Flying car
A flying car is a means of transportation that serves as both an aircraft and an automobile . Flying cars have been around since the mid-1930s in the form of experimental but functioning prototypes. A production in higher numbers, as well as legal regulations for the use there are not yet.
Definition of terms from other vehicles
In a narrower sense is a flying car one more passenger transportation means, both in combination: both an aircraft and a land vehicle , and that all the necessary on the ground facilities, so like any other car on urban and rural individual road participate. In this narrower sense, it is also referred to as a " roadable aircraft ".
In a broader sense, on the other hand, a flying car is any flying vehicle that transports several people “like a car”, ie from door to door through the air, even in the size of a car, but without wheels. A flying car in the broader sense must therefore unable to participate in traffic or simply reads this extended meaning "flying car" (English flying car ). This is the generic term for “roadworthy aircraft”.
However, this separation, which is made especially in the English-speaking world, is fuzzy and used inconsistently. In some cases, for advertising purposes, emphasis is placed on the grammatical difference between whether "car" or "airplane" represent the noun or the adjective of the entire word.
The term hovercar (English for "floating car") aimed at limiting property out after picking up only the ground effect , the air cushion effect or possibly other such. To be able to use forces close to the ground (e.g. magnetic or gravitational kind) that are hardly or not at all usable today . In the strict sense of the word, hovercars are not flying cars because they cannot fly high, but they cannot really “drive” either. In the broader sense of the term flying car, however, they would certainly fit if transport from door to door is possible and part of the route can be covered on the fly.
Aircraft foldable to the size of a car, such as B. the ICON A5 Folding Plane from ICON Aircraft are not always flying cars. The condition of being able to participate in road traffic is binding for a flying car in the narrower sense . And for the importance of a flying car in the broader sense , it needs a landing capability in the smallest of spaces right in front of any front door. A private airfield on the doorstep in the Australian outback does not meet this requirement, nor does a lake in front of the house if the aircraft cannot reach any other house with road access.
As a generic term, which also includes non-car-like, extremely small or one-person aircraft, the English term Personal Air Vehicle (English for "personal aircraft") was also created among the z. For example, the NASA concepts “Puffin” or “Spiral Duct”, but also one-person motorcycles such as those from Sky Cycle , are covered. The vehicles mentioned are not flight cars in the strict sense , as they cannot transport a second person. On the other hand, flying cars in the broader sense can therefore fall under the term personal aircraft.
The term flying car does not include z. B. the car-like flying models for show purposes from Gearfactor , as they cannot carry people.
Video overview of the most important models
The following overview shows a suitable video for each flight car in column 3: YT contains the external link, e.g. B. after " YouTube ". As far as several videos were available, preference was given to the audibility of driving and flight noises over background music or comments:
| production | Company name and type | Video example | Construction | First flight | Aircraft type | Road type | Road bikes | constructor | in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | I-TEC Maverick | YT | modification | 2008 | Paraglider | offroad | 4th | Steve Saint |
|
| 2010 | Plane Driven PD -1 and PD-2 | YT | modification | 2008 | wing | normal | 3 | Trey Johnson |
|
| 2015 | Terrafugia transition | YT | modification | 2009 | wing | normal | 4th | Carl Dietrich |
|
| 2015 | PAL-V ONE | YT | modification | 2007 | Gyrocopter | normal | 3 | John Bakker |
|
| 2016 | Aeromobil | YT | modification | 2013 | wing | normal | 4th | Stefan Klein |
|
| 2017 | Carplane | YT | completely | 2016 | wing | normal | 4th | John Brown |
|
| 2022 | Terrafugia TF-X | YT | completely | 2021 | VTOL | normal | 4th | Carl Dietrich |
|
| open | Urban Aeronautics X-Hawk | YT | completely | open | VTOL | slowly | 4th | Rafi Yoeli |
|
| open | NASA Samarai | YT | completely | open | VTOL | slowly | 3 | NASA |
|
| open | Moller M200X Neurea | YT | completely | 1975 | VTOL | slowly | 3 | Paul Moller |
|
| 2015 | Fresh Breeze XCitor | YT | modification | 2014 | Paraglider | offroad | 3 | Michael Werner |
|
| 2012 | Butterfly LLC Sky Cycle as a 2-seater | YT | completely | 2006 | Gyrocopter | normal | 3 | Larry Neal |
|
| 2015 | Parajet Skycar | YT | modification | 2009 | Paraglider | offroad | 4th | Neil Laughton |
|
| 2009 | AutoGyro Calidus | YT | modification | 2009 | Gyrocopter | normal | 3 | team |
|
| no | Wagner Aerocar | YT | modification | 1965 | Gyrocopter | normal | 4th | Alfred Vogt |
|
| 2017 | PEGASE of the startup VAYLON | YT | modification | 2016 | Paraglider | normal | 4th | Jérôme Dauffy |
|
| open | Moller Skycar (M200M and M400) | YT | completely | open | VTOL | slowly | 3 | Paul Moller |
|
| open | Samson Switchblade | YT | modification | open | wing | normal | 3 | Sam Bousfield |
|
| no | Arrowbile or Aerobile | YT | modular | 1934 | wing | normal | 3 | Waldo Waterman |
|
| no | Autogiro Pitcairn AC-35 | YT | modification | 1937 | Gyrocopter | normal | 3 | James G. Ray |
|
| no | Aerocar Metamorphosis | YT | modular | 1949 | wing | normal | 4th | Molt Taylor |
|
Explanations to the table:
- Road bikes
- Many of the aircraft and vehicles listed do not have worldwide road approval and can often only be approved by individual application. The number of wheels is important here; If there are fewer than four wheels, it is much easier for the vehicle to be approved as a "motorcycle" on the ground.
- production
- What is meant is series production with ongoing sales of the vehicles. The Aerobile of the 1930s does not meet this requirement (five units produced)
- Construction
- A “complete” variant has to align the rotors after landing, automatically fold back the rotor blades or wings or the like. In contrast, “conversion” means that the vehicle remains in one piece after landing, but briefly changed for road use (e.g. collecting the paraglider, folding things over by hand or checking them by hand after they have been folded over automatically, etc.). “Modular” means leaving a part at the airport (or loading the dismantled part onto an additional trailer for transport).
- First flight
- What is meant is lifting off the ground without additional aids and without a safety line and landing at a different location, e.g. B. at least one hundred meters away.
- Aircraft type
- “Wing” means a construction similar to an airplane , regardless of whether it is foldable or rigid. A paraglider can be unfolded automatically before take-off. Since the rotors are not designed as a lifting device, but only as a forward flight wing with a constantly changing rotating position, a gyrocopter (gyroplane) normally needs a runway despite the rotor.
- VTOL
- Whiz kid
- Road type
- “Slowly” means that the vehicle only has the ability to taxi with the help of wheels on the ground . Participation in regular road traffic at this low speed is only possible to a limited extent and only permitted to a limited extent.
history
Idea and first experimental flights
Glenn Curtiss’s car tarpaulin from 1917 is considered the first draft of a flying car today , but it was not airworthy. However, it lifted off the ground for short stretches - only about 30 years after the first Benz automobile was patented .
It was not until another 20 years later, on March 26, 1936, that the Pitcairn Autogyro AC-35 took off for a flight over Washington, DC . It was commissioned by the US Department of Commerce and manufactured by the Pitcairn Aircraft Company. It was flown by the head of the manufacturing company and test pilot James G. Ray and landed in a city park in front of thousands of spectators. There, Ray converted the aircraft into a roadworthy configuration within a few minutes and drove it past thousands of spectators, accompanied by cameras, through the traffic back to the starting point. The project of a series production was never realized, not even later in the 60s as a pure small aircraft without roadworthiness. The company was just going bankrupt at this second point in time. Although the flying car looks like a helicopter , it is designed as a gyrocopter and, like most of these types, could not take off vertically, so it needed a runway and a short runway.
Waldo Waterman developed the first flying car, which then flew several times and was also recreated several times. On March 21, 1937, he made the maiden flight of the Arrowbile or Aerobile . This flying car was a further development of the "tailless" airplane he had invented, the Waterman Whatsit . The Waterman Aerobile had a wingspan of 11.6 meters and a length of 6.10 meters. Both on the ground and in the air, it was powered by a Studebaker car engine, which first had to be homologated as an aircraft engine in accordance with the aviation authority. The machine was a maximum of 177 km / h in the air and drove a maximum of 88 km / h or 112 km / h (according to NZZ) on the ground, depending on the source. The range was 640 kilometers. The bullish estimate for the price was $ 1,200 if 10,000 copies were sold. The concept was also special because it refrained from carrying the wings on the street. At airfields, the wings of aircraft of this type should be removed and stored on special ramps in a shed.
In the period of these initial successes and in spite of the failure in series production and sales, Henry Ford said in 1940 about flying cars: “Mark my word: a combination of airplane and motorcar is coming. You may smile, but it will come. " ( English for: "Believe me: a combination of airplane and automobile will come. You may smile, but it will come.")
Development from the end of the Second World War
In the post-war decades, science fiction sparked the idea that the flying car would become the standard mode of transport in the 21st century. But the actual development seemed rather contrary. There were some prototypes, e. As the Model 118 ConvAirCar from Convair , which had its first flight on July 12, 1946 or the the Moulton Taylor models aerocar I to III of the years 1949 and 1950. However, they had no commercial success and remained largely unnoticed by the public. The AVE Mizar, a study by engineer Henry Smolinski, combined the rear of a Cessna Skymaster with a Ford Pinto . However, the two parts separated during a flight, and Smolinski and the pilot died in the crash.
In the mid-1960s, Bayer Leverkusen presented the LEV 2000 study (not functional on a 1: 1 scale ) for a flying car, which, according to the idea at the time, could be a reality in 2000. The body was made entirely of plastic, including the trim parts, which were galvanically chrome-plated. The driver only had to intervene manually during take-off and landing, while the actual flight was to take place automatically on a “beacon”. The cockpit was equipped with instruments for both cars and airplanes and, in addition to a telephone, also had a screen for displaying color television . The wheels should be able to be turned 90 ° for parking on the street. A definitive solution for the drive had not yet been found, but a gas turbine was considered.
Paul Moller has been developing flying cars since 1964 . His last study, the Moller Skycar, is a four-seater that is supposed to fly autonomously , i.e. without the assistance of the occupants, to any desired location programmed into the on-board computer. In 2003, a non-autonomous preliminary version was subjected to first flight tests. By 2013, Moller had invested a total of US $ 200 million in its developments. For insurance reasons, the life-size model aircraft tested were loosely connected to a hanging steel cable with a crane. Beyond that, however, only a forerunner of the Moller M200 X flew a few meters over trees in the 1960s . To fulfill his M400 project, Moller finally initiated a crowdfunding campaign at the end of 2013, which, however, failed at the beginning of 2014. His merit, however, is definitely detailed developments and the decades-long maintenance of the dream of the flying car.
In the end, it was Steve Saint, the son of a well-known missionary and aviator, who built the first flying car that actually went into series production, the I-TEC Maverick . With this vehicle, Saint originally wanted to reach indigenous people in remote areas of Ecuador . Soon, however, he achieved approval in the USA, both for flight mode and for road approval. The vehicle, which only flies at 64 km / h, has been available in various versions since 2010.
Recent developments
A more recent development is the transition from the US company Terrafugia, which is due to come onto the market in 2015 as a small series. Also, the PAL-V ONE of the engineer John Bakker - a trike - gyroplane - should be to have in 2015 or 2016th
The most beautiful model to date was designed by Stefan Klein from Bratislava. The Aeromobil , which for a long time only floated a few hundred meters forward with the help of the ground effect, is now version 3.0, according to The Guardian, the most sophisticated type of flying car ever.
The beginnings of the development were already monitored by the then Czechoslovak secret service before 1989. A production is still a little less tangible than that of the PAL-V ONE or the Terrafugia .
As of 2021, there have been working and tested flying cars for 85 years now, but they cannot yet be seen in everyday life, because so far none of the numerous developments have built more than 5 copies, apart from the Maverick . However, the recent serious plans for small batch production, all targeting 2015 or 2016, are creating a class of aircraft that truly deserves the name of flying car.
Photo gallery of other, also historical, flying cars
Plane Driven PD-1 from 2010
Super Sky Cycle from 2009
German Wagner Rotocar from 1965
Fulton Airphibian 1964
Taylor Aerocar 3 from 1960
Jess Dixon's "Flying Automobile", 1940
Waterman Aerobile from 1937
Moller M200 X Neuera, planned
Web links
- A more complete overview, but without video links, can be found on ( roadabletimes.com ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lower Saxony Aviation Day 2018. Retrieved on July 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Terrafugia Transition "flying car" makes first public flight. (Text including photo and video) (No longer available online.) Fox News Channel, August 1, 2013, archived from the original on December 23, 2014 ; accessed on July 18, 2019 (English, online article): "a roadable aircraft, rather than a flying car, given that it's designed to be used primarily in the air"
- ↑ Joe Pappalardo: ICON A5 Folding Plane Looks Like Sportscar ,. (Text incl. Photo and video) Costs as Much as Maserati. Popular Mechanics , June 11, 2008, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, online article): "Consumer will not use these to get to grandma's house"
- ^ The NASA Personal Puffin Flying Machine. (Video) Personal Aircraft. InventingTheWorld, January 7, 2013, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, from Dean of Invention, Discovery Channel ): "an advanced concept for a personal air vehicle (at 12 sec.)"
- ↑ NASA Spiral Duct ESTOL Concept. (Video) NASAPAV, January 7, 2013, accessed January 29, 2015 (English, example of a "Personal Air Vehicle").
- ↑ Sky Cycle. (Video) CycleVideos, November 11, 2007, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, actual publisher: WFAA News 8): "Larry Neal calls this a fly drive vehicle"
- ↑ Flying Car. (Video) murtijung, October 6, 2007, accessed January 29, 2015 (This is an imitation of a road vehicle, not a flying car.).
- ↑ Mary Grady: Terrafugia flow. (Video) AVweb, July 30, 2013, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English): "delivery should start by early 2016 (at 49 sec.)"
- ↑ Flying Cars & Roadable Aircraft. (Text and photos) An Alphabetical Listing. roadabletimes.com, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, comprehensive overview of current and historical flying cars).
- ↑ PAL-V Flying Car. (Video) Maiden Flight. PAL-V , April 1, 2012, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, promotional video): "It can be done within existing international rules for both flying and driving"
- ↑ Certifications. (Text) HIGHWAY CERTIFICATIONS. Fa. I-TEC Maverick , accessed on January 30, 2015 (English, tips on road approval): “may qualify for state licensing under a number of different categories, depending on those available (ie,“ kit car, ”“ assembled from parts , "" Farm vehicle, "etc.)"
- ^ The World's First Flying Car. (Video) Smithsonian Channel, April 2, 2013, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, from Dean of Invention, Discovery Channel ): "Waterman's Aerobile was one of three winners of the US Bureau of Aeronautics's contest (at 1 min. 42 sec.) "
- ↑ NZZ midday edition, June 9, 1937: The flying automobile , sheet 4
- ↑ alpha-retro: 1965 - chemistry "The technical report". In: alpha-retro (series on ARD-alpha ). Retrieved on May 13, 2019 (film by Egloff Schwaiger; some of the information cited is only contained in the film itself, not in the table of contents).
- ↑ Flying car developer says he's $ 80 million closer to making sci-fi dream a reality. (Video) InventingTheWorld, January 7, 2013, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, from Dean of Invention, Discovery Channel ): "for more than 30 years along the way spending more than 200 million dollars (at 1 min. 12 sec .) "
- ↑ Moller launches crowdfunding campaign for Skycar test flight. (Text with videos) (No longer available online.) Fox News Channel, November 5, 2013, archived from the original on February 16, 2015 ; accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, online article): “To date, the Skycar has only performed a few, very low, unmanned hovers while connected to a tether for safety. Moller says the Indiegogo funds will be used to make the final modifications to the vehicle needed to prepare it for a piloted free flight. “ Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Maiden flight. Scientists build flying car. Spiegel Online , March 30, 2009, accessed on January 29, 2015 (German, online article on Terrafugia Transition): "hope to be able to deliver the first flying cars in 2011"
- ↑ Aviation car developer expects financing soon. Heise online , September 26, 2007, accessed on January 29, 2015 : "The Pal-V should be available from 2011 onwards for around 100,000 euros."
- ↑ Udo Flohr: More serious than ever. Heise online , September 26, 2007, accessed on January 29, 2015 : "PAL-V can be bought from 2011 on"
- ↑ Flying car approaches liftoff as most advanced prototype yet is unveiled. Creators say AeroMobil's Flying Roadster 3.0 could become regular mode of transport for commuters. The Guardian , October 29, 2014, accessed on January 29, 2015 (English, online article): "most advanced prototype yet"
- ↑ Cathrin Kahlweit: Flying Car. You smile, but it will come. Süddeutsche Zeitung , accessed on January 29, 2015 (current developments).
