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News, Move over, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The FAA has approved a small plane that can also double as a car. Drivers can zip down the road in the two-seat Terrafugia Transition, wings folded, at a respectable 30 miles per gallon. Upon arrival at an airport, the "roadable light sport" aircraft, weighing in at just over 1300 pounds, can be transformed into a flying machine.
Looks interesting. IF somehow I did manage to scrape together $194,000 for it, I would never live to fly it. My wife would have my head mounted on a pole in the front yard for spending that much on a vehicle
It's cool for the gadget nut who already has everything.
As a daily "driver" (does that term still apply?), it would make me too nervous to park the thing anywhere. Imagine the cavalier Nancy Northshore, preoccupied with a phone call and 3 screaming children, carelessly backing her dreadnought up into the stabilizer in a parking lot. Like a good citizen, she looks for "visible damage", then failing to find a mark, she takes off, not informing the owner/pilot, who also does not see any damage when doing preflight inspection.
Well, a bit of a misleading title. The FAA has only approved an exception to the maximum take off weight of the vehicle.
It's also not really a flying car but a "roadable aircraft". Such vehicles are usually both bad cars and bad airplanes. To make sure it is not a terrible airplane they made it a very basic car.
The idea is to be able to drive to and fom the airport if needed not to use it for a shopping trip.
I would not buy one unless I had a LOT of money and already owned a number of cars, boats and airplanes...
The idea of flying cars has been around since the Coolidge administration at least, I have a 1928 edition of Popular Mechanics that has an in depth article on a flying automobile which was "going to take the world by storm". I haven't seen too many examples of it lately (or any other flying car for that matter), but I digress; this is one recurring idea that I doubt will ever see full blown production in any form.
An older version of the flying car:
Original description: "Built by Jess Dixon of Andalusia, Alabama. Can fly forward, backward or straight up or hover in the air. Runs on road or flys (flies) across country. 40 H.P. motor, air cooled, speeds to 100 m.p.h."
Photo courtesy of Kobel Feature Photos (circa 1940)
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