Two Flying Cars Seek Road Approval; Future Finally Here

Prince Albert the Intern explains winged cars.

There's a popular Threadless shirt called "Imprecate Scientists" that bemoans the failings of the 21st hundred in bleak space verse: "they lied to us/this was supposed to be the future/where is my jetpack/where is my robotic companion/where is my dinner in anovulatory drug form/where is my hydrogen fueled automobile/where is my nuclear hopped-up levitating house/where is my cure for this disease".

Cyril Burt Rutan of Armored Composites (the same guy who built the plane that made it around the world without fueling in 2005) might non represent competent to help designer John Slabyk with those, but he could offer a quick car. Does that make ahead for it?

Called the BiPod and identified as a "roadable aircraft", the personal flyer features lithium-ion batteries charged by half-liter internal combustion engines. In drive mode, the batteries power an electric motor that drives the rear wheels; on the wing, two motors on the wings and two along the tail's stabilizer provide thrust. The wings can be stowed between the fomite's twin fuselages when not in use. The prototype hasn't been fitted with propellers as of now, but a few hops mastered the Mojave Air and Spaceport runway have proven its flight capability.

Meanwhile, Terrafugia of Woburn, MA, is edging some other car/plane hybrid closer to road clearance. The Transition, a stubby little coal-black with retractable wings, just received approval from the US Nationalistic Main road Traffic Safety Administration—a major step en route to commercial release.

While the tiny airplane, with only way for a buffer and one passenger, carries a sizeable price tag of $250,000, the appeal of a Jetsons-adjacent flying car could smooth draw customers—those with the money and space for such a thing, at least. Interim, the European Organized has kicked off a multimillion-Euro research project called MyCopter for the development of collision dodging systems for these personal aircraft.

Still atomic number 102 news on levitating houses, merely keep back, Bathroom Slabyk—those damn scientists are employed on it.

[New Scientist, Physorg]