"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."

Comments

Uses

[man_ls]

I assume that the target market for this type of vehicle isn't the lay driver who wants a "flying car" to dodge traffic and be cool, it's the private pilot who wants to be able to fly somewhere and not have to worry about ground transportation at the receiving end.

If I were a pilot, that's what would keep me from actually using a small plane to get around -- because unless my business was at the airport, I'd be stuck.

Re:Uses

[ngg]

1: how much extra will a roadable airplane cost compared to a normal one?

The people who want to build the aircraft mentioned in TFA plan to sell it for about $200k. A used, but very serviceable, two seat "regular" airplane can be bought for around $20k to $30k and a four-place for about $40k to $50k. So, the roadable airplane seems to cost between 4x and 10x as much as a normal one. And, if having a new airplane is important to you, you could spend $120k for a brand new Cessna Skycatcher, which comes from a company with an established track record of building reliable airplanes--and doing it profitably, which means that spare parts will continue to be available for many decades that well-maintained airplanes last.

For the price of a new roadable airplane, you could buy a used normal plane and have enough left over for a few luxury cars (or a whole fleet of Civics/Fits/Corollas/Yarii) to park at your most frequent destinations. Consider also that a normal airplane, because it doesn't need to make so many compromises, will be better at being an airplane than this roadable plane will. And the same goes for the normal car being a car.

Re:Uses

[mobby_6kl]

> 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.

Not much of a plane either

[Yvan256]

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.

Nice idea, but there are 1 or 2 problems...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Alternative

[Lost Engineer]

Insightful? You completely stole that idea from Batman.