World's first flying car on the roads from next year The vehicle can travel as much as 500 miles on a single tank of regular unleaded gasoline from a 20 gallon fuel tank. While its wings can be folded and you can park it at your house and even in your garage, You can’t just take off immediately as it isn’t a VTOL aircraft. VTOL means vertical take-off and landing The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months’ time. Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage. Carl Dietrich, who runs the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, said: “This is the first really integrated design where the wings fold up automatically and all the parts are in one vehicle.†The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air. Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph. Dietrich said he had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000). “For an airplane that’s very reasonable, but for a car that’s very much at the high end,†he conceded. There are still one or two drawbacks. Getting insurance may be a little tricky and finding somewhere to take off may not be straightforward: the only place in the US in which it is legal to take off from a road is Alaska. Dietrich is optimistic. He said: “In the long term we have the potential to make air travel practical for individuals at a price that would meet or beat driving, with huge time savings.
A world of flying cars coming. Any guess- how to control the flying traffic. No traffic lights, no policeman ? huh a different speeding world
I foresee savings on car parking, less walking. Savings on car rental, no paperwork time. If it becomes massive, people will want to have little airports at different corners of cities, think Los Angeles. Manhattan would have floating airports on the docks. There is already a cheaper thing for sky and road, a flying motorcicle, a gyrocopter really, almost VTOL. Will post it soon.
I am not sure if it would be safe to fly it. Its quite risky to drive on road, I don't know what would happen in air.
The news is definitely interesting, especially for those who wish to make adventures in the sky. At such prices, I don't know how many can afford it, that too in recession times?
So everyone is going to fly into the air like nobody business, who going to control traffic up there?
A flying car is one that is VTOL and not this. This is just like some ultralights, you can take the wings off. It is a crossover I guess you could say. Some ultralights you can take the wings off or fold them back but they cant drive down the road like this so....