Carplane

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The Carplane © Carplane GmbH
Carplane®
legal form GmbH
founding March 7, 2011
Seat Braunschweig
management Angela Fleck (Management)
Number of employees 10 (2010)
Branch Air and road vehicles
Website Carplane GmbH

The Carplane GmbH is a company based at Braunschweig airport that since 2011, partly with the support of public funds from the EU and the state of Lower Saxony , the flying car Carplane® developed. Carplane® GmbH is a spin-off from Fleck Future Concepts GmbH in Munich. Carplane® GmbH was founded at the Braunschweig Research Airport in 2011 and deals exclusively with flight car technology and has largely completed the approval process at the Braunschweig Research Airport at the Federal Aviation Office in 2020 . The Carplane® has a top speed of 176 km / h as a car and 210 km / h as an aircraft. Compared to most other flying taxis, Carplane has a petrol engine to fly. There is space for two people in the Carplane and it should cost less than 100,000 euros.

history

In 1982 the operations manager of Carplane GmbH and the inventor of the Carplane®, the Australian John Brown, heard a conversation between the former Formula 1 world champion Jack Brabham and Luigi Pelarini, who had already designed a flying car in the 1940s. When he heard these two experts talking shop as a flight student in the hangar of Jack Brabham at the airport in his hometown Sydney , Brown was so impressed that from that point on he developed the technical concept for the Carplane and applied for the first patents. A number of technical problems had to be overcome, such as weight distribution and engine cooling. In addition, the roadworthy aircraft could not be wider than the internationally prescribed 2.60 meters. As with a catamaran , Brown relied on a double hull, in which the driver and a passenger sit in separate cabins, and on an extendable tail unit. For aerodynamic reasons, the wings were positioned at an angle to the ground between the fuselages and can be swiveled out if necessary. "Converting from a car to an airplane or vice versa will take 15 seconds at the airport - practically like a convertible, " Brown announced. Brown financed the construction of the prototype himself and exhibited his Carplane® at the Hanover Fair in 2011 . In 2015 the Carplane® was presented in driving mode at the Aero in Friedrichshafen at the state of Lower Saxony's stand . On October 4th, 2019, Carplane® completed the last ground tests. In January 2020, the Carplane® was approved for testing by the Federal Aviation Office.

Product carplane

The Carplane® from Carplane GmbH is a bimodal air / ground convergence vehicle with a double-hull vehicle construction and integrated swivel blades . As a motor vehicle, it is 5.15 meters long, 2.26 m wide and weighs 650 kilograms. It is approved as a quad and light aircraft , for which a sport flying license with 20 flight hours is required in the USA. With the help of the four electric wheel hub motors, it reaches a speed of 170 km / h. In the air, the carplane is powered by a 130 hp petrol engine and reaches a maximum flight speed of 210 km / h. Within 15 seconds, the car turns into an airplane. It took 30 years until the Carplane® design with good driving and flight performance was established. It is the goal of Carplane® to make a start in closing the gap between flying and driving.

According to the former airline pilot Brown, the flying car is an environmentally friendly alternative to the car that is suitable for everyday use. With it, it should be possible to shop at the bakery before taking off from the nearest small airport. Statistically speaking, there is a small airport every 46 kilometers in Germany. "The carplane should drive at least as well as a compact car and it should fly at least as well as a training aircraft," says John Brown.

The Carplane® should be made of fiber-reinforced plastics and weigh 600 kilograms. It will have two engines - an electric motor for the car and a gasoline engine for the air. On the road, the vehicle should be a maximum of 176 kilometers per hour, in the air 120 kilometers per hour. For safety reasons, separate controls are provided for the cockpit : a steering wheel for the road and a joystick for the air. The user will need both a driver's license and a pilot's license for light aircraft, and the vehicle must also be registered twice. The price for the Carplane should initially be around 200,000 euros. However, it could drop well below 100,000 euros in series production.

The market potential

“The market potential for his Carplane® is difficult to estimate at the moment. There's no such thing as a vehicle yet, ”says Brown. He points to a serious competitor: The US company Terrafugia already has considerable pre-orders for a flying car with a different wing technology that is to come onto the market. "Our first target group are amateur pilots and passionate drivers," Brown describes his potential customers. With the Carplane he is addressing business people who do not want to be stopped by disabilities on the road: “Every traffic jam expands my market.” When he first presented his project at the Hanover Fair 2011, the interest mainly came from visitors from congested megacities. The convergence of flying and driving has an immediate “business case” for sport aviators. The hobby aircraft serves as a second car and is stored in the home garage free of charge. It is particularly important for safety that trips on the road can be continued in bad weather. Despite numerous small airfields, small aircraft fail as a means of transport on the “last mile” (i.e., the short distance from the airfield to the destination). The roadworthiness of the Carplane® solves this problem. For business travelers over a distance of 200 to 1200 km, the business case is that it saves both money and time compared to cars and airliners - especially in areas where conventional transport options are currently succumbing to traffic congestion.

Awards

  • Idea 2011, 2011 (Prize of the Braunschweig Project Region and Wolfsburg AG)
  • German Innovation of the Month June 2011, (Prize of the German Science and Innovation Houses (DWIH))

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patrick Holland-Moritz: Carplane: Redefining the flying car. In: aerokurier.de. April 15, 2015, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Carplane - upward mobility. Accessed February 7, 2020 (German, English).
  3. ↑ Oguz Calli: Interview Mr. Brown - Part 1: History of the flying cars. In: cashkurs.com. January 23, 2017, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Five air taxis from Germany and Austria. In: researchly.info. May 24, 2019, accessed February 7, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Cars should learn to fly in Braunschweig. In: waz-online.de. dpa, May 23, 2011, accessed on February 7, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c Unique Selling Points. In: carplane.de. Retrieved February 7, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Thilo Spahl: "Flying cars are more efficient than moving cars". In: novo-argumente.com. December 14, 2018, accessed February 7, 2020 .