Fairly Realistic Flying Car Offered for 2009 Delivery 276
An anonymous reader writes to tell us about yet another promise of a flying car. The Register is reporting on the latest from Terrafugia Inc called the "Transition" which is a combination car and airplane that runs on unleaded gas. The idea is that it's a car that you can drive to the nearest airstrip and, with the touch of a button, convert to an airplane, fly to an airstrip close to your goal, then convert back to a car to reach your ultimate destination. Of course, how many times have we been promised flying cars only to suffer in perpetual disappointment.
This will go nowhere. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cmdr. Sisko wants to know -- (Score:5, Interesting)
Only thing is that he had no transport other than his (own personal) airplane. So he wanders out to the ramp, jumps in, and taxi's his aircraft past the main gate onto the road and to the gas station just outside the Base..
Of course this was back in the day when 'it wasn't so bad to drink and drive', and i'm sure he did a bit of a 'rug dance' in front of his CO on Monday morning... but went onto a rather successful career.
Similar to the AeroCar (Score:5, Interesting)
alternately (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This will go nowhere. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Realistic? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Realistic? (Score:3, Interesting)
The way I see it, a hybrid car/plane would likely be around the same cost as a separate car and plane. In addition, the performance of the separate car and plane should be substantially better than the hybrid in terms of speed/fuel efficiency/safety. Since you have to drive to the local airstrip before you can take off in the hybrid, you aren't saving any appreciable time in getting in the air (and converting to the plane would likely take longer than moving your stuff from the car to the airplane). The only drawback I can see of having the separate plane/car is that once you arrive at your destination, you do not have a means of travel away from the airport at your destination. However, given the ubiquity of rental car agencies in/near airports, you could rent a car and once again have that mobility at your destination. I can't imagine that the cost of the rental car would be greater than the difference in fuel economy between a separate car/plane and a hybrid.
Until I can get in my car and lift off right from my driveway (and hover, instead of flying), I don't see the "flying car" concept ever getting off the ground (pun intended).
Thinking about it some more, why are all these flying car concepts based on fixed-wing designs for the flying part? It would seem that a rotor-based aircraft would be more suitable to a flying car. A rotor-based aircraft could easily fold up the rotors in less than the footprint of a normal car, there are no wings to worry about, and a car's shape is more aerodynamically inclined to a rotor aircraft than a fixed-wing aircraft. You would also be able to take off from nearly anywhere a car could drive.
Re:Cmdr. Sisko wants to know -- (Score:5, Interesting)
My parents live in a little village in Scotland called Lochcarron. A few years ago, there was a flourishing salmon farming industry (now collapsed, alas). There were hatcheries in the lochs in the mountains, and fully fledged farms in the sea lochs.
When the hatchlings in the mountain lochs got large enough, they got ferried down to the sea lochs. This happened by helicopter, presumably for speed. So, at the appropriate time of year, they'd hire in a helicopter and pilot who would spend a week or so flying around moving the young salmon.
Where did the pilot live while doing this? In the Lochcarron Hotel, of course. Where did they leave the helicopter? In the hotel car park, of course.
In a parking bay.
The helicopter was small enough that it would park very neatly in a double bay. It would always be parked in the one in the corner, and the helicopter landing skids would always be exactly 20cm from the curb in both directions. There'd usually be some cars lined up next to it, too, with the rotors hanging over them. It would leave in the morning, and come back in the afternoon. I don't know where it got refueled --- I doubt you can get Jet A1 from the local garage.
Re:More interesting are the Honda plug-ins (Score:3, Interesting)
Japanese automakers getting cute at show [yahoo.com]
Their answer: Transform the car into a friendly companion -- not just a machine for getting around.
Honda Motor Co. even says its white bubble-shaped rubbery-surfaced Puyo, equipped with a panoramic window, is supposed to be a pet. The cabin part of Puyo, a fuel-cell vehicle, rotates so it never has to go into reverse.
pic of Puyo [yahoo.com]
The body glows in various colors of lighting under the car's silicone body surface to communicate with people, such as turning green when it's happy about its condition, according to Honda. The speedometer glows in a subdued blue tone from its dashboard that resembles gray cloth so the interior feels more like a room.
In a preview presentation to reporters, Honda compared the aesthetics of Puyo, whose name is based on the Japanese word that describes floating or soft objects, to cute things like a bunny and balloon.
Toyota Motor Corp.'s Rin looks similar to Puyo, but it has some dashes of green on white to highlight what the automaker says is its serenity so the driver feels at one with nature.
Pic of Rin [yahoo.com] (the gorilla one)
Rin, which means "upright" and "graceful," has a transparent floor and big windows. Its beige seating enhances passengers' skin tones, and the seats are designed to improve posture, according to Toyota.
"This car is about a beautiful and healthy mind," says Satoru Taniguchi, who oversees Rin, a plug-in gas-electric hybrid. Plug-ins run longer on electricity than a regular hybrid because it recharges in a household socket.
The cabin of Nissan Motor Co.'s Pivo 2, an electric vehicle, can rotate on its wheel base so that it can face the opposite direction. The vehicle's tires can also turn 90 degrees, allowing it to move sideways into tight spaces.
Pic of Pivo 2 [yahoo.com]
To make sure its message of cuteness isn't lost on visitors at the Tokyo Motor Show, opening to the public Oct. 27, Pivo, derived from "pivot," has a bobbing robotic head near the steering wheel that talks in a high-pitched voice.
Laughing at weather? (Score:3, Interesting)
We had a ranch in Northern Arizona and like a lot of ranches in that area, we had a private airstrip. A neighbor misinterpreted his newly minted instrument rating as permission to fly no matter what. He loaded up his family and took off near a thunderhead. The flight lasted just long enough to kill the entire family.
Weather in Arizona can get particularly nasty, even when you're paying full attention. Once, my father inadvertently flew under a thunderhead and survived by pointing the nose at the ground and pouring on full throttle. Even still, he only managed to not gain any altitude while he traversed under the cloud.
I think if these vehicles ever see the light of day, we'll see Darwin step up to the plate in a major way due to people 'laughing at the weather.'
Re:Realistic? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm with you. This doesn't seem that viable as an automobile, nor all that great as an airplane, though I guess it would be better than paying hangar fees if you already fly a small airplane....
As for a flying car, the whole "air strip" thing ruins it for me. An ultralight homebrew helicopter can take off anywhere and can be driven without a pilot's license. If your main goal is to have a flying vehicle to replace your car for typical trips, that would be a much better choice. Besides, small aircraft don't generally fly that much faster than a car (like maybe half again faster, though three or four times what you can drive a car legally in most places). Unless you're doing a long haul, it won't save enough time to be worth the fuel costs---particularly when you consider how thoroughly poor the aerodynamics of an automobile would be when flying (and how badly the extra weight would kill the fuel economy while driving as well).
What I want to see is a helicopter built into a normal automobile. Get a special exemption in the laws so that you could fly it up to a certain altitude in VFR weather over existing roadways without a pilot's license. That would be far more useful in my opinion. The times when I'd want a flying car basically equate to "when traffic is slow". Once traffic is slow, it's too late to take a different route so you can find an airfield. As a non-pilot, as far as I'm concerned, if my flying car can't take off right in the middle of Highway 17 and land atop the parking garage in downtown Santa Cruz, I'm not interested. :-)
Re:More interesting are the Honda plug-ins (Score:3, Interesting)
But a gyroplane would be the perfect flying car -- the rotor is unpowered, so you don't need a tail rotor sticking out the back. You can use a prerotator to shorten takeoff distance (a few gyros can even take off vertically), and the landing roll is also very short. When in car mode, the rotor is far easier to fold as it is so much smaller and it won't interfere with the driver's vision as the folded wings do.
A gyroplane also flies a lot more like a fixed-wing aircraft than like a helicopter, so the pilot training demands are MUCH lower than a heli (still more than a fixed-wing, though).