A friend of mine asked the old question, "where are our flying cars?"
Michael Moshier and Robert Bulaga concept flying car
After a quick search I found a promised flying car from the founders of Trek Aerospace. A brief history of their greatest project to date. The SoloTrek XFV was a single person vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL). The XFV was able to maintain fright for 2 hours with maximum speeds of 100km/h. Overall, the XFV travelled 200km. The special duct design of the shrouded propellers gives more lift that any other system of similar size.
On one test in December 2002, a tether used to hold the XFV down was sucked into one of ducts. Although crashing to the ground, the pilot was fine but the XFV was not. With the craft completely destroyed, they were not able to meet the schedule and lost funding. Later, the team developed the Springtail EFV (exoskeleton flying vehicle) for a $5 million dollar DARPA contract. The Springtail EFV finished and this contract was completed. See video of the Springtail EFV below. Other unmanned drones were created with this tech. One looked like an X-wing fighter from Star Wars. (The original SoloTrek XFV is on display at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California)
X-Wing style drone
Now the Trek team, Michael Moshier (aircraft designer) and Robert Bulaga (test-pilot) now want to make a hybrid electric/fuel flying car. Moshier said, "Ever since the Jetsons, we’ve been promised that an air car is just around the corner. But the technologies and knowledge necessary to build such a machine have not been available – until now. And it will be developed here in the USA." However, at the moment the team is busy trying to raise funding for the project.
They are targeting the early use of the flying car in third world countries as a quick medical evacuation vehicle, search and rescue, and police patrol. Sounds straight out of science fiction.
However, perhaps the world is not ready for flying cars. My friend said it best, "people can't even drive safely in two axis, do we really want to give them a third?"
Eavesdropper
Need a jet pack style aircraft now? They are available. Check out the following blog posts.
