BiPod Flying Car Makes (Short) Test Flights

Zothecula writes "The team at Scaled Composites pulled out all the stops to realize the final design of the company's founder and former CTO, Burt Rutan, ahead of his retirement in April earlier this year. In just four months, the Scaled Composites team went from beginning the preliminary design to the first flight of the 'BiPod,' a hybrid gasoline-electric flying car that grew out of a program to develop a rapid, low-cost electric test bed using as many off-the-shelf components as possible."

Comments

Not a flying car

[Anonymous Coward]

Needs a runway to take off...

Re:Not a flying car

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying Burt Rutan an ultralight for his retirement? I can think of a few other retirement gifts that make that much sense.

Let's get Steve Jobs a phone that can do internet and maybe a nice turtleneck.

We'll buy Woz a book on electronics.

We'll get Donald Knuth a book on algorithms and some typesetting software.

And Linus can have a textbook on OS development.

apple lawsuit

[cdxta]

apple lawsuit over name in 3...2...?

Congratulations!

[pushing-robot]

* Your invention requires pilots to attach the wings themselves every time they want to fly, which must require the help of a friend or two,
* Your plane shuts the pilot in a separate compartment from the only passenger seat,
* They have to trade seats when the pilot wants to switch from flying to driving (or vice versa),
* The passenger has no ability to take the controls in an emergency,
* It looks odd in the air and downright silly on the road,
* And you picked a gimmicky pop-culture-based name that will piss off a major corporation!

You must be an engineer! Welcome to Slashdot!