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"Roadable Aircraft" Moving Towards Launch
We discussed Terrafugia's plans for what they don't like to call a "flying car" — rather a "roadable aircraft" — last spring. The Boston Globe has an update on Massachusetts-based Terrafugia and its fight to get airborne in these parlous times. "The last serious attempt to bring a car-airplane hybrid to market was the Aerocar, in 1949. According to Carl Dietrich, chief executive of Terrafugia, that company built six prototypes. It needed 500 orders in order to gear up for mass production, but it never got there... 'It can be hard to explain the value of this to non-pilots,' Dietrich says, 'but when you're a pilot, the problems of high costs, limited mobility on the ground, and weather sensitivity are in your face, all the time.' The company says more than 50 of the vehicles have been pre-ordered. The target price is $198,000."
Quote from their website:"Drive to your local airport, fly up to 400nm, land, convert, and drive directly to your destination."
Call me back when this thing can fly above one billionth of a meter.
I'm holding out for personal teleportation tech.
1. Punch in the place you want to be.
2. It "dials" to see which of the [X] receiving platforms are unoccupied there
3. Magic happens.
4. You're standing on a teleport pad roughly where you want to be, get off, and someone else probably arrives soon after you.
As long as I'm dreaming I'd like a pony and a fully functional gynoid with a remote control.
...and it was called the General Lee
Didn't fly very far and the nose-first landings were a bit on the rough side.
"Them's parlous times, pod'ner!"
"Parlous Linux 2008: Because life sucks"
"ParlOS - optimized for low latency thin client computing over parsec-level distances"
"Parlous Santana"
Gosh. I remember seeing this done a long time ago. It's really simple to do. In fact, you can use spare parts from around your house to build it...that is if you live in an old house with a large fireplace hood. The vehicle may look a little strange and make funny sounds while driving down the road, but you can always sing a little tune to mask the sound. Sorta sounds like, Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. You get used to it.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
> 4. You're standing on a teleport pad roughly where you want to be, get off, and someone else probably arrives soon after you.
4b. Alternatively, due to a slight miscalculation of departure times somebody is teleported to your location while you are still on the teleport pad, instantly accelerating the atoms formerly known as "your body" into all directions away from their former positions in a bloody explosion.
Insightful? You completely stole that idea from Batman.
ouch, telefragged
Yeah, because getting told "the source is right there, fix it yourself" is so nice after you got telefragged...