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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."
then don't put it in one
many many small airports charge a $10.00 tiedown fee to tie it up on the tarmac, waived if you buy fuel..
FFS why put it in a hangar?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
har har.
For those who actually don't know, in aviation nm is nautical miles, not nanometers.
Renting a car is fine if you're flying somewhere where such is available.
When I used to fly little Cessna 152s around the place we would often land at "airfields" that were little more than converted sheep paddocks with a gas pump off to the side. The nearest rental car place would have been 100 miles in any direction you cared to choose.
For that kind of flying, something like this would be practically nirvana. For flying between international airports, yes stick with the rental Chrysler or something...
I'm not sure that's a valid market. Smaller airports frequently have a courtesy car they will lone you for a few hours if you fill up the plane with gas at their FBO, many FBOs even list this fact in their AFD listing. Failing that, the typical cost of renting a car for a day is less than half the typical cost of renting a small plane for an *hour* or if you own the plane, a little over the cost of an hours fuel burn at cruise, and most rental car places will bring the car to you. IAAPP (I Am A Private Pilot)
The advantage I see in this is combating weather. If I want to go on a week long trip, its conceivable that the weather forecast will change enough in that week that I won't be able to get back on time. With this thing, I could prefer flight, but drive to another airport if necessary to escape bad weather. That said, if I'm an aircraft renter, an IFR rating is cheaper and probably enough, and I can't see these things being rental craft (imagine the insurance on a $198,000 rental car).
I assume that the target market for this type of vehicle isn't the lay driver who wants a "flying car" to dodge traffic
Off-topic aside: I've been seriously considering getting powered parachute (which, if flown under certain restrictions requires *zero* training for anyone, even without a pilots license) to make my daily ~7 mile commute to work. Anyone have any experience with those? Could be they be a short range commute craft?
Also known as the Big Sky Theory.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Before you say anything else, yes I am a licensed pilot so here we go...
Parking by brail. Yes I am sure you have all heard about it and I am quite sure most of you have done it to one degree or another. That is when you just touch the car behind or in front of you while trying to parallel park. The thing is, with aircraft, if you graze anything or your aircraft is grazed by anything else, much less dented, the aircraft is instantly grounded until inspected by an A&P ( Airframe and Power Plant mechanic) and certified as being once again airworthy. So parking will be a pit of a problem.
Now arguably people that buy one of these will be pretty well-off in the money department, but if they want to use it as intended they have to drive the thing through all kinds of traffic with the hazards therein.
There are unprotected control surfaces on both ends of the beast. One commuter reading the paper or reaching for their coffee bumps you and you now have damaged control surfaces and again the machine is grounded.
The wings are hinged to retract and fold. When winds are folded and not locked together the only structural stiffness is the hinges. Just that thought gives me pause. Drive the Mass Pike or any other commuter road lately? I don't know about yours but mine have serious potholes and undulations, not to mention serious stop and go driving with a lot of hard braking. I just cannot see this thing standing up to the kind of beating your car takes on a daily basis.
Safety... I cannot imagine how they are going to get this thing through the DOT when clearly in order for this thing to fly it has to be made out of some seriously light weight materials. So it is pretty much going to have almost no crash protection, side impact bracing, airbags, etc etc because all that adds a lot of weight. They do state on their website that it is "Designed to automotive crash safety standards", yet they do not say that is has passed DOT standards as yet.
Useful load, they are pretty careful not to say what the useful load is. Useful load is the weight the aircraft can carry. They do not state the empty weight of the aircraft. They do state a MAX Gross takeoff weight of 1320 lbs, and a full fuel load of 120 lbs. They do claim it can carry two passengers. The weight of an FAA "Adult" is 175lbs. So the useful weight is more then likely not much more then 500 lbs. This would put the empty weight at about 820 lbs.
Ok, so just how much impact safety can you build into something that has to be 820 lbs or less? IMO not much. So even if the thing manages to become street legal, I am for one am not driving it on the road, because it will just be CRUSHED by a 3300 lb VW Jetta or Passat, or Lexus or whatever, never mind a bus or a water delivery truck. This thing will more then likely cause more then a few accidents out of sheer novelty as people stair at it rather then pay attention to their driving.
That brings to mind insurance. Now insurance for aircraft is a lot like cars, it is broken down into the Airplane itself and Liability. From the liability POV I don;t think it would be that bad, but from the collision aka Comprehensive POV if I was an insurance company, I would either not insure your airplane while in operation of roads, or I would charge you a massive premium for the reasons I listed above. Any kind of a minor fender bender will render this thing non-airworthy and require a trip to a FBO ( Fixed Base Operator ) to have an A&P have a look at it. And since it is more then likely constructed of mostly composite materials, there are probably no A&P's who can repair it. They will just ground it and tell you to call the factory.
Trust me, I like the idea, I think it is very cool, but as presented there are a whole boatload of problems that will have to be overcome. I much prefer the older idea of a car that you attach the flying part to, then take off to your destination. When you get there, the flying part detaches and is stored until you return to fly back to where ever you came from.
Here's the thing. Big Sky Theory only works outside of airways (official, and unofficial) and especially outside airport circuits. Inside the circuit, the pilot is rather busy getting setup for landing, running through checks, at uncontrolled fields they need to ascertain the runway in use, wind conditions etc.. unfortunately so are the other 10 aircraft all converging on that small piece of airspace. This is when most mid-air collisions happen, not in the big sky, but in the little patches above airports.
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You have to buy an older model plane. Have a look on Aerotrader.com sometime, you can get a mid-to-late 70's model Skylane or similar craft for around $40-$50k. As mentioned, properly maintained aircraft can last decades, so the only compromise you get in buying a plane that old is you don't get all the "bells and whistles" that a new model has. But you can (fairly) easily upgrade the avionics a bit at a time.
In Virginia, especially closer to D.C., the drivers are more ruthless, more vicious...
In the Boston area, we practice the "I don't see you" game when merging. The driver with the shittiest car wins. I bet that's what you're running into on the Beltway. I recall driving a '75 Chrysler New Yorker around Cambridge (dents everywhere, front bumper wired together, tape on the tail lights), and it was amazing how smoothly I was able to merge into traffic. Then when I got a job and bought a new car -- suddenly I was totally unable to merge at all.