Posted on 06/29/2010 12:42:45 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
The Terrafugia Transition, a light aircraft that can convert into a road-legal automobile, is to go into production after being given a special weight exemption by the US Federal Aviation Administration.
The Transition was designed as a "light sport" aircraft, the smallest kind of private aeroplane under FAA classification, with a maximum weight of 1,320lb. But the manufacturers found it impossible to fit the safety features - airbags, crumple zones and roll cage, for instance - that are required for road vehicles into that weight.
Uniquely, however, the FAA has granted the Transition an exemption - allowing it to be classified as a light sport aircraft despite being 120lb over the limit.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
kewllll ... I want one!
I’ll wait out for a Dick Tracy anti- gravity flying trash can...(cheaper and less road rash in the event of a forced landing...)
All those people in the 50s who envisioned we’d all by driving flying cars by now forgot to take into account a micromanaging government bureaucracy that killed the possibility due to over-regulation.
If this thing barely makes the weight with modern materials now, they didn’t have a chance in previous decades.
I live near a municipal airport. These things catch on and I’m building a bunker in the back yard.
The Jetsons had one decades ago.
Remember: if the government attempts to ban Vulcan cannons on flying cars, only get-away flying cars will have Vulcan cannons
I do believe that, should all this materialize, the “flying cars” will be restricted to certain smaller airfields, due to their “LSA” status. besides, who in their right mind, would want to drive to, say, Chicago’s O’Hare Internationl Airport, to fly anywhere? O’Hare is a zoo on a normal day.
460 miles isn’t much. It won’t get you half way across Texas.
With all of the doofus's we have behind the wheel of a car these days, now we want to arm them with flying suicide missiles? No thanks!
Terrafugia’s own website admits that it can only be used like a regular airplane:
Cannot legally take off or land anywhere but airports.
But you can drive it to and from the airport on city streets.
The Moller Skycar has been in development for many years! It has been test flighted and is offered for $500,000 but it won't be available any time soon since it flys itself and they haven't completed that part of the software!
I want one! I’ve wanted a hovercraft for a long time, but this would work too!
Flying car or house...flying car or house....
Hrmmm
Cure for the Mid-life Crisis..........
Looks like a bad compromise, resulting in a poor plane and a poor car.
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