Flying Car Makes Successful Maiden Flight

MistrX writes "The Dutch company PAL-V completed its first series of test flights with its flying car, the PAL-V One, successfully. The PAL-V One flies like a gyrocopter, with a minimal runway length of 165 meters, and drives around like a trike on the road. Furthermore it offers 2 passengers a maximum speed of 180km/h both on land and in the air. The company aims with the PAL-V One at usage within the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, because private flying is more commonplace."

Comments

Not a flying car

[GameboyRMH]

A roadable aircraft. A flying car needs VTOL capability.

And until it's legal to take off and land anywhere, even a true flying car could still only be used like a roadable aircraft.

Re:Not a flying car

[Qzukk]

If it's a roadable aircraft, does that mean that the cop will have to accept my excuse of "I'm flying low" when he clocks me at 110mph on the freeway?

Re:Not a flying car

[stoolpigeon]

You are correct - and it's not a car. It's a two seater trike.

Re:Not a flying car

[Junta]

Actually, there's an interesting question. How long before the first car chase where one of these guys flips on his takeoff mode....

Re:Not a flying car

[GameboyRMH]

In all of science fiction flying cars have flown directly from the starting point to destination with no driving to or from airports in between (except some Asimov works where the world is apparently littered with runways). So to follow that definition, this is not a "flying car."

Re:Not a flying car

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd rather deal with an FAA violation than a speeding ticket? Really?

Re:Not a flying car

[X0563511]

I'm pretty sure that the police do not have jurisdiction to shoot down aircraft.

Re:Not a flying car

[Jawnn]

Au contraire, utter the words "possible terrorists" and all bets are off.

Re:Not a flying car

[John Courtland]

Better check again, the long flabby arm of the law now operates antiaircraft systems. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/09/manhattans-real-anti-aircraft-battery-stinger-missiles/43062/

Video

[HellKnite]

As the linked article is basically a wall of text, here's the website which has a video of the maiden flight on the front page:

http://pal-v.com/

Is it powered by useless apostrophes?

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case slashdotters could fuel it for a trip to Andromeda.

"completed it's first series of test flights with it's flying car"

"completed it is first series of test flights with it is flying car"

Really? WHERE did you learn that? STOP IT!

Awesome

[CanHasDIY]

Now all someone has to do is invent drivers who aren't complete morons and we'll be in business!

No quick getaways

[cruff]

Apparently it is a 10 minute process to convert from road to flying mode. You'll need a team to keep the cop at bay until you can take off, assuming you have about 540 feet available for the take off roll.

Re:MPG?

[walkerp1]

MPG?

38 mpg on the road, 21 mpg in the air (calculated). I pulled stats from the chart here: googleusercontent.com

But, according to the newer page here: pal-v.com, we have 28 mpg on the ground and about 12 mpg in the air (calculated).

Gyrocopter

[vlm]

From the fine website, I cut and paste this WTF moment "A PAL-V ONE flies exactly like a gyrocopter, which is the easiest and safest way of flying."

To be polite, I will just say that opinion is not shared by the majority of aeronautical engineers who are not being paid to say it who know about "old style" autogyros. I'm just mister groundschool with a lot of simulator time and only a couple hours PIC and even I LOLed at that quote. I think they hired that "Baghdad Bob" the former Iraqi information minister for that line.

Autogyros are cool until the rotor stalls and you die, or the rotor seemingly inevitably cuts your head off in a crash landing, or ground resonance sets in and there's nothing you can do about it but die, PIO due to PPO (and possibly PPO is due to PIO?) and you die... There have been some improvements in design which may or may not prevent those control-theory problems, but the "giant rotating wing" cannot be replaced while still calling it a autogyro. Its like saying you could make a motorcycle safe to ride by merely completely enclosing it with windshields and doors, adding conventional seats with seatbelts and airbags, and adding a couple more wheels for enhanced stability, and ta da, a safe "motorcycle", although it not appears to be a Fiat Punto (which is actually a pretty nice small car, I've driven one a couple hundred miles in IRL).

The main problem with a "car autogyro" is likely to be chopping up pedestrians and bikers. Which is traditionally seen as "OK" when done by drivers, so maybe its not going to be so bad after all.

Re:Gyrocopter

[shugah]

Actually - it's you who is wrong. The rotor cannot stall like a fixed wing can because it is spinning and air is always moving over the wing.

In fixed wing aircraft, the wing and the aircraft are moving through the air at the same speed. At lower speeds, the pilot has to increase the angle of attack to maintain lift. When the airspeed is too low or the angle of attack becomes to high, the wing stalls and the aircraft drops like a stone. With an autogyro, the wing (rotor) is moving through the air stream at a speed that is independent of the aircraft speed. As the angle of attack is increased, the rotor slows, but it does not suddenly stall and lose all lift like a fixed wing, rather the autogyro gradually loses lift and descends.

The instability in autogyros has to do with old designs and how a trained fixed wing pilot instinctively reacts to pitch instability. When a fixed wing aircraft starts to stall, the pilot puts the nose down and increases power (increases airspeed and lowers the angle of attack). However if you do this in an autogyro, it can cause the aircraft to pitch over and tumble. This is called Pilot Induced Oscillation (PIO) and can be significantly reduced with autogyro specific training for pilots and more stable designs with large aft mounted horizontal stabilizers. The other source of instability with autogyros is called Power Push Over (PPO) and is possible only in pusher prop designs when the center of gravity is below the line of thrust, the thrust of the engine can make the aircraft duck or push over. Both problems are solved by better designs and type specific training.

From the pictures of the PAL-V it appears to have a large horizontal stabilizer, however it is difficult to tell where the center or gravity in flight mode is.

Um, subby....

[Joce640k]

How about a link to their website instead of a dumbass yahoo article without even a photo of the thing?

http://pal-v.com/

For the US market

[Air-conditioned cowh]

They will have to call it the NTSC-M One, of course!

Gyrocycle way ahead

[TheSync]

The Molnari Gryocycle street-legal gyrocopter motorcycle is way ahead!