BiPod Takes Off The BiPod roadable aircraft takes off at a test runway in Mojave, Calif. Click through to Aviation Week for more photos. Scaled Composites/Aviation Week exclusive
Posted on 07/19/2011 12:39:08 PM PDT by Red Badger
Peep this new roadable aircraft, the last creation of legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan. Scaled Composites unveiled their new flying car to Aviation Week this week.
The Model 367 BiPod is a dual-fuselage, hybrid electric car-plane, which engineers at Scaled took from a preliminary design to first flight in just four months. It made its maiden trip March 30, just before Rutan’s official retirement. The company says it has made several short jaunts off the runway at Mojave, Calif., building up enough speed with the drive train to take off without propellers, which have not been installed yet.
The roadable aircraft, which in typical Rutan fashion looks bizarre and awesome, will have two 450cc engines, one for each twin fuselage. The driver/pilot will get in the left-hand cockpit to drive, and get in the right-hand cockpit to fly, Aviation Week explains.
On the roadways, the engines will power two driving wheels on each fuselage; in the air, the engines will drive four 15kW propellers, one on each wing and one on each tail. Lithium batteries in each nose will provide an added boost for takeoff and will recharge in flight.
In car mode, it can go 820 miles on tank of gas and 35 miles on batteries alone.
Click through to AvWeek for the full specs and lots of photos, including an image of what the car-plane hybrid will look like when the wings are removed and stowed under the fuselages.
Scaled showed off the BiPod to gauge interest in further development, AvWeek says. Um, yes, please.
BiPod Takes Off The BiPod roadable aircraft takes off at a test runway in Mojave, Calif. Click through to Aviation Week for more photos. Scaled Composites/Aviation Week exclusive
well that’s not gonna go down a crowded freeway too good.
That’s not a flying car. It’s a plane.
Hard to see how this is a flying car. What qualifies it as a car, a drivetrain?
took from a preliminary design to first flight in just four months.
That’s more remarkable then the idea.
Though I would call this more of a drivable airplane then a flying car.
powered drive wheels, I believe
Maybe not. But the bipod design should cut down on family arguments. :-)
There have been a number of attempts for a flying car. The best know might be the Aerocar designed and built by Moulton Taylor. Info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocar
Actor Bob Cummings had one of these and was a pilot himself, taught flying during W.W. II, and used this flying car in a TV show he had that I still remember.
It could drive on the highway and could covert to a plane in 5 mintues. It was simplicity itself.
Too much visibility. Imagine the gesturing that can go on, when one is safely ensconced in a pod.
Than.
Hey, say that it’s a “green” automobile, and sell the idea to the folks in Salinas, California!
The article implies that the wings are removable and stowable under (or on?) the center part. They’d have to be.
That’s vintage Rutan, all right. Brilliant, but way way way outside the “box.”
}:-)4
That sucker would kick some serious butt on the freeway!
I wonder how well it handles in 10 inches of snow.......
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