I just had to show you all this flying car. This car/plane was recently approved by the FAA. It costs about $200,000. Technically, it's a canard style aircraft (the horizontal stabilizer is in front), with twin vertical stabilizers and an altogether interesting empennage. It is also a prop driven pusher aircraft that takes regular unleaded gasoline you would buy at the gas station. It's top speed is around 115 m.p.h. in the sky, and gets around 30 m.p.g. on the ground. It has a 20 gallon gas tank, giving it a range of around 460 miles. Additionally, the wings fold up for use on the road. Note they are longer and skinnier indicating a more efficient and stable platform (similar to a glider).
While in reality the vehicle is slightly over the weight limit for a Light Sport Aircraft, the FAA has granted it an exemption so it can qualify as such. This is critical as it then only requires 20 hours of practice to obtain a license.
Jetson's here we come!
That is Cool! I doubt it will ever catch on in mass, but it is still very awesome. It would be interesting to see what kind of social / other changes having widely used flying cars would cause. For example, I heard someone say that the real reason they thought we would never have flying cars is that we'd all have to go around wearing hard hats because of the aerial car crashes. We'll see. In any case, very cool.
ReplyDeleteI am holding out for the Moller skycar (see moller.com).
ReplyDeletejmb275,
ReplyDeleteI am all for being like the Jetsons. :) I think engineers accomplish some amazing feats so I'm glad you report this stuff.
I think if I was going to be an engineer I would really like to be an aerospace one.