April 4, 2012
Why the Skies Will Not Be Full of Flying Cars
Terrafugia recently flight-tested its prototype “roadable aircraft,” the Transition, accompanied by much media buzz about the next revolution in transportation [YAWN].
I applaud Terrafugia’s up-front marketing strategy: they have always marketed the Transition to pilots and those who are willing to earn a pilot’s license. The company has never claimed that road-ragers can untangle themselves from traffic jams by pressing a GO UP button in their Transitions and VTOL-ing up and away, like a scene from The Fifth Element.
But here’s the catch: All involved admit a flying car tends to combine the worst of both vehicles, so for $279,000, you get an underperforming car AND an underperforming airplane in one silly-looking vehicle. In its FAQs, Terrafugia notes, “If bad weather is encountered en route, the pilot can land and drive without worrying about ground transportation…”
Sounds nifty keen-o, but most pilots planning a cross-country flight will check the weather on their route, and prepare to file an instrument flight plan if need be; if they lack an instrument rating, they will schedule the flight for another day. I doubt they find much of an advantage in buying a so-so airplane with which they can land in case of bad weather and continue on in a so-so car. Why not just drive your car to the airport and fly your airplane, like pilots have done since dinosaurs roamed the earth? Not to be a Luddite, but If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, especially with a $279,000 patch kit.
On the other hand, Maverick, the ITEC flying car, does make sense for missionary pilots, the military, poaching patrols, and powerline surveys. It’s a straightforward all-terrain vehicle with a parasail-type wing in which one can navigate dunes and grassland and skim over floodplains or other deal-breakers — for about $90,000.
I’m not bad-mouthing Terrafugia: their hearts and minds are in the right place. It’s just that the idea of a flying car has been around for decades, and there’s a reason why we don’t have one by now: no market beyond novelty buyers.
I met Molt Taylor (inventor of the Aerocar flying car) back in the 1980s at Oshkosh. His point was that when you get to your destination airport, you likely weren’t at your destination. Rental cars aren’t always available at smaller town airports, either. His Aerocar was designed to get you from door to door.
From what I’ve read, one of the Big-3 automakers was planning to put his Aerocar into production. That’s when the bureaucrats stepped in. It was an airplane, so it had to meet all of the FAA requirements for design, production (the Aerocar was FAA certified) and licensing. But it was also a car, so it had to meet the (then) new requirements for 5 MPH bumpers and emissions along with a lot of other things that drove up the cost and weight. Weight is the enemy of all things that fly. Because the Aerocar towed the wings and tail section, it needed two license plates. In the end, the bureaucrats loaded up so many regulatory requirements that the production deal died. Molt didn’t have too many nice things to say about bureaucrats.
In the end, only about 5 Aerocars were ever made. There were 3 Model 1s (rather homely little things), one Model 2 and one Model 3. The only airworthy Aerocar is a Model 1 owned by a man based at my local airport. He also owns the Model 2. The other Model 1s are not airworthy (one is for sale for more than $2 million). The sole Model 3 is on display at Seattle’s excellent Museum of Flight. It’s actually kind of cute, kind of like an Opel GT with wings. When I look at it, I think of what might’ve been.
Comment by Larry J — April 5, 2012 @ 4:49 pm