Flying cars seem within reach (again)
17.05.12
The flying car is back, I mused aloud, cruising the Internet at low altitude.</p><p>“I didn’t know it was ever here,” responded the editor in the next cube.</p><p>Well she wouldn’t have. She wasn’t alive to see the cover of the February 1951 Popular Mechanics: a commuter in fedora and overcoat pushing his little yellow helicopter back into his garage, while a neighbor buzzed away in a red model, probably to get some milk for the kids’ supper. </p><p>We’ve been in love with the idea of leapfrogging the 5 o’clock rush for a long time.</p><p>A great many flying-car prototypes have been drawn up and some even constructed, including Hiller’s Aerial Sedan, resembling a Rambler with a double-boom fuselage. Try getting that into a downtown parking slot.</p><p>Now comes the Terrafugia Transition street-legal airplane. It’s a little behind schedule, but the production prototype recently completed a successful first test flight, and deliveries on nearly $30 million in advance orders should start next year.</p><p>One of these days, you’ll see this wing-folding, two-seater on the highway. Try not to gawk.</p><p>A Dutch company says its PAL-V has just flown successfully as well. This Personal Air Land Vehicle operates with built-in gyroplane technology, a sexy update of the one on Popular Mechanics’ cover.</p><p>“Now you can leave home and fly-drive to almost any destination! Avoid traffic jams and cross lakes, fjords, rivers or mountain ranges like an eagle. Land on the other side and drive in your own vehicle to your final destination. In uncontrolled airspace you are in full command of your own time and destiny,” says the promotional material by PAL-V Europe.</p><p>Fjords, huh? If I had one of those babies, I’d be crossing Mjercedes, Cjorvettes and Fjord Mustangs! I’d outfit some outside speakers to fly low and blast “Ride of the Valkryries” as payback for years of being numbed by the frog-sterilizing bass thumps emitted from all those low-riders.</p><p>News of both came within weeks of each other. As James Bond, who already encountered a villain in a flying car in 1974’s “The Man With the Golden Gun,” once said: “Once is coincidence. Twice is enemy action.” That was his way of saying things are getting serious. That and throwing a lamp in the tub to toast the thug.</p><p> So if we’re finally here, what’s taken so long? It’s been more than a half century. The transistor, space stations, personal computer, cellphone camera and home latte machine have all arrived to make our lives easier if a bit trickier technologically.</p><p>Come to think of it, personal jetpacks seem a bit behind schedule, too, but in the Super Bowl Acura commercial, Jay Leno had a “jetpack flying squirrel suit,” so apparently we’re getting close. </p><p>The sticker price for the Transition is $279,000, but, hey, just buy one less Rolls Royce Ghost. And it’s still much less than a Beechcraft Bonanza.</p><p>“We have just short of a hundred orders,” said Cliff Allen, vice president of sales. </p><p>Only a few came from the New York International Auto Show this month, he said, but the excitement there was uplifting.</p><p>Technology finally has caught up with the concept, he said, “to build something durable enough to be a car, but still light enough to be an airplane. That’s the reason this works. It’s 95 percent carbon fiber. All the hard points are titanium.”</p><p>The Transition, conceived and constructed by a core group from MIT, also takes advantage of state-of-the-art flight displays and GPS systems into which one feeds the desired destination. </p><p>“We’re not going to have many options,” Allen said. “Auto pilot and AC.” </p><p>That full vehicle parachute? </p><p>“At this point, that is standard equipment.”</p><p>Sadly, the craft cannot be zipped off I-35 or land on an office roof. The Transition needs 1,700 feet of runway to get over your house.</p><p>But major airlines use only a few of the nation’s 19,000 airports. At the same time, traditional small-aircraft production has plummeted, which leaves a huge niche at the many underutilized landing strips for the car/plane hybrid. </p><p>With jams on suburban taxiways seemingly just decades away, Lee Metcalfe, Johnson County Airport Commission director, admitted: “I really haven’t given it any thought. I don’t expect a large flock in here any time soon.”</p><p>He had heard of the Transition, though, and noted that one could leave southwest Johnson County and land at Wheeler Downtown Airport, where it would be folded up like origami to make the last leg to the office.</p><p>“There was a flying car produced in the ’60s,” Metcalfe recalled. “I think it was called Aerocar; a few of them were sold. I don’t think they flew all that well.” </p><p>Ah yes, the Taylor Aerocar. Six were built, but it did not go into production. One person could quickly assemble or dissemble it, but the wings and fuselage had to be towed behind.</p><p>With Terrifuga’s machine, the wings fold up in seconds with the push of a button. It does fit into a garage bay.</p><p>No, it cannot compact into a brief case, as did George Jetson’s transportation. And no, it will not make that weird little sound of propulsion. Get serious, please.</p><p>Both the Federal Aviation Administration and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have given their nods. The “Light Sport Aircraft” license only takes 20 hours of flight time and a simple test. </p><p>Terrafugia means to “escape the earth,” and the Woburn, Mass., company’s mission is “revolutionary, practical air and land vehicles that provide freedom, flexibility and fun to their loyal customers <span class="italic">.”</span></p><p> Aloft, a rear propeller pushes it up to 115 miles per hour, much better than the 65 below. It’s said to get about 35 miles per gallon on the road and burns about five gallons per hour in air. The tank holds about 20 gallons of regular unleaded, which is about a 500-mile range.</p><p>Flying cars are a staple in “Blade Runner,” “Total Recall” and every second science fiction film ever made. The DeLorean in the “Back to the Future” movies came with a time travel option, but that and undercoating are generally not recommended.</p><p>The futuristic, gleaming red fiberglass Moeller Skycar could fit into any of these flicks. This four-engine, vertical takeoff and landing craft was featured on “60 Minutes” seven years ago. The M400X has been refitted with more powerful engines since, but test flights continue to be canceled, fostering doubts the craft has a future.</p><p>Other concepts are Haynes Aero’s Skyblazer, a hybrid plane with a jet engine and two sets of hidden, folding wings, and the LaBiche FSC-1, which is similar, but not as slick. A personal air vehicle also was test flown last year by Carter Aviation Technologies in Texas, but it’s not meant for the road. </p><p>Expect to see the Dutch PAL-V in a future James Bond movie. No inside Hollywood scoop, but the thing is a natural. It’s black, so the bad guys would love it, too. </p><p>It can blast along at 100 miles per hour on land or in air. On the road, the rotors retract behind the cockpit. </p><p>The three-wheeler is more gyroplane than helicopter, in that the rotor is not powered by a motor, but by wind rushing through the device. So if the pusher engine conks out, just tilt her down and look for a small spot to settle. </p><p>Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass is a pilot, so he had not missed the news of the test flights, but his officers’ job description has not yet expanded to giving tickets in low-level air lanes.</p><p>“I suspect we probably will if we get a lot of flying cars,” he said with a chuckle. “It’ll be interesting to see what the landing distances are. I don’t know how all that would work.” </p><p>Funny thing is that Douglass lives in Morse Village Estates, which was classified as “Airport Estate Residential” right next to Johnson County Executive Airport on 151st Street. </p><p>“It originally was laid out to be an air park development with homes,” Douglass said. “Keep the aircraft in some hanger on their property and then they could taxi over to the airport.”</p><p>The idea apparently sold like a lead balloon. </p><p>“It’s interesting that these (new prototypes) are coming out when general aviation is going into decline,” he said. “People would have to realize that flying any airplane is not like driving a car. It’s not as forgiving. A small wreck in an airplane is rarely small.” </p><p>Commuters would have to behave better up there, Douglass said.</p><p>“Can you imagine the road rage?”
Source: Kansas City Star
Article by at 2011-02-17 17:47:35
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