"Christopher" wrote in message ...
There was a design for an inflatable car years ago it was quit good.

If it was only "moderately good," the way we buy junk, it'd be on the
market. "Quite good" would make it an overwhelming success. If it's
not on the market at all, it was "quite" junk. Maybe had a couple
good features, but not enough that people would buy it, or we'd see
them all over the place.

KJSDCAUSA



"Ken Sandyeggo" wrote in message
om...
(sanman) wrote in message
. com...
I was reading about inflatable wings:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/plane...-wing-01a.html
http://www.ilcdover.com/EngineeredInfl/inflatwing.pdf

and I wondered why these couldn't be implemented as rotor
configuration, for a
"flying car" type of vehicle -- ie. a car that could instantly convert
to helicopter flight.

If you look back at those older Hiller helicopters, they had big,
thick, rigid aluminum rotors:

http://avia.russian.ee/vertigo/hiller_x-2-235-r.html
http://avia.russian.ee/vertigo/hiller_xh-44-r.html

An inflatable equivalent might be somewhat thicker and yet not be so
rigid, and would not have the high mass penalty.

So you'd be riding a sort of lightweight automotive vehicle along the
road, and you could switch to helicopter mode, with inflatable rotors
popping out on the top of your vehicle. Your engine would then power
the rotors, and you'd fly away. Once you landed again, the deflated
rotors would be tucked back into whatever compartment they'd popped
out from.

Cmon, there are all kinds of wierd-looking lightweight concept cars
out there, so why not this? What would be the main difficulties with a
concept like this?

Getting anyone to stop laughing long enough to think about it. Are
you related to Moller?

KJSDCAUSA