A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. The term "flying car" includes motor vehicles that are classified as motorcycles when operated on public roads ("flying motorcycles"). It is also sometimes used to include hovercars and/or personal air vehicles. Since the early 20th century, many prototypes have been built, employing a variety of flight technologies. Most have been designed to take off and land conventionally using a runway. Although vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) projects are increasing, none has yet been produced in significant quantities.
Their appearance is often speculated by futurologists, and many concept designs have been promoted. Their failure to become a practical reality has led to the catchphrase "Where's my flying car?", as a paradigm for the failure of predicted technologies to appear. Flying cars are also a popular theme in fantasy and science fiction stories.
History
Early 20th century In 1901, German immigrant to the United States Gustave Whitehead claimed to have flown a powered aircraft, described as being able to propel itself along roads to the site of the flying experiment.Freeman, David. "Gustave Whitehead's First Flight Beat Wright Brothers' By Years, Aviation Expert Contends". Huffington Post. 22 May 2013. "[Whitehead] purportedly took aloft a flying car of his own design".Bongartz, Roy. "Was Whitehead First?" Popular Mechanics. December 1981. Pp.68-76. "Beech described the plane as self-powered on the ground, like an automobile".Glass, Andrew. Flying Cars: The True Story, Clarion, 2015. . Chapter 2. "Despite controversy, the chronicle of Gustave Whitehead's flying automobile..." Consensus among historians is that Whitehead's No. 21 machine did not achieve sustained self-powered flight.
In 1917, aircraft designer Glenn Curtiss built his Autoplane. It had a pusher propeller for flight, with removable flight surfaces including a triplane wing, canard foreplane and twin tails. It was able to hop, but not fly.
In 1935, Constantinos Vlachos built a prototype of a "tri-phibian" vehicle with a circular wing, but it caught fire after the engine exploded while he was demonstrating it in Washington, D.C. Vlachos was badly injured and spent several months in the hospital. The machine is most notable for a newsreel that captured the incident.
The Autogiro Company of America AC-35 was a prototype roadable autogyro, flown on 26 March 1936 by test pilot James G. Ray. Forward thrust was initially provided by twin counter-rotating propellers for thrust, later replaced with a single propeller. On 26 October 1936, the aircraft was converted to a roadable configuration. Ray drove it to the main entrance of the Commerce Building in Washington D.C., where it was accepted by John H. Geisse, chief of the Aeronautics Branch. Although it had been successfully tested, it did not enter production.
The first fixed wing roadable aircraft to fly was built by Waldo Waterman. Waterman had been associated with Glenn Curtiss when pioneering amphibious aircraft at North Island on San Diego Bay in the 1910s. On 21 February 1937, Waterman's Arrowbile first took to the air."Drives Machine Through Trafic (sic)and Then Flies It", Chicago Daily Tribune, February 22, 1937, p. 6 The Arrowbile was a development of Waterman's tailless aircraft, the Whatsit."Tailless Flivver Plane Has Pusher Propeller" Popular Science, May 1934, rare photos in article It had a wingspan of and a length of . It was powered by a Studebaker engine both on the ground and in the air. It could fly at and drive at .
In 1942, the British army built the Hafner Rotabuggy, an experimental roadable autogyro that was developed with the intention of air-dropping off-road vehicles. In its developed form, the Rotabuggy achieved a flight speed of . However, the introduction of gliders that could carry vehicles (such as the Waco Hadrian and Airspeed Horsa) led to the project's cancellation.
Late 20th century Although several designs (such as the ConVairCar) have flown, none have enjoyed commercial success, and those that have flown are not widely known by the general public. The most successful example, in that several were made and one is still flying, is the 1949 Taylor Aerocar.
In 1946, the Fulton FA-2 Airphibian was an American-made flying car designed by Robert Edison Fulton Jr.; it was an aluminum-bodied car, built with independent suspension, aircraft-sized wheels, and a six-cylinder 165 hp engine. The fabric wings were easily attached to the fuselage, converting the car into a plane. Four prototypes were built. Charles Lindbergh flew it in 1950 and, although it was not a commercial success (financial costs of airworthiness certification forced him to relinquish control of the company, which never developed it further), it is now in the Smithsonian.
The Aerocar, designed and built by Molt Taylor, made a successful flight in December 1949, and in following years, versions underwent a series of road and flying tests. Chuck Berry featured the concept in his 1956 song "You Can't Catch Me", and in December 1956 the Civil Aviation Authority approved the design for mass production, but despite wide publicity and an improved version produced in 1989, Taylor did not succeed in getting the flying car into production. In total, six Aerocars were built. It is considered to be one of the first practical flying cars.
One notable design was Henry Smolinski's Mizar, which was made by combining the rear end of a Cessna Skymaster with a Ford Pinto; however, it disintegrated during a test flight, killing Smolinski and Harold Blake.
Project Prodigal was a British Army concept in the late 1950s and early 1960s for a "Jumping Jeep" to overcome obstacles on the battlefield with entrants British Aircraft Corporation,Project Cancelled: Disaster of Britain's Abandoned Aircraft Projects Hardcover – 1 Sept. 1986 by Derek Wood Boulton Paul, Bristol Siddeley, Folland, Handley Page,Handley Page Aircraft since 1907 (Putnam Aeronautical Books) Hardcover – 1 Jan. 1987 by C.H. (Revised By Derek N James) Barnes (Author) , pp. 579–582 Saunders-Roe,From Sea to Air Hardcover – 1989 by A.E. Tagg Short Brothers,The Pye Book of Science – Maurice Rickards 1963 Vickers-Armstrongs, and Westland.
Moller began developing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft in the late 1960s, but no Moller vehicle has ever achieved free flight out of ground effect. The Moller Skycar M400 was a project for a personal VTOL aircraft which is powered by four pairs of in-tandem Wankel rotary engines. The proposed Autovolantor model had an all-electric version powered by Altairnano batteries. The company has been dormant since 2015.
In the mid-1980s, former Boeing engineer Fred Barker founded Flight Innovations Inc. and began the development of the Sky Commuter, a small duct fans-based VTOL aircraft. It was a compact two-passenger craft made primarily of composite materials. In 2008, the remaining prototype was sold for £86k on eBay.
21st century
In 2009, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a $65 million Transformer program to develop a four-person roadable aircraft by 2015.Warwick, Graham. Leading Edge blog: DARPA's Transformer – a Humvee That Flies , AW&ST On Technology, Aviation Week online website, 16 April 2010. Retrieved 10 May 2013. The vehicle was supposed to have VTOL capability and a range. AAI Corporation and Lockheed Martin were awarded contracts, but the program was cancelled in 2013.
The Parajet Skycar utilises a paramotor for propulsion and a parafoil for lift. The main body consists of a modified dune buggy. It has a top speed of and a maximum range of in flight. On the ground, it has a top speed of and a maximum range of . Parajet flew and drove its prototype from London to Timbuktu in January 2009.
The Maverick Flying Dune Buggy was designed by the Indigenous People's Technology and Education Center of Florida as an off-road vehicle that could unfurl an advanced parachute and then travel by air over impassable terrain when roadways were no longer usable. The "Maverick" vehicle is powered by a engine that can also drive a five-bladed pusher propeller. It was initially conceived in order to minister to remote Amazon rainforest communities, but would also be marketed for visual pipeline inspection and other similar activities in desolate areas or difficult terrain.Logan Ward, 10 Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009: I-TEC's Flying Dune Buggy , Popular Mechanics, November 2009. Retrieved 25 October 2009.
The Plane Driven PD-1 Roadable Glastar is a modification to the Glastar Sportsman GS-2 to make a practical roadable aircraft. The approach is novel in that it uses a mostly stock aircraft with a modified landing gear "pod" that carries the engine for road propulsion. The wings fold along the side, and the main landing gear and engine pod slide aft in driving configuration to compensate for the rearward center of gravity with the wings folded and provide additional stability for road travel.
The Super Sky Cycle was an American homebuilt roadable gyroplane designed and manufactured by The Butterfly LLC.Blain, Loz. "The flying motorcycle – road-registered and available now" GizMag, 17 April 2007. Retrieved 4 April 2012. It is a registered motorcycle."Pictures of the day" The Daily Telegraph, 9 November 2011. Retrieved 4 April 2012.
At the 2014 Pioneers Festival at Wien (Austria) AeroMobil presented their version 3.0 of their flying car. The prototype was conceived as a vehicle that can be converted from an automobile to an aircraft. The version 2.5 proof-of-concept took 20 years to develop and first flew in 2013. CEO Juraj Vaculik said that the company planned to move flying cars to market: "the plan is that in 2017 we'll be able to announce ...the first flying roadster." In 2016, AeroMobil was test-flying a prototype that obtained Slovak ultralight certification. When the final product will be available or how much it will cost is not yet specified. In 2018, it unveiled a concept that resembled a flying sportscar with VTOL capability. The Aeromobil 2.5 has folding wings and a Rotax 912 engine. It can travel at with a range of , and flew for the first time in 2013.Alyssa Danigelis. "Slovakian Flying Car Prototype Takes Off " Discovery News, 21 October 2013. Accessed: 22 October 2013. On 29 October 2014, Slovak startup AeroMobil s.r.o. unveiled AeroMobil 3.0 at Vienna Pioneers Festival.
In Slovakia, Klein Vision developed the prototype AirCar, which drives like a sports car and for flight has a pusher propeller with twin tailbooms, and foldout wings. In June 2021, the prototype carried out a 35-minute flight between airports.Zoe Kleinman; "Flying car completes test flight between airports", BBC, 30 June 2021. It was type certified as an aircraft in January 2022.
The Terrafugia Transition is a roadable aircraft intended to be classed as a Personal Air Vehicle. It can fold its wings in 30 seconds and drive the front wheels, enabling it to operate both as a traditional road vehicle and as a general aviation aeroplane, with a range of . An operational prototype was displayed at the AirVenture Oshkosh convention in 2008, and its first flight took place on 5 March 2009. It can carry two people plus luggage, and its Rotax 912S engine operates on premium unleaded gas. It was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in June 2010.