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Flying Car Ready To Take Off

Posted by timothy on from the fill-up-on-windshield-fluid-please dept.

ChazeFroy writes "The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months' time. Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of unleaded petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Even at $200,000 per automobile, they have already received 40 orders."

34 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Rules? by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 5, Funny

    Has anybody made an attempt at drafting traffic rules for flying cars yet?

    --
    No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
    1. Re:Rules? by FiveLights · · Score: 5, Funny

      Rules? Where we're going we don't need rules...

    2. Re:Rules? by yabos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In the air they have to obey the same rules as other planes. On the ground they have to obey the same rules as other cars. Simple as that. Also to fly one of these things you need a private pilot's license so it's not like any yuppie with 200K is going to be able to fly it.

    3. Re:Rules? by EdIII · · Score: 4, Funny

      In the air they have to obey the same rules as other planes. On the ground they have to obey the same rules as other cars. Simple as that.

      Either way I cannot wait for the first police chase involving one of these on the road. It will be fucking exciting, especially when the chase leaves the road . Better than Dukes of Hazzard on their best day :)

      That SOB is going to get TIVO'd.

    4. Re:Rules? by phoenix321 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the rules above ground are drafted for professionals with thousands of logged hours. We can either require that for everyone who wants to fly or we can draft simpler rules in height-confined airspace. Maybe we already have, in VFR flight levels, I don't know.

    5. Re:Rules? by troll8901 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Year 2015, together with Mr Fusion reactors.

      Oh, if I remember correctly, upgrading a ground car to flight costs US$40,000 (this was a reasonably big amount when the movie was first released).

      Just remember, never appear in the middle of a lane traveling in the opposite direction!

    6. Re:Rules? by TerranFury · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not like James Bond where the wings fold out electrically

      Actually, from TFA, it is... The wings are actuated electromechanically; you just push a button in the cockpit.

    7. Re:Rules? by KillerBob · · Score: 5, Informative

      ... You can get a private pilot's license, good for light aircraft and night flying, for about $5,000, with about 100 hours logged. Simulator time counts. It's really not that much of an impediment, and this thing will probably be small enough to count as a light aircraft.

      My real question is what kind of fuel it runs on. There aren't a lot of aircraft that'll run well on less than avgas, and avgas is very expensive. (The aircraft I trained on was a Diamond Eclipse, which *will* run on premium unleaded, but runs a lot better on avgas....)

      --
      If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
    8. Re:Rules? by Suzuran · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, you don't need to hotwire an airplane. Just disconnect the grounding wires from the magnetos and turn the prop over by hand, and away she goes. The engine is electrically powered by its own rotation and does not need a battery and alternator to keep it running. To stop one, you have to ground out the magnetos or shut off the fuel supply. There is actually an item in the preflight checklists of most small aircraft to verify that the grounding switches still operate, otherwise you will have problems shutting down at your destination. (It's hard on the engine to kill it by starving it of fuel, and drains the carb float bowls which can complicate restarting.)

      This sounds unsafe, but this is by design - They didn't want an electrical fault to kill an engine. The radios and such will die without the battery, but as long as the engine has fuel and air, it will turn.

    9. Re:Rules? by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is actually an item in the preflight checklists of most small aircraft to verify that the grounding switches still operate, otherwise you will have problems shutting down at your destination.

      It's not just that - you shut down each magneto in turn, so you can prove that both systems are working. Most piston aeromotive engines have two complete ignitions systems, with two magnetos and two sets of spark plugs. When you switch one off, then engine revs will drop a little. This way you can work out if a) the magneto is working, and b) the ignition switch is switching it off. If the revs don't drop, either that magneto isn't working or is staying on. If you switch the other one off and the revs drop, the first magneto isn't switching off. If you switch it off and the engine stops altogether, the first one wasn't working.

    10. Re:Rules? by jsight · · Score: 4, Informative

      (It's hard on the engine to kill it by starving it of fuel, and drains the carb float bowls which can complicate restarting.)

      Not true at all, and in fact most light singles are shut down by pulling the mixture, which essentially does just that (starving it of fuel).

      --
      Throw the bums out!
    11. Re:Rules? by notaspunkymonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It is not the first flying car - check out this bad boy - it begins its journey from London to Tombouctou tomorrow! http://www.skycarexpedition.com/the_expedition.php

    12. Re:Rules? by MikeBabcock · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just wait for that call to your insurance company about a car in your living room ... in your 17th floor condo.

      --
      - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
    13. Re:Rules? by wjsteele · · Score: 4, Informative

      That is incorrect. The mag check is used to determine that the primary ignition systems are firing all cylinders. In the event of a failure, the plane will still have a working ingition system to power the engine, though on a slightly reduced power level.

      We DO NOT use the switch to kill the engine at the destination, however. Instead, we pull the mixture to cut off the fuel flow to the engine. Starving the engine of fuel prevents the mag from firing any residual fuel left in the cylinder after engine shut off. If we don't, someone just walking by the front of the plane can move the prop and have it accidently fire up. That would not be a good situation and many people have been killed because of it.

      And yes, I am a pilot.

      Bill

      --
      It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
  2. we will NOT have flying cars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    seriously. most people can barely control a car on the ground. or even keep one properly maintained.

    and you want to put these folks into the air? over your house? yeah... i don't think so.

    thats what you call a 'bad idea'.

    cap:unguided

    1. Re:we will NOT have flying cars by 4D6963 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes we will have flying cars. Only they'll be nothing like a tiny airplane, and fully automated. Fully programmed VTOL is the only thing that would happened. May be a long shot, but we won't get anything short of that no matter what.

      --
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    2. Re:we will NOT have flying cars by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a quick solution to that problem, and it doesn't even require any technical or legislative changes: don't call it a flying car!

      Even their website doesn't use the term 'car'; it's clearly marketed towards pilots not drivers and they call it a "Roadable Aircraft". It's being sold to people who already fly, but want to be able to get from door to door rather than airfield to airfield - an idea which makes sense to me.

    3. Re:we will NOT have flying cars by should_be_linear · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I, for one, (not welcoming anybody) am dreaming of flying car that I can select my destination on some dialer a then let central computer take me there. I wouldn't put my family into flying car that I am supposed to fly. What they have is not flying car, it is airplane you can drive. Flying car should be, first of all *car* - something that Joe Sixpack can use easily in (relatively) safe way.

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      839*929
    4. Re:we will NOT have flying cars by fprintf · · Score: 3, Informative

      For someone who can afford one of these flying cars, it is likely the cost barrier for a pilot's license does not exist. What is likely to exist, however, is the time barrier. Typically, unless cashed out, retired or otherwise not working, people that can afford this kind of luxury are working their asses of with very little free time.

      With that said, in the U.S. I there are new Sport Pilot licenses that might fit this usage perfectly. The licenses are much easier to obtain, with the associated training centers springing up, where a person can pay $X thousand and learn to fly in two weeks. For example, http://sportplanesflorida.com/learntofly.htm?gclid=CIeL79WHiZgCFSUqHgodKRniDg is what came up on my first google search.

      I read the new licenses only require 20 hours of flight time versus the current Solo rating 40 hours. If you fly 2 hours per day, which is a *lot*, then in 10 days you are done.

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    5. Re:we will NOT have flying cars by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The moller skycar is not even a real prtotype, it's a vaporware fake demo.

      we will NOT have VTOL flying cars. Have you seen what a harrier does to pavement when it takes off or lands vertically? IT even blisters the hell out of super thick concrete. and no fan or turbofan in existence will do a decent VTOL without being 3X the size ofthe aircraft.

      Flying cars will NOT happen. The general public is far too stupid to own one, and you would have to put in safety systems that make the car refuse to move when periodic service is needed. Hell my old Piper Comanche needed it's wings replaced for every 1000 hours of flight, and that was nearly the fricking cost of the aircraft! (which is when I sold it.)

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. this sorta thing has been done many times by wjh31 · · Score: 4, Funny

    and while many of them have taken off, none of them have taken off

  4. First is a little misleading by _Shad0w_ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Calling it the first flying car is a bit misleading; there are quite a few pre-existing flying cars, it's just none of them was ever a commercial success. There's still an Aerocar about with an airworthiness certificate.

    The main problem with a flying car is the number of certificates you need to get in order to be able to use it.

    --

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  5. It's Not a Flying Car by Cephacles · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's a driveable airplane. One key difference is it is marketed to licensed pilots.

    I wonder how many airports are out there that have a path from the runway to the road that isn't fenced off or have some other barrier to getting this craft on the road.

    1. Re:It's Not a Flying Car by scharkalvin · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually that isn't a problem. There are many general aviation airports that rent hangar space to aircraft owners (in fact almost all airports do). You drive your car onto the airport and park right next to your hangar, get it your plane and take off. In this case you can taxi your airplane off the runway, onto the private airport road, then out of the airport. Remember this is a plane the size of a car with folded wings. No problem!

  6. Roads do nasty things to vehicles by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wouldn't want to be around when one of these that has done 20,000 miles of potholes, salt, grit and all the other things you drive through on the road that mess up vehicles takes to the air because god knows what it would do to a light airframe over 10 or 20 years. Sure , you're supposed to do maintenance - but that doesn't prevent loads of cars breaking down at the side of the road due to lack of it. If people drive this like a car (even if they're qualified pilots) they may start to treat it like a car rather than like an aircraft and skip on servicing. The rest you can guess.

    1. Re:Roads do nasty things to vehicles by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "That's called evolution, baby! If you're the kind of person who's going to think "hey, that corrosion on the wing supports can wait 'till next year", and your still going to fly the thing, then you deserve what you get."

      Yeah , but the people on the ground you land of top of don't.

    2. Re:Roads do nasty things to vehicles by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      anyone that would drive a $200,000+ vehicle in the snow and salt is an idiot, and certainly not able to pass a pilots license requirement. That's the cool part, the pilot license requirement weeds out the idiots.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Roads do nasty things to vehicles by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Funny

      The people on the ground are poor though, so who cares?

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    4. Re:Roads do nasty things to vehicles by Thumper_SVX · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I can guarantee you that since this is a roadable aircraft and not a flying car, it will be subject to the same inspection and maintenance requirements as a light aircraft.

      Reality is, this thing is going to be expensive to own, but no more so than an average light aircraft *and* a car (since as you point out you'll have the same wear and tear as a car with a very rigorous maintenance schedule).

      There's a good reason light aircraft fly for 20 years or more; they need to be in order to maintain an airworthiness certificate. This vehicle will be no different.

    5. Re:Roads do nasty things to vehicles by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 3, Funny

      So finally the upper class is a literal definition!

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  7. Holy cow by Verteiron · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I SAW one of these things on I-80, and spent some time with Google trying to figure out what the thing was. Unfortunately it was being towed, rather than driving under its own power, but still. The wings were folded up but there's no mistaking the shape of the thing.

    Neat.

    --
    End of lesson. You may press the button.
  8. Coincidence? by Viceroy+Potatohead · · Score: 5, Funny

    January: Obama becomes president.
    One month later: Flying cars.

    What's next?
    Thanksgiving: Immortality.
    Christmas: Girlfriend!

    Clearly, all this fuss about Obama has been well placed! He's not even in power yet and the flying cars are already on the way! :P

  9. Crashed.... by mrops · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not sure about the car, but the website sure crashed!

    Hope the car is better.

  10. Re:Thankfully, you're wrong... by samkass · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just to clarify, Private Pilots can fly in any VFR (Visual Flight Rules) airspace. With just the private pilot ticket (no further endorsements) you can fly a plane up to (but not including) 200hp, fixed gear, fixed single prop, below 18,000 feet, and a sufficient distance away from clouds to qualify for VFR. You need a current third-class medical and a bi-annual flight review and you're good to go with yourself and/or friends anywhere you want.

    To traverse class B or C airspace you need a working radio and transponder in the plane and you need to obey the controller. In class D, G, or unclassified airspace you just need to not hit anything.

    Also, these days I'm not aware of many weekend fliers who can get the license in 40 hours. To do that you pretty much need to go to a focused school and be on an airline pilot track. I'd say 50-60 hours is about average.

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    E pluribus unum