The "real dream of the flying car" seems to differ from person to person.
Some people essentially want a flying machine that they can land in their driveway and parking lots, that they can take to the air for all but the shortest trips, with little need for "car" abilities. Others want something that's a car the majority of the time, but can fly on those midrange (60-600 miles) city-to-city trips.
VTOL on city streets is unlikely to be popular any time soon, largely due to safety concerns. But there's been a constant push for decades for something that can take off and land at small airstrips, and with only a few minutes' conversion work, can then drive over to grandma's house. Turning a 6 hour drive into a 3 hour flight would be a big deal.
I'm convinced that what's eventually going to turn the tide for these kinds of vehicles is if we can make a tiltrotor ducted fan thing with adjustable fan geometry _and_ wings. Something like the V-22 Osprey, except with adjustable ducts around the fans. This way, you can get both the high thrust required for takeoff and the low drag required for cruise. Wings are a requirement if you want to keep the fuel consumption low.
A vehicle like this wouldn't have comparable cruising speeds to airplanes (something like 80mph cruise), but could take off and land anywhere, and would have higher fuel efficiency than one of today's cars. There are actually canarded airplames today which cruise at 160 knots and use less fuel per mile than a car.
I'm actually surprised there isn't more research into these kinds of vehicles, but I guess the Osprey fiasco has everyone running scared.
Some people essentially want a flying machine that they can land in their driveway and parking lots, that they can take to the air for all but the shortest trips, with little need for "car" abilities. Others want something that's a car the majority of the time, but can fly on those midrange (60-600 miles) city-to-city trips.
VTOL on city streets is unlikely to be popular any time soon, largely due to safety concerns. But there's been a constant push for decades for something that can take off and land at small airstrips, and with only a few minutes' conversion work, can then drive over to grandma's house. Turning a 6 hour drive into a 3 hour flight would be a big deal.