Latest news from the United States is that American firm Terrafugia has taken a step closer to making a viable flying car a reality, after the firms engineers successfully test-flew a street legal car-plane.
The Massachusetts based firm said their production prototype ‘Transition’ car-plane had successfully carried out an eight minute test flight, with the intent of legally clearing the way for the aircraft to be available in the market within a year.
In road-going mode the Transition’s driven by a regular petrol engine that powers its front wheels to achieve fuel consumption of 6.7lt/100km.
The same motor also drives the vehicle’s rear push-propeller. In flight it can manage 185 km/h and its 87 litre fuel tank has a 780 kilometre range. Spanning 2.3 metres wide it is designed to fit inside a standard garage. The wings can fold and deploy at the press of a button spanning out to eight metres where the car-plane needs 520 metres of ‘runway’ for take-off.
The craft has regular car type access doors, avionics glass all round, with the automotive design continued into the vehicle’s crash safety structures.
With a gross take off weight of 650 kg once airborne, the car-plane can cruise at 172km/h at 10km per litre. As an added safety feature it has a full vehicle parachute that can be operated by the pilot.
To take advantage, owners in the United States will be required to have both a driver’s and Sports pilot’s licence, with a minimum of 20 hours of flying. The two-seater is expected to sell for around AUD $265,000 with 100 vehicles already on order.