Roads were made to enable auto mobiles to travel quickly between distant
settlements. Over the last few decades, much effort has been put in to
literally, ‘getting the show off the road’ for auto mobiles. New
automotive Research and Development seems to hint that the road might
soon become just a point of access to another mode of transportation for
your car – air, or even water!
Terrafugia’s transition
The most significant effort in the creation of a ‘Flying Car’ is by a
company called ‘Terrafugia’ set up by MIT graduates in Massachusetts in
2006. But this one is a ‘Roadable Aircraft’ called ‘Transition’.
There are no bolts and nothing to put together or dismantle but you’d
need to be a driver as well as a pilot to be able to use one of these.
Terrafugia hopes to launch its first commercial model in 2011 and has
already received 70 orders as of September 2009. This one will be a
two-seater, which can travel 725 km at a speed of about 115 km/hr in
air.
Moller International’s Skycar
Paul Moller’s invention is the ‘Skycar’ – a personal Vertical Take Off
and Landing (VTOL) 4-seat aircraft which, uses four pairs of Wankel
Rotary engines, and, it is claimed, can hover 15 feet above the ground.
It has four ducted fans with covered propellers to increase safety.
This ‘flying car’ has been several decades in the making and Moller has
had to postpone projections of its launch more than twice. The present
craft under production is the M400 which is planned in single as well as
6-seat versions.
Parajet Skycar
The Parajet Skycar actually flew and drove its way from London to
Timbuktu in January 2009 without a hitch and has been declared the
world’s first legal flying car. It has a top speed of 180 kmph and a
maximum range of 400 kilometres. The car is basically constructed from a
dune buggy combined with a paramotor (one of those paragliding
contraptions which have a set of motorized propellers at the pilot’s
back) for greater thrust and propulsion and a parafoil (the flat sail of
a paraglider) to increase the lift.
Labiche’s FSC-1
Mitch Labiche’s Labiche Aerospace has designed the FSC-1 which is
basically a car that can open out into an aeroplane with the push of a
button, or conversely, an aeroplane that can fold up to become a car.
Aquada
Using High Speed Amphibian technology (HAS), Gibbs Technologies led by
Alan Gibbs has launched the Aquada in the USA. The HAS is a technology
that has been developed over a period of seven years and can now even be
applied to vehicles weighing up to 10 tons. The Aquada can travel at a
maximum speed of 160 kmph on land and of about 49 kmph on water.
Once it enters the water, the wheels can be retracted, like in an
airplane, thus significantly reducing the drag. With the press of a
button, the wheels retract the car senses it is in water, activates the
jet to propel it in water and changes the headlights into marine lights.
It is buoyant and cannot sink.
The Skybike
Samson Motorworks’ Skybike is a three wheeled motorcycle that can be
flown or driven on the streets with equal efficiency. Led by Sam
Bousfield, an inventor with several patents to his name, this
Sacramento- based company hopes to launch a radio-controlled model of
its attractively titled ‘Switchblade’ flying bike up for display in a
few months.
Hoverpod
Entecho, an Australian company has combined a new rotor technology with
unique lifting surfaces to create a flying machine that looks like a
typical flying saucer. A centrifugal fan causes the air under the car to
move radially from the center towards the outside, generating lift as
the ‘skirt’ – the airtight flexible membrane beneath the level of the
rotor – blows up, directing the flow of the air downwards.
Air Car
In an extraordinary tie-up with Luxembourg based MDI (Motor Development
International), Tata Motors (India) has been working hard for the last
two years, to put the finishing touches to a technology that will enable
their cars to run on air.
While these cars are all set to hit the roads of France by 2011, it’s
their features that make you sit up and pay attention. Compressed Air
cars usually use a motor powered by compressed air – or combine them
with gasoline, diesel, electric or ethanol engines – to help gain higher
speeds. France’s MDI plans several such hybrids to tide over this bug.
Tata’s vehicle, called the ‘Minicat’, is purely run on an
air-compression engine, is a zero-emission vehicle and might even be
launched this year, as the first batch has already completed production
at its Uttarakhand factory in Pantnagar. The company claims that the
vehicle can reach a speed of 96 kilometres per hour and cover a range of
300 kilometres on a full tank of air.
