Make no mistake, Terrafugia's outlandish airplane / motorcar hybrid has been on the drawing board for years, but it looks like the rubber is about to hit the proverbial road (or take to the skies, whichever) this July. A team of ten is working feverishly to ready the Transition for its debut at this year's AirVenture, where it hopes to catch more than a few eyes with its zany "roadable aircraft." As you can likely guess, this thing is meant to both fly and drive, and yes, that means it'll have to pass safety regulations from both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. If all goes well, the startup expects to deliver its first vehicle to a customer in 2009, while mass production isn't scheduled to happen until 2012. We're no experts in the field, but it seems like it'll take a Christmas miracle for either of those feats to actually be accomplished.



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So does this mean you will need a pilots licence for a flying car? I bet a whole new drivers/flying licence will be made.

I see a new way of drunk driving coming along with flying cars.

YEA! Now drunks can cause wrecks in midair.

I don't want a Drunk crashing in my house!

Wonder how would the state troopers respond to a speeding air car because obviously they would still have to take off."24 COUNTY
I HAVE THE SUSPECT HE IS IN THE AIR ABOVE ME I AM IN PURSUIT".

we will never see this happen,,most people cant parallel park but they are gonna be able to take off and land haha

''Hey honey just gonna fly over to the shopping center with the kids, you need anything?

''Yeah, just pick me up 12 pack at Booze Brothers on the way back...Watch them electrical power-lines eh baby''

We definitely won't have a widely-available flying car until the perfect computerized autopilot w/collision detection and avoidance is invented. Antigrav wouldn't hurt either.

Nobody is stupid enough to allow the general population to go flying very crashable airplanes around wherever they want.

Well they don't need anti grave they just need to be more hover based. you cant secure a skyway with out being abil to stop in mid air and hover wile the light turns green. a avoidance system already exists they just need to add them to these cars.

Note how they give very little if any details of its all round running costs.
Does it take jet fuel (i hear thats cheap) or regular unleaded, a combo of both with two separate tanks maybe three, one for LPG?

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In year 2012. Is that a clue?

Yes, it's proof of the end of the world!!!!

Seriously, flying cars have been around for literally decades, for example the 1949 Aerocar although there were designs earlier than that. While obviously those earlier models lacked the modern technology and bells and whistles of new designs like this one, they still never made it big because of the simple fact that it's not practical. It shouldn't even be necessary to explain why it's impractical, so let's just say there's a good reason we're still not flying around like the Jetsons.

I can see a potential market in the states west of the Mississippi. Theres a lot of open land where a plane / car may be a practical solution.
But not in a congested city environment.

Ooh I think you drastically underestimate how far development of flying cars has come.Take the moller X2000 flying saucer for instance there is hard proof that it flew.We are simply in the developing stage there is no chance that a commercial flying car will be ready by now,with the control of the car the average person will not be able to pilot it,it will be a disaster waiting to happen even on take off, just give it some time.

BTW.Flying cars are practical.



No offense but is this a joke.

Flying cars are impractical. The amount of energy it takes to lift people into the air with the vehicle is ridiculous. The only thing that could be possible energy wise is if discovered the mystical anti-gravity that everyone covets, and so long as that is super efficient (I doubt it) then we can easily have these vehicles in the air. YET, people can't drive these things, it would essentially be the highest fatality rate of any vehicle known to man kind. You would die from an accident, that is just fact. So, people can't drive these, that is guaranteed, so we have computers drive them. There is no computer that can fit inside of a vehicle the size you want it that can compute that much information that fast. Those algorithms are IMMENSE. They need to be constantly seeing 360*, seeing every object in the air, calculate it's projected path and then make sure to avoid it. Yes, with lets say 1 bird that wouldn't be difficult. Imagine it trying to do this with 5 other cars in a 1 mile proximity, it will be years before we have that kind of computational power at the ease of our fingertips.

Flying cars just aren't probable. Not for a long while while, and now with some huge breakthrough.