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Personal SUV of the Sky
BoomZilla writes "While
we're all waiting for the personal jet packs we were promised in the magazines
of our youth, another 'personal flying car' has entered the fray. The Taero 4000 will exist in the car/plane category, but will require a pilot's license and will operate from airports (...no lifting off from the back yard). The Taero has an interesting folding wing concept: '[the] wing fold system will enable automatic transformation from air to land travel with the wings folding to a position parallel with the fuselage'. The target base price for the Taero 4000, in assembly kit form, is $400,000 U.S. dollars (does not include assembly[!] or optional extras).
According to the site, 'Taero is scheduled for first delivery in 2007'. The
FAQ makes interesting reading. Competition for
Moller International's SkyCar?"
you live in a fly-in community. Where people have aircraft hangars as a part of their houses, and a 3500 ft runway is their door to the world.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
At this time, general aviation aircraft do not have to file a flight plan - just stay out of certain volumes of the sky. I have a friend who has a hangar attached to his garage, and a runway out back.
Just last weekend the weather was unusually nice, and he said "Let's get Mr. Cessna's aluminum kite out" - so we hopped in the 182 and took off - buzzed another friend's farm, flew around, practiced stalling, and so on.
We just had to make sure we stayed out from the airbase's airspace.
So, this would be little different than owning a Cessna in that regard.
However, unlike a car, an aircraft has to go in once a year for its annual inspection, where they tear the thing down and make sure all is well. I would assume that this thing would be no different.
So the question is, can you do without your car for a couple of weeks of the year?
www.eFax.com are spammers
VTOL, robotic piloting with GPS, fly point-to-point, etc.
y ri der/sr-index.htm
The thing that convinced me that they're on to something is that they drive the fans electrically from an inboard generator.
That saves the horifically complicated transmission that something like the Moller SkyCar needs to make all the engines drive all the fans.
http://www.macroindustries.com/website/files/sk
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The SkyCar is not vaporware, since the prototype works fine.
Even if it were somewhat vapory, this sort of design is still important.
One of the lies about automobiles -- at least in the US, I don't know how cars are advertised elsewhere -- is the myth of freedom: the open road, the great western frontier, going anywhere you want, et cetera. IRL, you're tied down to an infrastructure of fuel, mechanical support and roads. Anything that reduces the dependence on those sorts of factors enhances individual freedom.
Getting the idea of roadless private travel into people's heads would be a huge step forward.
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
Actually, I could see the Moller SkyCar (with VTOL capability) being the backbone of a "taxi" service in many city locations. Using "vertiparks" (I think that's the term Moller uses), commuters could live in the suburbs, commute to the vertipark, hop a skytaxi into the city, and use a Segway to get to work. At each step, you have individualized transportation, so do not have to spend time waiting for intermediate commuters to get on and off the "mass transit". The skytaxi service could (be programmed to) follow well defined skylanes that might not be more than a few (hundred) feet off the ground -- the new parachute ejection systems would ensure that problems could be handled.
Sure you get better milage, not a surprize, a gallon of diesel has aboput twice energy as a gallon of conventional gas. The problem with diesles is they get are generally high compression engines that weigh (Yes for your metric people I ment weight and not mass) more then conventional gas engines. In an airplane weight is a critical. (IIRC the fuel is also heavier, but I'm not sure where to look that up to check myself)
P.S. Ethanol is about 2/3rds the energy of conventional gas yet still manages to get nearly the same milage in an engine tuned for it.
IANAAE (though I've read a few books on it).
I am, however, what you might describe as an "aviation enthusiast."
Even considering the GE J85 is the engine from the F-5 Tiger fighter and you *might* be able to pick one up fairly cheap from a gov't surplus auction, it seems to me that $400K is a bit optimistic for this thing.
First, it's going to be carrying around a lot of extra pounds. (For an airplane; keep in mind this thing has to be road-worthy AND airworthy, and that requires a fair amount of structural bracing that a normal airplane wouldn't have.) Weight is the enemy of all airplane designers, and this nutjob is intentionally adding on an automotive drivetrain and chassis.
Second, I don't see anything jet-powered selling for under about US$1m or so brand-new. Something like a USED Cessna Citation CJ-1 or Learjet 31 will easily fetch US$2-3m on the market today, and I'd trust either of those a LOT more than I'd trust a product designed by someone with an apparent "get-venture-capital-fast" agenda and no demonstrable experience building working aircraft.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
Did you happen to notice the engine "chosen" for this project? A GE J85. A turbojet engine, the same as has powered the T-38 and T-37 trainers. Talking about diesels and diesel fuel and diesel economy is irrelevant, because we are looking at a TURBINE engine here. (and an unspecified "IC" engine/motor for the ground- so that's TWO powerplants on this beast, one being dead weight while the thing is "flying".) Not "turboshaft" but turbine, which brings on a whole different set of operating characteristics. Turbine engines have HUGE fuel requirements, even more so at low altitudes. They spool up and down slowly. Look, the TBA fuel capacity is because they haven't figured out how to attach a tractor trailer tank for the fuel needed. And 350 KTAS?? I'm laughing my ass off.
A T-37 could fly about 390 miles on 457 internal (no drop tanks) gallons of JP-1. That comes to about 230 gallons per engine (two J-85s per Tweet)for less than 400 miles-- 1600lbs of fuel. Putting aside all the actual math, let's assume that this brick is a little more efficient, and it'll fly 600 miles on 200 gallons. The 1200 mile range equals about 400 gallons of fuel. 400 gallons of Jet-A equals about 2800lbs. Empty weight is listed at 2800lbs, max gross at 4000. Empty weight does not include fuel, occupants, or cargo, so you need to add 2800lbs to 2800... oops, we're over gross already. Hmmm... Well, if we offload some fuel... say, 1900lbs (gotta load a pilot and his gear, remember), that gives us 900lbs of fuel, or about 128 gallons, or about a third of the fuel needed for a max range flight. 400 miles... less what's burned to get to the airport, less what would need to be offloaded to carry a passenger, less what's needed for FAA-required fuel reserves (30 min for day VFR, 45 for night), less what's needed for runup and taxi. Not so hot now.
Let's approach it from the other direction: Four passengers at about 180 each is 720 pounds, excluding any possible baggage, and the likelihood that some of 'em are chunkier than that. Useful load of 1200lbs, less passengers, is 480lbs, or about 68 gallons of fuel. 68 gallons is about enough to get most light jets from the tie down to 10,000 feet. Remember, fuel usage with a turbine engine can't be directly related to miles; while putting out full power in thick air below 10,000, fuel usage jumps horrendously. That's why airliners fly so high.
Here's another way to look at it: The Cessna T-37 had a cruise fuel consumption of 1700lbs PER HOUR. Not total, but per hour, once it was up at altitude and flying efficiently. That translates to 850pph per J85. So, with a full load of passengers, this hunk has about, oh, 30 minutes of cruise time. Or, with only a pilot, assuming some extra burn for climb, you get about 45 minutes of real range. Assuming you could even get NEAR 350ktas, you're lookin' at less than 200nm, by the time you follow ATC vectors and fly the pattern at your destination. And how much would it cost? About $2 per gallon of Jet-A, so... $284 in fuel costs alone. Compare that to a 152, with a 6gal per hour burn on avgas (36pph)... Bottom line, this thing is even less realistic than the Molitor. And at least the Aerocar, by Taylor, was really capable of flying and driving. It drives me nuts to see people here discussing the merits of this thing without first checking the basic numbers, or features.
That's not what worries me. It's the maximum flight distance of 1,700 nm. That's uh 2 micrometers?
I've been following Moller for about 15 years. They do seem to have come a long way, but very slowly. I suspect the real problem is how insular the entire operation is. There's no doubt the guy is something of a genius, but he's obviously a paranoid control freak. This is a great example of how better management would lead to greater commercial success, and how technical know-how alone is not enough for a company to be successful. They could start by having a marketing and PR person write the company's marketing and PR copy instead of Moller himself, which would help get rid of the embarassingly bad content on their website. Also, any full-time lobbyist worth his or her salt could have gotten dumptrucks of money from the DOD for development of this, whereas Moller proudly (!) explains that the company has spent only $20m over 30 years developing this (probably more now, since they went public). Just plain dumb!
A-Bomb