The Flying Car

On Oct 12, 4:00 pm, "Mike Noel" wrote:
The first time I became aware of it was at OSH in 2006. I think the current
prediction for availability is around 2009.

http://www.terrafugia.com/index.html

That's not impressive. Its just a small airplane with a 550lb useful
load that happens to have bigger wheels. The future air/car things
were suppose to not require a pilot, etc.

-Robert

In article .com,
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

On Oct 12, 4:00 pm, "Mike Noel" wrote:
The first time I became aware of it was at OSH in 2006. I think the current
prediction for availability is around 2009.

http://www.terrafugia.com/index.html

That's not impressive. Its just a small airplane with a 550lb useful
load that happens to have bigger wheels. The future air/car things
were suppose to not require a pilot, etc.

-Robert

It looks as if the aerodynamicists have been on break too long! There
are several areas of major interference drag; structure looks iffy, too.

All previous attempts have resulted in an inferior car coupled with an
inferior plane -- or worse!

I have little faith in this one, either.

On Oct 12, 7:47 pm, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:
On Oct 12, 4:00 pm, "Mike Noel" wrote:

The first time I became aware of it was at OSH in 2006. I think the current
prediction for availability is around 2009.

http://www.terrafugia.com/index.html

That's not impressive. Its just a small airplane with a 550lb useful
load that happens to have bigger wheels. The future air/car things
were suppose to not require a pilot, etc.

-Robert

If they manage to get a 550 pound useful load, I will be very
surprised. That would mean an empty weight of 770 pounds. And that
is with a transmission to drive the wheels on the ground, a stiff
enough chassis for driving on the ground, steering, suspension,
airbags, and of course the mechanism to fold the wings. This is in
addition to all the normal aircraft equipment.

Phil