The Terrafugia TF-X could revolutionize travel. Image Credit: YouTube / TerrafugiaInc
The dream of flying your own car through the clouds has taken another important step towards reality.
First unveiled back in 2013, the Terrafugia TF-X flying car is the real deal - an actual drivable vehicle that can both travel on conventional roads and take to the skies to reach its destination.
Many have doubted that the Massachusetts-based aircraft company's vision of such a machine would ever come to fruition, but now following the achievement of several major milestones the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted the team permission to begin test flights.
While the actual full-scale car won't be seeing action in the skies over the US for the time being, the company will be conducting tests using a small scale replica with which they hope to identify and iron out any problems with the vehicle's design.
Calling the FAA exemption a 'major milestone', Terrafugia will be able to fly the device in US air space at altitudes of up to 121 meters and speeds of up to 160km/h.
When the car itself is ready to go however it will be capable of achieving speeds of 322 km/h with an operational range of over 500 miles. Requiring no runway or special landing space, the TF-X could revolutionize travel and is the most promising concept of a flying car we've seen to date.
Very nice! Though the folding propeller blades bother me a little with regards to mechanical integrity. Maybe that's not a big issue... I don't know. Impressed with the overall fold-up design, though. Seems the FAA is "comfortable" enough to permit small-scale test flights in confined airspace for both proof-of-concept and to "tweak" the design before monies are committed to a full-scale FAA-permitted experimental plane. Hopefully whatever lessons learned with the military tilt-rotor Osprey failures can be applied as possible for an admittedly different overall aircraft. Well, best of luck in ... [More]
Why does this keep popping up, when they already have ones that fly? "Horseless carriage about to do first trial (after we iron some kins out ) " - Really!?
Working at the place where they train much of the worlds Air traffic Controllers, this strikes me as "A Bad Idea" (trademark pending)... It's a full time chore for about 20,000 people to control the few tens of thousands of air craft in the air at any one time... Can you imagine the nightmare of trying to control a few tens of millions of flying lugnuts?... And if you are driving along and your motor conks out, you can more or less coast to a stop... If you are flying along and your motor conks out.... so do you!
Working at the place where they train much of the worlds Air traffic Controllers, this strikes me as "A Bad Idea" (trademark pending)... It's a full time chore for about 20,000 people to control the few tens of thousands of air craft in the air at any one time... Can you imagine the nightmare of trying to control a few tens of millions of flying lugnuts?... And if you are driving along and your motor conks out, you can more or less coast to a stop... If you are flying along and your motor conks out.... so do you! Taun... you do realize that if and when this happens the pilots will be under sam... [More]
Taun... you do realize that if and when this happens the pilots will be under same if not better training FAA criteria than, say, a Cessna. To be sure accidents and "drunken driving" will likely happen. This will not be a commonplace air-mobility item at all. Very expensive, for one. Yeah I know.. I'm just thinking ahead to the "Jetsons" days of everyone having one...
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