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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."

9 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 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
    3. 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.

    4. 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

  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 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. 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

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

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

    Hope the car is better.