Aeromobil Flying Car Prototype Gets Off the Ground For the First Time

Zothecula writes "There is a saying in flying: 'If it looks good, it will fly well.' Stefan Klein, a designer from the Slovak Republic, has announced the first flight of his Aeromobil Version 2.5, a flying car prototype he has been developing over the last 20 years. This vehicle is a strikingly beautiful design with folding wings and a propeller in the tail. But will its flight capabilities match its looks?"

Comments

Not really sure what I was expecting

[GrandCow]

I've been checking up on the company every couple years since the 90's, and every time they redesign it just gets closer to a small plane with retractable wings. I guess that's to be expected though, since we've had 100 years to come up with a good design. Every new design has also moved away from the space of being in a road vehicle and become more and more cramped like in a cockpit.

At what point does it stop being a compact car and just become a plane that can be stored in smaller places? It's not like he can just take off from the road, he still needs an airport. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of a flying car?

Re:Not really sure what I was expecting

[Deadstick]

Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of a flying car?

No. The purpose of a flying car is to extract money from the gullible, and they've been performing splendidly at that for many years.

Re:Not really sure what I was expecting

[compro01]

It's not like he can just take off from the road, he still needs an airport. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of a flying car?

No. If your plane is also your car, you don't need to arrange/pay for a ride/rental from the airport (small municipal airports are often quite a ways from the cities they purportedly serve) to where you're actually going and you also don't need to pay to store your aircraft while you're there.

It remains a useful thing, just not for the uses you have in mind.

Re:Not really sure what I was expecting

[lgw]

Yep - this is clearly a "drivable plane", not a "flying car".

That still has utility to be sure: it means you can store your plane in your own garage, and it gives you ground transport at your destination. But it still looks like you'd need to drive to the local small airport, fly to the destination small airport, then drive from there.

A proper "flying car" needs to be VTOL, so you can drive because that's cheaper, but switch to flying when you get caught in traffic.

Re:Not really sure what I was expecting

[erice]

It's not like he can just take off from the road, he still needs an airport. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of a flying car?

A drivable airplane still has it's uses. It means that you don't have to pay to park at the airport. It also means you don't have to pay to park your airplane at the destination airport (which is a bigger deal) or rent a car at destination airport. The last becomes more than just an expense if you are flying into a small airport that does not have rental cars.

Re:Not really sure what I was expecting

[bob_super]

Not in detail on small airplanes, but I know that given the F22/F35's hourly cost, the half hour that the trip would take can buy a few new copies of my car.

Re:Not really sure what I was expecting

[garyebickford]

I don't know how much has changed in the last 30 years or so, but back when I was flying you could buy an older plane for less than a new Porsche, and if you flew it enough the cost per mile was actually pretty reasonable, especially if you had a lot of long trips it could be cheaper than the Porsche, and faster.

It's a plane, not a very good car.

[tekrat]

Yeah, good luck driving that thing to the supermarket.

If you want to see a "flying car", it will look more like the "Air Mule" (you'll have to google that folks) being developed by the Israelis.

It's basically a ducted fan in front of the passenger space, and a ducted fan behind the passenger space. Chances are, it doesn't have much range.

Re:It's a plane, not a very good car.

[ZombieBraintrust]

My rule of thumb is that a "flying car" is a vehicle that functionally replaces the automobile in the same way the "horseless carriage" replaced the horse and buggy. The idea of a "flying car" is that it would be a family vehilce owned by the middle class. That it would be a day to day vehicle. That it was better than a car because it would travel line of sight instead of on roads. An expensive plane, that can't carry heavy loads, and needs a runway doesn't fit any of these promises.

I see no point.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Its not good car
2) Its not good plane either
3) You have to go to airport to take off
4) Most probably if you can afford flying car, you can afford car and plane together each by itself.

Flying car is cool only if you can take off whenever you want off, wherever you want.

Looks pretty

[Frequency Domain]

Pretty unstable, that is. The thing has almost no ground clearance, and seemed to really be wobbly on takeoff. I'd be pretty nervous for takeoffs and landings.

This would just be awesome.

[mcrbids]

At what point does it stop being a compact car and just become a plane that can be stored in smaller places? It's not like he can just take off from the road, he still needs an airport. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of a flying car?

As a private pilot, one of these would just be the bomb! Small planes are at their best for medium range trips - between 100 and 500 miles. The biggest problem is that airports tend to be in outlying areas and there is almost always a 5 to 15 mile drive from the airport to your "real" destination. It's far enough to make Cab driving expensive and inconvenient, it's close enough that renting a car for a day seems like overkill.

In any event, it's a hassle to schlep your stuff out of the plane parked at the airport into the cab, wait 20 minutes, etc. Being able to land, fold wings, and drive that 5 to 15 miles would be just great!

Most people don't realize that nearly every city in the USA with more than 20,000 people or so has an airport within 10-20 miles.