ally in the mid­dle of nowhere. That’s how Ryanair made a for­tune sell­ing over­priced bus tickets.

But there is a solu­tion to all this as well:

This is Spurce Creek, in Florida. Founded in the ‘70s, is the old­est fly-in com­mu­nity of the world. In the map below you see how the roads for cars are inter weaved with roads for planes and.. golf courses. Nec­es­sary, I sup­pose, after a long flight.

This is Casa de Aero, north of Chicago, with a rather ratio­nal plan. And no golf courses.

The idea is sim­ple: Once you landed your plane, you taxi all the way to your home, or to your den­tist, if he lives in one of this com­mu­ni­ties, and park your plane in the hangar. It’s the same of a garage, just larger.

From the hangar, one can access directly his liv­ing room. no check-in, check-out, no pass­port please, no you can’t bring that drink on the plane and no you can’t smoke here!
So, is this the idea that will put an end to pub­lic trans­port, in favour of per­sonal fly­ing machines, giv­ing us the ulti­mate free­dom of move­ment? Maybe. But while we wait for the prices to go down a lit­tle, here are some plans show­ing how your plane could be parked meters away from your kitchen.

House plans and info are from Liv­ing With your Plane