#terrafugia

Next candidate!

I love it. This is such a total scam and it gets full news coverage. I pulled this image off of the Yahoo front page today. The "manufacturer" has permission to test it from the FAA. By that keep it away from any stuff it may fall on and have fun. Oh and the test is not actually the thing you see in the nice pictures, but a "prototype."

The company has a website. Alef Aeronautics, google it. Oh and they are hiring interns, you know the people who don't get paid.

Why is it a scam? Hey its better than call center fraud for sure. First clue is all the images are computer renderings. I like this one here:

That's what I call sight seeing! Very nice. Almost as good as the Ehang flying over the alps in that video years ago. There is a prototype somewhere, but curiously no photos. Hmmm.

So lets cut this one up. The Yahoo item had a Skype interview with the designer/engineer/poser who was wearing sunglasses indoors and had long flowing locks of hair. He bragged about how efficient that the car could travel on the ground for 200 miles or in the air for 100 miles. All for only $300,000! It will be certified as a car and as a plane. No office or engineering suite in the view, just a bedroom door by the looks of it. No shop to build even a model.

A real company would tour the shop floor at the very least.

The concept is easy to say, but impossible to do. The image gives you all you need. First is the top surface of the car is some kind of mesh. That is a good idea to protect everyone from the whirling blades of death. But in horizontal flight it is a huge source of drag as the intent is to fly mesh side forward so that the sides of the car acts as wings and provide the lift for more efficient flight. The mesh will prevent that from working, sorry. I guess hiring an aerodynamics engineer is too expensive and they are so negative!

Next issue is car regulations require crash protection and all sorts of safety impact stuff. Aircraft need only to be light. From the image there is none of that safety stuff. Would it survive even the most basic collision test for a car? No hope of that I bet. And don't go claim some carbon fiber breakthrough will make that happen. I work in composite engineering.

Oh there is more. Where are the batteries? In every electric car there are tons of batteries. Big heavy and bulky they are. Oh just leave that out of the picture for now. Just one more breakthrough.

I love that the tires are just hanging there and who needs a suspension that is so limiting.

That tiny passenger pod thing in the middle is really small. It looks to be much smaller than a Smart Car:

This is a real car that does pass safety requirements and weighs more than a Cessna 172 airplane. I holds two people if they are good friends and maybe a couple of grocery bags. For comparison the Cessna has a 140 hp motor and 36 foot wings. The Smart car I recall had a 50 hp motor.

There is a very small licensed Helicopter called a Robinson 22. It does take off and land vertically with 130 hp and weighs slightly less than a smart car.

Flying cars have been touted for decades. I mean lots of decades. Very clever people have tried (even geniuses) and millions of dollars invested, spent and lost.

The long hair dude will probably walk away with some good cash.

The people who built the one below actually had a thing that flew and could go on a road if you ignored those safety regs.

Terrafugia from 2012 ish. Sold the company to a Chinese vulture firm and make drones now.

Terrafugia Transition flying car granted a Light-Sport Airworthiness certificate by the FAA

Terrafugia Inc. announced this week that it reached a milestone in its road to bringing the Transition roadable aircraft to market. The FAA granted Terrafugia a FAA Special Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA) airworthiness certificate for the Transition aircraft. The flying car is a combination of two-seat aircraft and an automobile designed to meet both the FAA and NHTSA’s safety standards. The ……