Comments on: Flying motorcycle the next roadable airplane?

By: beendone

beendone — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:11:06 +0000

Itec has built a serious flying car! Theyve driven it thousands of miles and flown it many times as well. Resembles a roadster/sand rail/dune buggy. Tube frame, off road suspension. Its slow in the air ~40mph due to its paraglider wing, but on the ground the zero to sixty is faster than a Lambo! 3.9 sec! Its powered by a subaru 2.5l and weighs just about nothing. Plus…. Its already legal as a kitcar in FL and they have received approval or what ever they need from the FAA to manufacture it as a light sport plane! They figure $80,000 itecusa.org/maverick.html

By: Fem Anvate

Fem Anvate — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 02:08:29 +0000

All the Nay-sayers ranting on.
Truth is, Nay-sayers are usually right.
Here we are, 2 years down the road
haven’t heard of a test-flight,
never saw it at Oshkosh,
nobody remembers this plane,
but we’re all hunting down the newest,
latest plane that will never fly.
Do yourself a favor and build an RV-9.

By: N952JL

N952JL — Sun, 03 May 2009 04:42:27 +0000

I find it interesting that there has not been any comments since Jan. The switch blade model was announced in my AOPA newsletter and I’ve been following up. I like the idea. At lest the folding wing, I think the telescoping wing is dead. I would like to see the prototype fly and get some real numbers, then produce a homebuilt kit version. After that is established, get a LSP model into production. Last the higher speed certified version.

Good luck. If it comes out and looks good, I’ll build another plane. I love my Europa, but I would sell it to build this.

By: Keith Cameron

Keith Cameron — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:39:25 +0000

When my Son wanted a pocket knife with all the fancy attachements, I cautioned him “once you ask it to do everything else, it won’t even be a decent knife anymore”. Still, enthralled by the boundless utility he spent his money for all the bells and whistles. One the second day of our next camping trip I noticed he’d gone back to his old “simple” pocket knife. When prodded for an explanation, he conceded that all the fancy bells and whistles really added up to heavy, useless appliance that looked better on the store shelf than it did in the real world. I get the same feeling about the Skybike.

While I love the “look” of the Skybike, I’d rather see it first as a fully functional fixed wing aircraft. I’t's sleek, sexy and looks like it could be a blast to fly. However, in its current incarnation I see it as great on the shelf, but impractical and most likely wnworkable in the real world.

The “telescoping” wing looks to be far too leaky a vessel for me to put much hope, not to mention my life into. Something with a bit of history and engineering behind it like a variable geometry wing could prove a more workable solution. All in all, in today’s time of tight money I don’t see the floodgates of VC pouring into this project. And a radio controlled model does not a prototype make. I’ve seen radio controlled Dog houses fly, but I’ve yet to see one go to market.

By: Greggory

Greggory — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:52:32 +0000

Over 25 years ago, I saw a flying motorcycle at 3,000 msl near NAS Pt. Mugu, CA. I had just taken off from Pt. Mugu as was climb out in my LC-130 when I saw the Pilot on his Flying “Hog”. The Flying motorcycle had a fix wing with Ailerons and elevator/horizontal stabilizer welded to the frame of his Harley-Davis Motorcycle.
Good Luck on getting your SkyBike airborne.

By: Joe Pilot

Joe Pilot — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:51:34 +0000

As a CFI/CFII/MEI and CCS road racer I really like the idea, but I dont see how this is really anything like a motorcycle. Its fully enclosed, number one, and it has three wheels, making it a trike, technically, so not a motorcycle at all. Number two, If you have a flying machine with short field takeoff and landing capabilities sufficient enough to get onto and off of the road (presumably thats what they are suggesting) then why drive at all, why not fly everywhere you want to go? Thats what I would do anyway.
In my estimation, a flying motorcycle would be ideal transportation, but motorcycles are designed, more than any other vehicle, to corner, with wings this would be an impossibility, thus an awkward and dangerous ground vehicle. So to make a motorcycle of the Air would be more logical, not a hybrid of the two.
If this was designed as an open tandem cockpit, or no cockpit at all, like a jetski, with wings and thrust vectoring for vertical takeoff and landing (preferably with a jet engine), and retractable landing gear, then I could see it as a usable (although highly dangerous) and incredibly fun, form of transportation. As it stands, that design would be incredibly expensive in todays market. It sure is fun to dream though.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:41:59 +0000

A Flying Motorcycle, Its been done.

Here is one that flys and drives today.

LINK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fzUPMpsLl4

http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/

By: Chris O

Chris O — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:08:46 +0000

What I need to know is can my license plate be my N-number? And will that suffice for both the feds and troopers? If so, I may be tempted to move to a one-plate state to avoid the extra drag.

By: Roy Dees

Roy Dees — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:37:56 +0000

In order to retrtact the wings you would have to leave out the ribs. What is going to main-
tain the shape of the airfoil? Thicker wing skins?

By: Skymaster

Skymaster — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:35:59 +0000

Looks good to me I could see a problem with
one flying up in front of you from a country road
but good luck anyway