Toggle navigation ABOUTTERMS OF USEPRIVACY POLICYJUNE 24, 2013 Flying Cars: Terrafugia Takes Driving to a Third Dimension AUTO + TECHBy Frank Markus, IQ Contributor & MotorTrend Tech Dir.There are tons of new apps and services aimed at helping harried commuters beat the nastiest traffic, but no crowd-sourced re-route can compete with sprouting wings and flying right up and over it. Magazine covers and The Jetsons have touted aerial commuting since the 50s. Are we there yet?Well, no. But Massachusetts-based Terrafugia (terra-FOO-gee-ah) is busy testing and certifying the next best thing, which the company begs us to call a “roadable airplane,” not a flying car. A 2004 Federal Aviation Administration ruling created a new class of Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) and Sport Pilot license that made this vehicle possible. The new license is only valid for flying during daytime in clear weather, so it doesn’t require as much training and flight-time to obtain. The idea was to make flying easier and more accessible. The Terrafugia Transition roadable aircraft attempts to lower the barriers to personal civil aviation even further.Let’s say your rural dream house is 45 miles from your big-city office, and both home and office are relatively near one of the nation’s 5,000 public airfields. Commuting in an LSA could dramatically shorten your two-hour workday commute and also whisk you up to your lake house on the weekend. But because unpredictable weather or darkness could strand you practically anywhere (including some other remote airfield with no rental car service), you grin and bear the traffic. But with the Terrafugia, if for any reason you can’t complete your journey by air, you simply touch down, fold the wings, and continue by land. Parking your plane in your own garage eliminates costly airport storage fees, and pump gasoline is cheaper than avgas.Here’s how the Transition works: Drive to the airport at up to 70 mph, while averaging 35 mpg. Then switch off the engine, enter a PIN number to certify you’re authorized to fly and electrically unfold the wings. Sliding the shifter forward locks the wings, connects the prop, and disengages the continuously variable transmission that drives the rear wheels on the road. Hop out, perform a preflight inspection, manually retract the side mirrors, climb aboard, pull the joystick controller up from between your legs, restart the engine, taxi, and take off. In the air, control is via the joystick, a console-mounted hand throttle, and rudder pedals that flank the ground-use brake and accelerator. Airborne cruising speed is 105 mph, averaging 21 mpg.The company introduced the Transition at the New York Auto Show in 2012, with an anticipated price of $279,000 and deliveries expected in 2013, but according to CEO/CTO Carl Dietrich, “We had been expecting that we’d do all simulated crash testing, but our airbag development partner strongly recommended that we do some physical testing to make sure that our airbag sensors are located properly. These tests have caused a bit of a delay, but the vehicle has been flying and driving really well.” A change to the engine mounting structure and the addition of a strake where the wing meets the fuselage also demand a second prototype be constructed for final FAA flight certification. It’s not known exactly how long these additional tests will take, but Dietrich is confident that production will start within a year of their successful conclusion. These vehicles are considered roadable airplanes because wherever car and airplane requirements conflict, the plane considerations trump. Minimizing weight is a prime directive, so the structure and skin are carbon fiber; the engine is a 150-pound, 100-hp dual-carbureted Rotax 1.4-liter flat-four (an optional fuel-injected model is being considered). Creature comforts are few -- there’s no A/C, for example. It weighs about 970 pounds with an empty 23-gallon gas tank, and the maximum allowable takeoff weight is 1,430 pounds (thanks to an exemption, the LSA rule is 1,320 pounds). Fill the tank, and you’re left with only 320 pounds of people and gear (only the fittest and lightest-traveling fliers need apply). Terrafugia is angling to increase the allowable takeoff weight, but all of these realities help bolster the argument that most customers will log fewer than 2,000 miles per year on the ground.This argument, and a multi-purpose vehicle classification has helped earn exemptions from many typical automotive regulations -- like 5.5-mph bumpers, inside rear-view-mirrors, and heavy laminated windshield glass. (Polycarbonate is better for bird strikes and is lighter, but it scratches.) Another exemption allows narrower, lighter motorcycle tires, and Terrafugia plans to launch without anti-lock brakes or electronic stability control. Simpler front and side airbags provide only 50th-percentile male occupant protection.Many such car regulations could be side-stepped by using three wheels and certifying the vehicle as a motorcycle, but cross-wind stability with the wings folded require a broad, four-wheeled stance. A nose parachute is also offered to land the craft safely if something goes wrong when airborne.On May 6, Terrafugia unveiled its next research project, the TF-X, an even easier-to-fly four-seat plug-in hybrid featuring vertical takeoff and landing via electric propeller motors on the folding wings. Once aloft, the VTOL propeller blades fold flush with their nacelles and a 300-hp engine-driven pusher prop propels the vehicle up to 500 miles, recharging the battery for its electric landing. Ground drive is also electric, recharged by the main motor as necessary. Development is projected to take eight to twelve years.So if you can swing the purchase price, you could be commuting by air long before “Archer” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” seem as old as “The Jetsons.”[All photos owned by and used with permission from Terrafugia.]More of the Future of Cars and Transportation from iQ: Solar Racecars and Roadways Power UpGossips Cars: The Power and Promise of the Connected CarA Trip Along the Road of InnovationTalking Cars: When Cars Do the Driving For Us Trained as a mechanical engineer, Frank Markus spent six years at Chrysler designing Neons, LH cars, and second-gen minivans before joining the auto-writing industry in 1991. He’s been editing the various Motor Trend brands’ content since 2003, while also doing a bit of testing and writing a monthly Technologue column. A lifelong lover of all things automotive, he currently owns a Sunbeam Alpine and a Maserati Ghibli. Because his email box is constantly overflowing with automotive technical marvels, he’s delighted to share with the iQ by Intel audience the good news about innovations that promise to make our motoring future better, cleaner, faster, easier, and more efficient.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 07:37:12 +0000
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