Terrafugia CEO Responds To "Flying Car" Criticism

waderoush writes "The majority of the comments on last week's Slashdot post It's Not a Flying Car — It's A Drivable Airplane were critical, even dismissive, of Terrafugia's work to build a two-passenger airplane with folding wings that's also certified for highway driving. We boiled down these criticisms to the dozen most commonly expressed points, and today we've published responses from Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich. While hybrid airplane-automobiles are an old (some would say laughable) idea, Dietrich argues that current materials and avionics technologies finally make the concept feasible."

Welcome.

From the Article:

Judging from the comments last week, many commenters hadn't fully absorbed the factual points in the article (to put it politely).

 
Welcome to Slashdot.

unimaginable!

It's unthinkable that a story posted on /. should ever receive anything but careful, reasoned analysis. This story implies that most /. commenters are knee-jerk hypercritical dorks who don't read anything or like anything. Some people.

Re:unimaginable!

Inconceivable!

But will it work?

That's really all that matters. It doesn't take any money and hardly any skill to make a nice animation of an airplane with folding wings, but to actually build one and fly it, that's entirely different.

I'm looking forward to the performance of the flying prototype. I wish them good luck on making it and flying it to Oshkosh this year. If they make it to Oshkosh even without meeting all of their planned specs I expect them to make money for years since this really does fit a niche that no other vehicle does. While they'll have plenty of revenue, hopefully they'll be profitable too.

solves the hangar space problem

Great response from Xconomy. The need for an aircraft that can be used for limited driving is real. Some GA (general aviation) airports have very limited and/or very expensive hangar space. In fact, some airports have no available hangar space, in part because companies lease hangar space and use it for business operations rather than aircraft storage. In CA a few years ago, small aircraft were forced out of a hangar so it could be leased to a company that used it for business operations. That's still not right, but at least with the ability to park their airplanes at home and drive to the airport, small aircraft pilots still have options. At the other end, if you're traveling point-to-point, the ability to skip car rental and use your airplane might be an option as well. Obviously, a driveable airplane would be designed for short-distance driving. It's not a car replacement by any stretch of the imagination. (Yes, I am a certificated pilot.)

Thanks for the response

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Carl for his well thought-out response. It's not every day that busy entrepreneurial CEOs take time out of their schedules to address the unwashed internet masses.

I think this project has a lot of potential. I'm always surprised at the attitude people have that "well, I wouldn't buy it, therefore it's not a good product." News flash, folks: there are market segments you are not a part of. Just because not everyone would buy something doesn't mean no one will. Judging from the number of preorders this has gotten (and knowing many general aviation pilots who would leap at an opportunity to own something like this), I would say it has been very well received.

And he's right about the timing. While carbon fiber technology has existed for a long time now, it is just now gaining traction in general-purpose manufacturing, and the economies of scale are bringing the price down to the point where products can be built with it for roughly the same cost as some other materials. The convergence of affordable composite manufacturing and a new type of sport-plane license have finally made this type of vehicle possible.

The licensing programs for general aviation are much more strict than they are for automobiles. If this vehicle inspires regular car drivers to get their VFR licenses, I suspect the training will also make them better drivers.

However, I don't envy the cost of Terrafugia's product certification program. This vehicle needs to be certified to both FAA and NHTSA standards, which aircraft and automobile companies spend many millions on separately, just for the paperwork alone. Godspeed to the certification team!

Re:Just another energy-wasting toy for the rich

The same thing was said about the automobile, the telephone, etc. etc.

Re:Just another energy-wasting toy for the rich

From http://www.audiouk.com/vintage/telephone.htm [audiouk.com]

Bell's "speaking telephone" was not universally welcomed. Some people dismissed it as a scientific toy of little value. Others saw it as an invasion of privacy. However, the telephone began to make its way into society, catching the public imagination.

From http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs/559/Lesson-1-Stick-With-It.html [evancarmichael.com]

"Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to being again," said Ford. "One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities." Even before Ford founded his own motor company, his numerous experiments often led him down the path of failure. Working in a small wooden shack next to his farmhouse, Ford spent years attempting to perfect his automobile design. In one such case, Ford built a steam car that did successfully propel itself, but its kerosene-heated boiler proved too dangerous for it to be driven. "But, I did not give up the idea of a horseless carriage," he said, which at first was considered "merely a freak notion and many wise people explained with particularity why it could never be more than a toy."

Next clueless AC response?

Re:Just another energy-wasting toy for the rich

Building crap just because selfish rich people are wasteful enough to make you wealthy providing them with useless toys is nothing to be proud of.

- But it is the American way!

Re:Just another energy-wasting toy for the rich

I earn my living trying to add my little contribution to advance society through material science, and I, for one, welcome our selfish rich people overlords.

I welcome the rich pensioners that bought Mercedes cars with airbags in the 80's, so that development by Mercedes could be financed and now you get life-saving airbag in even the smallest cars.

I welcome the yuppies that bought the first aluminum bikes, costing probably several thousand dollars back then, but now anyone can have a bike that is light and doesn't rust.

I welcome the showoffs that wanted a mobile phone in the early 90s, so now wireless technology is cheap enough to be used in third world countries, and get people connected.

Should I go on? Advances, especially in materials, are often sustainable because of some marginal hobbies of rich people. They want the lightest and strongest, even when it is actually not needed for their cause (do fishing rods really need to be made out of carbon-fiber?). But the amount of money that they want to invest can keep small innovative companies alive. In the end, we all win.

Re:Just another energy-wasting toy for the rich

REally? The RICH like to tout that their home automation systems save energy. I am a Crestron programmer, I design, install and program the most expensive systems for the upper rich. My sales force use the bullshit line that it saves energy and all the other crap. In reality it does not. The soft start (2 second fade on or off) that the rich people so adore and the underlying technology is 100% incompatible with efficient lighting systems. CFL lamps do not work in a Crestron,Vantage or lutron systems (No X10 and the crap you buy at "smarthome" is NOT home automation.) Most of the modules/switches, if it's a retrofit, consume 12-15 watts in the off state EACH! A typical small 3400 sq foot summer cottage (Yes that is small to these people) that has automation will have a $100.00 a month electric bill with everything turned off and set for the "away for the winter" mode. To these people $4.00 a gallon gas is not even a issue worth talking about. The current 10,000 SQ foot home we are finishing has 3 200amp electric services coming into the main home to meet it's needs. I am controlling 11,000 watts of lighting. Yes LIGHTING not equipment but just the freaking lights and every one of those will have a good old 60-80Watt tungsten element light bulb. My equipment racks will use 15 of the 20 amps it is given 24/7.

Energy is incredibly dirt cheap to the rich. They dont want hybrids, they want a sexy exclusive car with 1000hp. (Bugatti Veryon) They want a comfortable estate with expanses of elegant green grass that takes a ton of water to keep green. and they burn more electricity in their home than what 10 homes use.

Energy or transportation efficiency does not come from the toys of the rich. These innovations come from scientists, entrepreneurs, and yes some of the rich that want to give back to society by financing grand and foreward ideas. Like the New york subway, Space Ship 1, etc....

Done even think that the rich are playing with high efficiency items and they will trickle down. They dont. They play with their exclusive devices and then sometimes finance efficient things.

Re:frost piss

The moment that flying cars become available, I will start a business selling reinforced roofs.

Re:frost piss

There was that design of two propellers turning in opposite directions with opposed angles, so as to create a blowing air column that takes the "flying saucer" off the ground.

Two words. Gas mileage. Show me any verticle fan craft, carrying 4 adults, that gets anywhere near the gas mileage of any normal car on the road.
Using engine power to hold the craft up is the antithesis of obtaining reasonable mileage.

Now add a gyroscope to that and a second safety thing and a third, so it's impossible to get it upside-down

Hand-waving those hard parts away doesn't make it any easier.
For any type of non-airport ops, we need 6" precision in a heavy crosswind. Why 6"? That's what you do in your car in a parking lot. Not getting upside down is only part of the problem. You have to come down sometime.

Maintenance. A LOT of cars on the road are spectacularly badly maintained. Do you want those same clowns flying overhead, ready to break down?

Re:frost piss

Moller claims to get about 18 mpg on ethanol with his M400 volantor, despite it's seemingly fuel-hungry 8 engines. I think he's cheating, though, since he's only actually built a 2-passenger model, and he hasn't flown it off the tether yet, let alone FAA-certified production models.

Re:frost piss

I think he's cheating because he's never flown the thing 18 miles to prove it, much less at 350 miles per hour for a full tank of fuel. The proposed fuel economy means nothing if there isn't even a demo model which can demonstrate the actual profile is feasible.

Re:frost piss

You put in a ballistic parachute. They're common among experimental aircraft enthusiasts.

They're not practical for commercial airliners due to square/cube problems however economies of scale make other enhancements more practical in that regime.

And.. Oh, Terrafugia's design does call for one. Big surprise there. IOW, unless your regularly inspected and certified safety system fails, you're not going to die from poor maintenance in other areas, although if it's anything like skydiving, you might just lose your license for a period if negligence is the reason for parachute deployment.

Re:I predicted the demise of Tesla in 3 years

The U. S. has collapsed economically ...

I'm sorry, but you're confusing what you want with the actual state of affairs. Why you want it to be that way is a little mysterious, but your ability to confuse it with reality suggests just the sort of disconnect that might drive you to want to see a failed economy, the better to justify your world view.

... and Slashdot covers flying cars.

I'll have to check, but I assume you make the same exact complaint when Slashdot talks about new video boards, hair-splitting differences between Linux distros, the space program, squabbles over pirated movies and music, 4D rubik's cubes, what China does with web filtering, sailing robots, and whether or not Google is obscuring people's faces in Street View? Nah, I won't check, because I'm sure you did.

Re:I predicted the demise of Tesla in 3 years

You may as well be complaining about the cost of diamonds and moaning that since a hard working Amercian can only afford a few three foot diamonds these days the economy is clearly collapsing.

most people would be happy to trade cars, just they don't have the cash to

Heh, right. Lots of $1000 cars will get 35MPG, your ego just refuses to be seen in them -- you want the trendy status symbol Prius. The same way you refuse to live within 100 miles of where you work, and then complain about gas prices, as though they're the problem.

I'd love to see $8/gallon gas. I spend about $20/month on gas, even on my small income doubling that is a non-issue.

Cars themselves are luxury items, of course, and you're perfectly capable of living in a city and using public transit like most of the world.

Re:I predicted the demise of Tesla in 3 years

Wow... talk about negative.

first off, there are plenty of solutions to the "energy crisis". What type of make believe fiticious crap world are we living in where if economics force us to change it's the End Of The World.

1. Solution #1 - switch to an alternate form of energy. There are a ton of options. The last time I checked the sun was still shining and we can still get power from it. Be it solar, wind, or nuclear, there are a ton of options. Why don't we do this? Because the economics don't say we should. Oil is still cheap, but The *second* oil becomes too expensive, there will be a ton of alternate energy sources available to tap. The only reason we don't do it is becuase oil is STILL too cheap.

2. We can also *gasp* change the way we live. Shit, I know i waste plenty of energy. Heating air conditioning... hot water in the mornings, driving to work, pure wastage. How can I get away with wasting energy? Simple, it's cheap. it's less than 5% of my total income so I don't give a crap. I pay roughly 6x that on mortgage. Before the world falls apart, I'm sure we can adjust the way we live at least a tiny bit. But OMG, you may have to sell you SUV and buy a geo metro. Truely the end of the world.

BTW, I'd love to see soemthing backing up that statement about you needing more energy to create a solar panel than all the energy you will ever get out of it. Smells like slanted anti-alternative-energy BS to me, but if you got it from another article or source I'd be interested hearing their twisted logic OR I could even learn something and find out I'm wrong, but i highly doubt it on this issue. Perhaps you're thinking of Ethonal. Either way, source please.

The mortgage crisis.. I guess I don't give a shit. There aren't any losers here. You have gready companies who sold a lot of mortgages when times were good never considering that things may turn south because that might impact their current earnings portfolio. If some of them go belly up its no big shakes to me. I frankly think a few of them SHOULD be put out of business becuase if there was anyone in this mess who was at fault, it was them.

Then you have greedy homeowners who took crazy ass loans or "no paperwork required" loans. Look, buying a house is easily the single biggest investment of your life. If you don't run a few numbers through excel and say "does this make sense" then I don't really feel a lot of pity for you when you can't afford your house. It most likely means you overbought when you got the house (which most people do). But now you've lost your gamble so you have to declare bankruptcy and have to wait 7 years before you buy another house. It's not the end of the world. It sucks, but you took a gamble because housing prices were going up and up and everybody but you was getting rich but you... and now the bubble's burst.

The US is a strong country and we can survive all of these things. The world is not coming to an end. The sky is not falling.

Thank you, but I'll save my pity for a bunch of children who died when their school's clasped after the earthquake in China or other people who actually deserve it.

don

Re:I predicted the demise of Tesla in 3 years

Prove me wrong on this.

Since you asked...

1: There is absolutely -ZERO- events causing the gas and oil spikes...

We're AT WAR in the MIDDLE EAST. War means chaos. Chaos means production becomes unsteady. Unsteady production means LOWER SUPPLY.

Also...

CHINA and INDIA are ENTERING THE MODERN AGE. That means they want cars, and power plants, and other things that burn oil. Half the world starting to do what Americans have done for a century means INCREASED DEMAND.

You know what happens when you LOWER SUPPLY or INCREASE DEMAND? Yep. Prices go up. And this isn't even mentioning Peak Oil.

2: Congress is absolutely powerless to do anything to stop it,

The price of oil? Pretty much. Congress also can't stop hurricanes. What's your point?

the current administration just plain doesn't care about the American people in any way.

Actually, they do. Every single elected offical in Washington cares deeply about their country--the Republicans just think we're better off if they leave us to fend for ourselves, even if some of us starve. (Are you starving?)

Even if Congress try to do something, how can they pay for it? Sell war bonds to China? The US is bankrupt.

The US is FAR from bankrupt. China's only where they are in the world because we're allowing them to grossly distort the currency exchange, because we want them to work for peanuts. Push comes to shove, we can just sue in the WTO and slap a Tarrif on investments and production from China.

3: The dollar is rapidly losing ground against every single currency in the world. The only reason that the dollar buys what it does is because people believe in it... and people are not anymore.

Odd. I still get paid in dollars, and they purchase enough goods for me to go back to work tomorrow.

The dollar won't be the uber-currency of the 21st century. Good. Hegemony is boring, and Americans suck in a boring world.

4: There are no solutions to the energy crisis. Nuclear plants are not going to be built anytime soon, nuclear fusion is a joke to keep tokamaks funded, even though there have been -zero- advances in fusion since the laser was invented. Solar is a joke because it costs more to make a solar panel than what energy it ever gets through its useful life. Wind, geothermal, are only useful in rare areas. Pretty much, the US lives and dies on coal and oil... and cars don't burn coal.

"no solutions": I suppose you're right. We'll never go back to $1 a gallon gasoline. Shucks. But we knew this was coming twenty years ago.

Nuclear: Plans are on the tables, Greenpeace's founder is endorsing Nuclear... sorry, there will be new plants built or chartered by the next Presidential Election. Maybe before this one.

Fusion: I won't even dignify this with more than "you're wrong."

Solar: Ok, in small batches, for small device use, in the northeast, a photovotalic cell takes more energy to create than it will produce in its lifetime. But (1) they get significantly cheaper with larger batches and technology improvements, (2) they last longer in larger installations, and with increased tech, which increases their total energy output, (3) in some places (deserts) they pay-off in less than five years already, (4) photovotalic isn't the only means of solar power. Reflected-light to melt salt or boil water works pretty damn well.

Wind: Wind blows everywhere, some places essentially constantly. Couple a wind farm with a flywheel, and you can produce pretty damn good power. Essentially anywhere in the United States. Not eveywhere, but hardly "rare" for any meaningful definitions of that word.

It's Economics, stupid: Let me put this a little bit more clearly. Wind, Geothermal, Wave, Solar, and Nuclear lose out to oil and coal for electricity generation because the latter are so god damn cheap. The same reason that biofuel needs subsidies to crack it (even if they're stupidly targeted.) The fact is that, given expensive enough crude oil, other forms of power become downright cheap. The effective upper price of oil is capped, essentially, by the cost of creating artificial crude. Oil's at $120 now, but if it reaches $200 -- about where it would have to be for $6-$8 unleaded -- you'll see artificial crude created, produced, and sold as "natural" crude.

5: The mortgage crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Its only going to be a matter of time before banks start having to be bailed left and right, just like in the 1980s... and unlike the 1980s, there isn't money to fund the FDIC.

Banks fail due to fraud and mismanagement. Don't expect banks to fail -- expect investors to lose money. That's about as far as the direct effects will go. Remember that the mortage crisis, statistically, is still slight enough that serious people can argue that it's not worth regulatory action, based JUST on the historical comparison.

6: The present attitude is "Yo, Joe Sixpack... sell your SUV and buy a Prius"... yep, demanding other people conserve, even through most people would be happy to trade cars, just they don't have the cash to. Conservation is a nice feel good thing, but its not an energy policy. Again, like #4, there is -zero- interest by the government in energy, or breakthroughs in alternative energy sources that will provide more than piecemeal help.

"Joe Sixpack" should sell his damn SUV. I sold my van for a car that gets almost twice the fuel economy.

As for the government's interest... who the hell do you think pays for fusion research?

The US is just like the USSR was in 1990. Its bankrupt, but the economic collapse hasn't propagated yet, just like (and to use a bad car example), pulling the alternator with the battery in the circuit doesn't mean the vehicle dies immediately, although it will just be a matter of time until the battery dies. What will be the turning point is when the stock market takes a serious dive, and the Dow heads under 7000.

The USSR did not have a free market, and was unable to feed people who did everything right.

In the United States, a high school dropout can find enough wages to pay for food and lodging in about twenty hours a week. He'll eat better than some four billion people in the world, and complain about not having LUXURY GOODS.

Sheesh.

If you had R'd TFA...

Dudes: If it flies it requires FAA certification. You may return to your crack pipes now.

If you had read the fine article you'd have seen that there were two major components to the answer for "Why now when it has always before been infeasible?":

  1) New materials make it technically feasible.

  2) New FAA regulations, creating a new class of aircraft (Light Sport) that's drastically easier to certify, makes it bureaucratically feasible.

I believe 2) completely answers your objection.

But thank you for playing.

Re:Well...

A "drivable airplane" makes sense.

I'm not entirely sure I agree (and yes, I am a pilot). In town, the drag of a car isn't a real big issue; at speeds of less than 30MPH, wind resistance is pretty minimal. At highway speeds of ~60MPH you've quadrupled the drag, and at typical general aviation aircraft speeds of 120MPH, you have 16 times more drag for a given shape and area than at commuter speeds. Consequently, a six foot wide car in town doesn't matter; at flight speeds, the drag of a six foot wide vehicle is pretty significant. That's why the Cessna 152 (a small trainer) is only something like 39 inches wide -- the narrower the fuselage, the less drag. A Cessna 172, a step up from the 152, is only about three inches wider than a 152, and most light single engine airplanes don't get *much* wider than that (I don't recall off-hand how wide a Cessna 206 or 207 -- the biggest single-engine piston airplanes Cessna makes -- are).

What does this have to do with how much sense a drivable airplane makes? Well, the drawings of Terrafugia's design show a vehicle with a cross-section much like a car. It's rather wide, presumably for road stability and passenger comfort. Unfortunately, this makes a poor aircraft design because of the much greater speeds at which even a light sport airplane flies. Terrafugia is claiming some pretty impressive fuel economy numbers for their car, but I'm skeptical. I own a two-place tandem airplane (http://www.gecko-ak.org/N600LW/ [gecko-ak.org]); it's about as skinny as an airplane can get, meaning its flat-plate area is pretty minimal, and therefore it's drag should be pretty minimal as well. I burn about 4.5 gallons per hour at 60 MPH. That works out to 13 miles per gallon -- better than my Nissan Frontier, but not by much. I sincerely doubt Terrafugia will get 26-27 mpg, as they claim, in a wider vehicle, at twice the speed of my airplane.

Re:Well...

I'm a pilot as well, if that somehow qualifies one to speak in this discussion. Anyway, you seem hung up specifically on mileage / air resistance. So let me point out a few things:

1) A Cessna 152 (a 30+ year old plane) burns ~6 GPH at 111 knots (Vno), which is about double the fuel mileage of your plane and is quite in line with Terrafugia's numbers. It would seem that your plane just gets poor mileage.

2) Yes, air resistance is exponential, it's relative to the square of the speed - your math is correct. But drag at 30 mph is VERY low, so just saying "16 times that" doesn't mean much. Secondly, to get actual drag you also need to consider drag coefficient and frontal surface area. Frontal surface area is two dimensions - you seem only focused on narrowness. The plane in the article is wide - but it's also a lower profile than "normal" planes. We'd have to have more specific dimensions to know if the overall frontal surface area is more or less than an equivalent plane. Third, as I mentioned above the drag coefficient comes into play. Aerodynamics have come a long way since Cessna's were designed and since your Falcon was designed (20+ years). If you can sufficiently reduce the coefficient, you can increase surface area and end up with the same amount of drag or even less.

Re:Well...

I'd reinforce your point #1 with the Rutan Long EZ which does 160 Knots (184 MPH) at about 5.1 GPH, for an astonishing 36 MPG at just shy of 200 miles per hour - even my [wikipedia.org]trusty, highly reliable, and economical Saturn SL2 [wikipedia.org] only gets about 30 MPG on the freeway! (at 80 MPH) And, unlike the 152, which is based on technology first developed in the mid 1950s, the Long EZ owes its legacy back to the early 1970s.

(Yes, you read that right - the C152 airframe was only minimally changed in 1977 as a tweak of the previous, highly successful 150)

It strikes me as quite appropriate that 21st Century technology would provide a significant improvement in capability/price/performance, when developed by current, high-quality engineers.

BTW, Burt Rutan is a legend in the field. You might know his company Scaled Composites [wikipedia.org] which won the Ansari X-Prize [wikipedia.org]. He's a legend in the field. Not only did he build an experimental aircraft design that outperformed other designs by a factor of 2 or more in speed, while halving fuel burn, he did so with a design that's relatively cheap and easy to build.

Some people like Rutan and Al Mooney [wikipedia.org] just seem to "get it right" when it comes to aircraft design, and they do it over, and over, and over again. The Mooney Mark 20 is a line of high performance, high reliability, cheap, complex aircraft that provide solid performance, excellent safety and great economy. The Mooney Mark-20 line (there have been lots culminating in the current "Ovation") is one of the few GA single-engine airplanes with a proper "crash cage" resulting in excellent safety numbers - you are half as likely to die (per mile of flight) while flying a Mooney in IFR conditions than the industry average.

A good indicator of airplane efficiency is its glide ratio - how far it moves forward for every foot dropped without power. The first number is the distance you move forward, the second number is is how far you drop. It's a ratio, and the higher the first number relative to the second, the better. A Mooney has a glide ratio of about 13:1, while a Cessna does about 7:1. A long EZ or a VariEZE can do anywhere from 15:1 to 20:1, a Boeing 767 did about 12:1 in the famous Gimli Glider incident [wikipedia.org]. Many ultralights do as badly as 3:1.

Can they do it? I'm quite sure they can. As soon as I can afford one, I'll probably buy. (It'll take me a few years, which is fine, since they won't be ready and tested by the "early adopters" for a few years, anyway)

I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want I want !!!!!!

Re:Walk around inspections

The main checks are to see if your pitot tube(tells you air speed) is working and not full of junk, check your tires for wear, check brakes for leaks, check wings for dents or other damage, check your fuel to make sure it's actually full and your gauge is correct, check that your control surfaces move freely, check propellor for damage, etc. I'm not a pilot yet but these are most of the things you visually inspect. Tell me any computer that could do all that for you. You are right that if you just landed an hour ago that not much has changed most likely and you *can* skip the checks if you want. It's your life, just don't take up any one else if you crash or don't aim for people on the ground when you run out of fuel.