Flying Car Ready To Take Off 315
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."
First is a little misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Calling it the first flying car is a bit misleading; there are quite a few pre-existing flying cars, it's just none of them was ever a commercial success. There's still an Aerocar about with an airworthiness certificate.
The main problem with a flying car is the number of certificates you need to get in order to be able to use it.
Re:we will NOT have flying cars (Score:3, Informative)
For someone who can afford one of these flying cars, it is likely the cost barrier for a pilot's license does not exist. What is likely to exist, however, is the time barrier. Typically, unless cashed out, retired or otherwise not working, people that can afford this kind of luxury are working their asses of with very little free time.
With that said, in the U.S. I there are new Sport Pilot licenses that might fit this usage perfectly. The licenses are much easier to obtain, with the associated training centers springing up, where a person can pay $X thousand and learn to fly in two weeks. For example, http://sportplanesflorida.com/learntofly.htm?gclid=CIeL79WHiZgCFSUqHgodKRniDg [sportplanesflorida.com] is what came up on my first google search.
I read the new licenses only require 20 hours of flight time versus the current Solo rating 40 hours. If you fly 2 hours per day, which is a *lot*, then in 10 days you are done.
Re:It's Not a Flying Car (Score:4, Informative)
Actually that isn't a problem. There are many general aviation airports that rent hangar space to aircraft owners (in fact almost all airports do). You drive your car onto the airport and park right next to your hangar, get it your plane and take off. In this case you can taxi your airplane off the runway, onto the private airport road, then out of the airport. Remember this is a plane the size of a car with folded wings. No problem!
Re:Rules? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not like James Bond where the wings fold out electrically
Actually, from TFA, it is... The wings are actuated electromechanically; you just push a button in the cockpit.
Re:Rules? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Rules? (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....)
Re:we will NOT have flying cars (Score:3, Informative)
The FAA requires a minimum of 40 hours for a PVT license. On average the training time is much longer. It took 63 hours to achieve my PVT rating. Flying has gotten more complex since the days when the government established the initial time limit. Not so much the actual flying, but the rules, and that instructors are teaching better judgment these days. That takes time.
I think I'll wait till they automate a flying car into traffic before considering a purchase.
Re:Rules? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Rules? (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.
Re:Rules? (Score:5, Informative)
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 not just that - you shut down each magneto in turn, so you can prove that both systems are working. Most piston aeromotive engines have two complete ignitions systems, with two magnetos and two sets of spark plugs. When you switch one off, then engine revs will drop a little. This way you can work out if a) the magneto is working, and b) the ignition switch is switching it off. If the revs don't drop, either that magneto isn't working or is staying on. If you switch the other one off and the revs drop, the first magneto isn't switching off. If you switch it off and the engine stops altogether, the first one wasn't working.
Re:Rules? (Score:5, Informative)
Not true at all, and in fact most light singles are shut down by pulling the mixture, which essentially does just that (starving it of fuel).
Re:Thankfully, you're wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
Just to clarify, Private Pilots can fly in any VFR [wikipedia.org] (Visual Flight Rules) airspace. With just the private pilot ticket (no further endorsements) you can fly a plane up to (but not including) 200hp, fixed gear, fixed single prop, below 18,000 feet, and a sufficient distance away from clouds to qualify for VFR. You need a current third-class medical and a bi-annual flight review and you're good to go with yourself and/or friends anywhere you want.
To traverse class B or C airspace you need a working radio and transponder in the plane and you need to obey the controller. In class D, G, or unclassified airspace you just need to not hit anything.
Also, these days I'm not aware of many weekend fliers who can get the license in 40 hours. To do that you pretty much need to go to a focused school and be on an airline pilot track. I'd say 50-60 hours is about average.
Re:Rules? (Score:1, Informative)
Every single-engine airplane I have flown has required that you kill the engine by starving it of fuel. You do a quick magneto check by turning off the mags to make sure that they ground, but quickly turn them back on. Afterwards, you pull the mixture to cut off and let the engine die from a lack of fuel.
Both of these procedures are redundant safeguards to prevent the possibility of the engine firing due to someone moving the prop by hand. The mag check makes sure that there can't be a spark, and cutting off the fuel makes sure that all excess fuel has burned out of the cylinders.
Re:Rules? (Score:5, Informative)
We DO NOT use the switch to kill the engine at the destination, however. Instead, we pull the mixture to cut off the fuel flow to the engine. Starving the engine of fuel prevents the mag from firing any residual fuel left in the cylinder after engine shut off. If we don't, someone just walking by the front of the plane can move the prop and have it accidently fire up. That would not be a good situation and many people have been killed because of it.
And yes, I am a pilot.
Bill