British Flying Car:Will it take off?

[sharksandwich]

ParaJet Automotive :: SkyCar (http://www.parajetautomotive.com/experience_skycar/category/flight_mode/)

Since the first flying car prototype in 1949 there has been a global quest to find the money and the magic formula to concoct a flying car people can buy. But despite the efforts of the Pentagon and the pioneering Canadian millionaire Paul Moller, no one has assembled a high-performance car which flies and put it on the market.
The two-seater SkyCar is the brainchild of Giles Cardozo, 29, the madcap engineer of the paramotor world who pieced together the prototype from his barn in Dorset on a limited budget of about £100,000. It does not pay a wistful glance to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It's a souped-up buggy suspended beneath a giant canopy that sails above the car in flight. It's the latest in paramotor technology – in flight mode a fan motor drives it forward and the fabric wing takes it up and away. It's an extraordinary achievement of design.

SkyCar: magnificent flying car - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/6230090/SkyCar-magnificent-flying-car.html)

[jxk]

One of the snags with trying to produce a 'flying car' is the need to comply with road safety rules such as crash worthiness, airbags and the like as well air safety rules.

[Mechta]

Congratulations to the Skycar Team :ok:. They have realised that the real benefit of a flying car is in third world countries, where roads are few and far between, and what roads there are are rutted and tortuous.

A wing that can be stored in a sack and repaired with a sewing machine, coupled to a rugged buggy has to be the way to go :D.

If they could make a flying truck in a similar vein, there could be a few third world aid charities who would be interested. Crossing rivers, ravines would be a doddle.

The CAA must be praying that Skycars do not catch on here though!

[Pilot DAR]

There are a lot of excellent aircraft which meet the prevailing design requirements. There are a lot of aircraft which have the proportions necessary to make them safe and delightful to fly, Nearly all aircraft have characteristics which make them within the insurance grasp of most pilots. All aircraft can be damaged and repaired withiout affecting the operability of your car (unless you damaged your aircraft with your car!). All aircraft are clearly defined from a licensing standpoint.

There are a lot of excellent cars which meet the prevailing design requirements for cars. There are al lot of cars which have characteristics which make them a delight to drive. Nearly all cars are insurable for most drivers, All cars can be damaged, without incurring really expensive aircraft repair costs. All cars can sustain minor damage, which is permitted to go unrepaired for the rest of the life of the car, as it only affects the cosmetics of the car, not its operating characteristics. All cars can be loaded with some disregard for weight and balance, and still driven safely.

All drivers of cars, understand that the road is the place for a car, not the sky. All pilots understand that the sky is the place for an aircraft, not the road...

And then there is the concept of the affordable flying car. Thank goodness for the distinction between a concept, and day to day reality!

Pilot DAR

[Kolibear]

Does this mean that your local LAE will now do MOTs and Kwik-Fit will be able to undertake Annual Checks?

roads there are are rutted and tortuous But fortunately, there are plenty of long, straight, flat & level runways for the Skycar to use.?

A wing that can be stored in a sack Thats a big sack!

Repaired with a sewing machine The sack or the wing?

[IO540]

IMHO the biggest problem is that it is simply awfully hard to enter the GA market.

Cirrus did it some years ago, by marketing at high net worth low experience individuals (the only avenue left if you want to shift capable tourers).

Diamond did it, with the mainly the avtur burning engine being the chief selling point.

There is a lot of activity on the VFR-only "sports" / "lawn mower with a wing" scene.

Not a lot else going on. Some other projects have been shelved (Evector Cobra for example).

I think this kind of project is going to require massive funding, to end up with a reliable car and a reliable plane. I would not want to be driving a Reliant Robin around, with Vauxhall Viva electrics and 3mm of flimsy fibreglass protecting me from any idiot that runs into me, which is what the "car" portion of this will inevitably be.

It doesn't solve the #1 GA issue which is lack of airports, airport closing times, lack of IAPs, etc. It merely solves the issue of transport between the airport and the place you are going to, and for the money involved one could get taxi rides, or a rental car dropped off at the airport, for the rest of one's life.

There may be specialised applications but the volume will never be high enough to make it viable and to create an incentive to iron out the inevitable bugs.

[chevvron]

Er since when has 56 kt = 48 mph?

[2hotwot]

A few questions I had after reading the article:
1 - how noisy is it?
2 - how fast does it fly (for example with a 25 knot headwind)?
3 - how many people does it need (to leave) on the ground to launch it?

[bjornhall]

It doesn't solve the #1 GA issue which is lack of airports, airport closing times, lack of IAPs, etc. It merely solves the issue of transport between the airport and the place you are going to, and for the money involved one could get taxi rides, or a rental car dropped off at the airport, for the rest of one's life.

...and the whole concept is utterly pointless. The helicopter was already invented! :ok:

[The Fenland Flyer]

...and the whole concept is utterly pointless. The helicopter was already invented!True but those are kinda expensive to run! I think the new generation of auto-gyros will be the closest anyone gets to a flying car for a long time; economical and low maintenance with Rotax 912s and they only need a few yards of runway.
The paramotor/car idea is not at all practical, as they can only fly in very light winds, would probably be quicker and easier to just go overland.

[Kolibear]

What license will be needed to use a Skycar? PPL? NPPL? How many people will be prepared to spent the additional £10K to get a license to use it?

[IO540]

£10k and the rest...

A bare PPL is barely useful for any utility flying. You need instrument capability, both in the pilot (let's set the legality to one side and just look at the bare practical issue) and in the aircraft. And even then one is limited by the lack of instrument-accessible airfields.

I am sure there will be specialised applications for it, but (to take one case) if someone is commuting on a regular route, one can leave an old car (or a scooter) at the other airport. In the less developed European countries (in which, basically, you can leave a car parked somewhere for years and nobody will care) this is routinely done. One could even pull it off at some UK locations.

BTW I don't think low-end helicopters are more expensive to operate than a half decent IFR tourer. No personal experience - I only speak of what owners of both tell me. A turbine one will cost a whole load more of course, but the amount of money which is spent (all over the world) on turbine helis costing £1M plus is a powerful and obvious statement of the utility value of a heli versus fixed-wing.... It may also be a statement of a widespread perception of piston helis being unsafe... I don't know.

It would not suprise me if the market for the car/plane was in emerging and massively deregulated economies e.g. China where any enterpreneur can knock up a runway in his back yard.

[Say again s l o w l y]

British Flying Car:Will it take off?

No. It has as much chance of succeeding as I do of becoming the next Pope.

[worrab]

It's hard to imagine it working in the crowded, heavily regulated, tarmaced UK/Urban US/Europe where domestic travel is not too big a problem, but in less well inhabited, warmer climes surely there's a market. Drive-Fly-Drive in ones own vehicle is an attractive concept and the idea of flying a couple of thousand feet above unmetalled, potholed roads has got to be appealing. Whilst there may be some suspicion about its hot and high performance, you have to admire the designer's uncomplicated approach.

[Runaway Gun]

Wouldn't a Hover Skateboard be more useful?

[Avitor]

Will it be included in the Scrappage fiddle? ;)

[sharksandwich]

It would not suprise me if the market for the car/plane was in emerging and massively deregulated economies e.g. China where any enterpreneur can knock up a runway in his back yard.
Mobile phones were an expensive luxury in the UK, but cheap options in parts of Africa, S America and even as close to home as the Greek Islands, as these places lacked the communications infrastructure of the industrial areas (and would be too expensive to put in place).
Maybe underdeveloped countries will provide the market (and may not be too stringent about licences)?

[Mechta]

Kolibear, did you actually look at the Skycar? The buggy part has suspension that is evidently designed to cope with more than the rabbit holes which would have Cessnas limping off the maintenance hangar. If the wheels can be powered during the takeoff run, the initial acceleration should also be considerably better than the average light plane.

The wing is a fabric parafoil, and as the one & two man foot-launched versions go into a sack, there is no reason why this one shouldn't, albeit a slightly larger sack. No doubt a vacuum connection on the engine air inlet could be used to draw the air out of the bag and make it a bit more compact for in-car storage.

Sewing machine to repair sack or wing? Both.

Pilot DAR, your points are all valid in the context of Western Europe, and most of North America, but what about those airstrips in Africa and other parts of the world, which don't have an Avis rep waiting with your car keys? What about those places which don't have a hurricane-proof hangar in which to push your tens of square metres of easily dented 20swg aluminium?

If the Skycar is used in the UK in its current form, it would be as a toy. Most self-piloted flights in the UK, once flight planning and pre-flights are taken into account, don't save much time compared to driving; so unless you intend travelling from Cornwall to West Wales, for example, you are probably better off staying on the ground.

Practical flying cars are unlikely to catch on here, all the time that the human is the weak link in the system. The average man or woman in the street struggles to navigate on the surface of the planet with the help of roadsigns, Tom Toms & street atlases. The chaos and ensuing carnage if Joe Public takes to the air and has to navigate himself, through a presumably, very crowded sky, defies imagination (just imagine what15 million mode S transponder signals would do to for an Air Traffic Controller's blood pressure...).

As a tool in the third world the Skycar already has a place. When the take off, flight control and navigation and subsequent landing can all be automated, then a mass-produced G-xxxx reg. flying car may become a reality here too.

[sharksandwich]

http://estb.msn.com/i/D9/D63DB3D6688DC6A156B2CD85DE9ADA.jpgT3.com

American engineers Henry Smolinski and Harold Blake had a crazy dream. They wanted to build the first flying car, so they bolted the wings of a Cessna light aircraft to the roof of a Ford Pinto, fitted it with cabin controls and named it the Mizar.
The Mizar would transport owners to airports, where they would detach the wings and drive merrily away.
After two years of development, the inventors took the car on a test flight, with Blake piloting. Once aloft, the wings came off, leaving pilot and passenger hurtling towards the ground in a pimped-out Ford Pinto.

[worrab]

Interesting read:

Flying Pinto Crash - September 11th, 1973 (http://www.cookieboystoys.com/mizar/10%20mizar.htm)

[Dave Unwin]

I logged a few hours in a Taylor AeroCar last year. As an aeroplane, it was OK to drive - and for a car, it flew quite well!

[sharksandwich]

Collections (http://www.museumofflight.org/collections) » Aircraft (http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft) » Taylor Aerocar III
« (http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/task-silhouette) Aircraft » (http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/taylorcraft-bc-12d)
http://www.museumofflight.org/files/imagecache/full_page/TMoF_Taylor-Aerocar-III-3_P1.jpg (http://www.museumofflight.org/files/imagecache/lightbox/TMoF_Taylor-Aerocar-III-3_P1.jpg) Location: Great Gallery
Click on image to view gallery +


Aircraft Details

Manufacturer:
Moulton Taylor
Model:
Aerocar III
Year:
1968
Power Plant:
One Lycoming 0-320 143 h.p. engine

Registration:
N100D

Serial Number:
1

Length:
26ft

Span:
34ft

Wing Area:
190ft²

Empty Weight:
1,500lbs

Gross Weight:
2,100lbs
Cruise Speed:
135mph

Range:
500miles

Length:
7.92m

Span:
10.36m

Wing Area:
17.65m²

Empty Weight:
680.40kg
Gross Weight:
952.56kg

Cruise Speed:
217.22km/h

Range:
804.50
http://www.museumofflight.org/files/imagecache/thumb_small_alt/TMoF_Taylor+Aerocar+III-2_P2A.jpg (http://www.museumofflight.org/files/imagecache/lightbox/TMoF_Taylor+Aerocar+III-2_P2A.jpg)
http://www.museumofflight.org/files/imagecache/thumb_small_alt/TMoF_Taylor-Aerocar-III-1_P2B.jpg (http://www.museumofflight.org/files/imagecache/lightbox/TMoF_Taylor-Aerocar-III-1_P2B.jpg)



Taylor Aerocar III

The Aerocar was a "roadable" airplane certified for use as both a plane and an automobile. The prototype was completed in 1949 but not certified by the Civil Aeronautics Administration until 1956.
The Museum's Aerocar III began as the sixth and final Aerocar I. In the late 1960s, Taylor bought it back after it had been damaged in a road accident. He updated and redesigned the car section, leaving the wings essentially unchanged. Thanks to its large Lycoming 0-320 143-horsepower airplane engine, the Aerocar was quite sporty and by all accounts, it was also quite stable and pleasant to fly.
Of course the most remarkable feature of the Aerocar is its ability to transform from automobile to aircraft -- a process that takes about 15 minutes. The Aerocar can either tow its wings and tail like a trailer, or simply leave them at the airport. To get ready for flight, the driver/pilot first connects the driveshaft (flip up the license plate to make the connection) in the tail. Then, the wings swing around into position and are pinned into place. The flight controls -- movable steering wheel and rudder pedals -- slide into place automatically. The engine cannot start unless every connection has been properly made, an ingenious safety device.
Help us preserve this historic artifact for future generations. Click here (http://www.museumofflight.org/adopt-a-plane) to find out about the Museum's Adopt-A-Plane program.

[Pace]

What I fail to understand with these designs why four hefty wheels?
The car should be lightweight and streamlined.
Aircraft are usually tri gear ie one nosewheel and two mains which in cars has been successfully used in the reliant 3 wheeler and bond bug.
Tandem seating would help?
Whats up with those designers they can do better than that :ugh:

Pace

Bond Bug XPW901H Part of the Bond Bug Photo Gallery. (http://www.bondbug.com/gallery/BondBugXPW901H/bond_bug_xpw901h_1.html)

[Mack Buffet]

A good friend of mine was part of the Skycar Expedition riding one of the off road recce bikes.

Channel 4 had a film crew along for the trip, for those that are interested there's a documentary on Ch4 in the UK on 19 October (I think that's the date - will double check).

[Dave Unwin]

The wheels are actually made from cast magnesium, and are very light. I'd also take issue with the suggestion that the Reliant Robin and Bond Bug are good cars!

[Pace]

I'd also take issue with the suggestion that the Reliant Robin and Bond Bug are good cars!

Dave

I used to drive a Reliant Robin delivery van and apart from skating across all three motorway lanes in very strong winds was a good van for its purpose. A friend had a Bond Bug which he loved.

But thats not the point. How many aircraft do you know which are pure aircraft have four wheels two up front?

I know of none. Surley that must say something? why carry the extra weight and drag of two wheels and sets of brakes when one is perfectly adequate in the air and on the road?

Pace

[sharksandwich]

why carry the extra weight and drag of two wheels and sets of brakes when one is perfectly adequate in the air and on the road?

Quite. The "car" part does not need to be perfect, but the flying characteristics need to be as good and safe as they can be.

If anyone has the time, about a third down this page is a fairly lengthy clip of James May exploring the flying car concept (clip entitled Aerocar):
Ephemeral Isle (http://davidszondy.com/ephemeral/labels/Future%20Past.html)

[Dave Unwin]

Pace, I drove a 'Plastic Pig' once and hated it. I always thought that the only reason Reliant made them with 3 wheels was because you could drive them on a motorbike licence. A friend has a Bond Bug in his hangar. At speeds above 70, I'm reliably informed that the handling is marginal. Of the millions and millions of cars built over the last 100 years, I'd bet that 99.999999% had four wheels. Probably a good reason for that. Incidentally, the AeroCar is frontwheel drive.
But I take your point that most nosedragger light aircraft are trikes (although - strictly speaking - just every jetliner ever made has two wheels at the front!) :ok:

[Pace]

although - strictly speaking - just every jetliner ever made has two wheels at the front!)

Dave

But not spaced apart in proportion to its size :rolleyes: two separate tyres together treated as one to protect against one blowing out :*

Pace

[Dave Unwin]

I know - just teasing. :ok:

[Pilot DAR]

But thats not the point. How many aircraft do you know which are pure aircraft have four wheels two up front?

Well, every amphibious floatplane I have ever flown!

But, I completely agree, Cars are best with a wheel at each corner, and planes with a wheel at each point of a triangle. If there is any doubt about that, recall that 3 wheeled ATV's are now long banned from manufacture because of numerous poor handling accidents. Been there, done that.

[Dave Unwin]

Two excellent points DAR. Re the AeroCar, I would guess that Molt Taylor probably thought it would drive more than fly. Furthermore, remember that it is front-wheel drive, and has to tow the empennage/wings/tail/prop unit behind it. All of these points may have contributed to him making it with four wheels.
I certainly had a memorable couple of days flying and driving it, and would love to sample the Terrafugia.