Pretty cool, eh?
I love it!
Thanks for the link.
I love it, too. Mountainbike, who gets the first one; you or me? Hmmm, I’ll be Jay Leno already has his reservation in…
You’re welcome to it, jt. My body is too old and beaten up to be cruising around in an ultralight.
Besides, with my luck I’d get caught in an updraft and be unable to land again until I ran out of fuel, at which time I’d crash. I love the idea, though.
I guess well just have to leave it to Leno. An old guy like me shouldn’t ride in it either. Maybe we can live vicariously through @circuitsmith…
Now we’re really going to need orange balls on all the powerlines.
The one huge danger with little personal aircraft ( flying cars or drivable planes ) will be the airspace they’re hoping for is already crammed with obstacles.
That’s why I like the idea of the VTOL crafts best.
In my neighborhood that’s true, but an awful lot of the country is still open space.
In truth I realize that people untrained in flight buzzing around in these things would be a recipe for disasters (note the plural form of the word). I just think it’s a cool machine, and an innovative approach to the old “flying car” dream.
I used to own a Cessna 172 ( 182 engine ) and can claerly see the advantage of a long flight capable plane/car , airport to airport, which could then be driven to destination like visiting , shopping, resort, etc, then driven back to an airstrip to fly home again.
I too kinda like this dune buggy/paraglider.
As an expensive hobby, my flying was fun and I’m glad I did it. But it was rather impractical needing to rent cars at all hours at destinaton. Then our family out grew the plane and the flying budget.
I would hope some basic flight training would be required. An understanding of lift, downdrafts, updrafts, slip & slide in turns, attitude control, landing basics, and a few of other basics would be really important. I can envision some poor guy losing altitude in a turn and having no idea why or what to do about it… with a rockface in front of him and an evergreen forest below.
Going to pass on riding in one, let alone owning one. I can’t imagine what would happen if you collided with a bird. At lower altitudes, it can be less safe if you need to make evasive or recovery maneuvers. Higher altitudes are your friend like driving in a car and leaving extra room. All the FAA cares about is that you don’t interfere with commercial or private FAA sanctioned aircraft. It is unsafe to fly at lower altitudes in general. Great idea for the occasional rancher checking the herd but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere around when you run into a flock of geese or a hawk in flight going after a squirrel. Ken is right. Hence the expense but popularity of helicopters.
Bird collisions is a good reason to wear a helmet.
I was thinking of the shrapnel generated by that fan right behind you after you slice and dice one of our fine feathered friends. Clean up would amount a new unused body bag.
I’d love to try one. Based on how rapidly birds respond to approaching cars, bird strikes in a slow moving powered parachute might not be an issue. I can’t remember having ever read of a bird strike in an ultralight, which is basically what this is when it’s flying.
Driving/flying it would be an Italian experience. As you may recall, the excuse for the small windows in Italian super cars has always been “What’s behind you doesn’t matter”. Just don’t tailgate the plane when the shrike hits the fan.
Until we have cheap VTOL,looks like the V-22 finally came of age-but look at the cost,if you really must fly home .live in a flying community.I dont want people driving over my house and dropping poo-bombs or whatever.
Folks maybe we need tele-prescence,more thing actually being there(would be a lot cheaper) unless we get a Jetson mobile,I dont see the flying car happening.Well lets put this in perspective-Cessna started small personal aircraft,you drove off the ground-the road was unlimited and maintenence free,but the parking spaces were limited and strictley controlled, a good friend of mine(heir to a sizeable stipend) has a new STOL cessna 182(sweet bird) He has no problem getting transportation to and from the airports,perhaps we just need a new way of looking at things(after all when its said and done,we have conquered gravity)-Kevin
These will never be a reality for widespread use, you have to be sober to fly, its alot different than driving a car. If these became mainstream and you had to have 8 hours from bottle to throttle the public outcry would be unbearable because we all need a drink or two before we drive, its our god given right.