AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

Here’s a much easier way to get a favorite cup of coffee–in the next town–without all that traffic. Maverick is the only successful powered parachute and flying car on the market ($94,000). There are five flying.

The company called Itec/Beyond Roads has delivered four of its “Maverick” powered-parachutes with a driveable dunebuggy used as a cockpit. It is approved as a light sport aircraft, a category the includes powered parachutes. One is going to Dubai, and factory reps may travel there in a few weeks to provide training to the new customer. Deliveries are cautiously made only to experienced customers until fleet time for the vehicle increases. There are nine in various stages of construction at the factory in Florida. While dubbed the flying car by the press, it is actually intended as a jungle dunebuggy that can hop a stream when it needs to. It can drive faster than the 40 mph it achieves in the air, if there is no headwind. You can see the latest video here. Insurance has proven to be expensive, and AOPA Insurance Agency is contacting the company to help with the problem. The current premium is $8,000 a year for the factory to cover its personnel and give demonstrations. The company cleverly received government approval for the “car” aspect of the vehicle by getting it approved as a kit car. That move has stunned other companies trying to pass highway crash standards for the car portion of various “flying car” concepts. A flying car has to be strong enough to survive road rage, yet light enough to fly.

Will there be a flying car at AirVenture 2011? Terrafugia officials are building two prototypes and hope one of them will be done in time to fly for the big EAA Oshkosh show. It is hoped, assuming all goes well during testing, that production can begin by the end of the year. The Terrafugia Transition, as it is called, is intended to cruise at 93 knots carrying a useful load of 460 pounds. Useable fuel is 23 gallons. On the road, the company predicts the two-place car, with its wings folded vertically like a bird, will get 35 miles per gallon. The high center of gravity created by the folded wings will bring interesting challenges when driving in high winds. A Rotax 912S powers it, and a full vehicle parachute is available.

Update 6/10: Schedule slips — Terrafugia said it will not have one of its prototypes done in time to fly for EAA AirVenture. Instead, the earliest a test flight could occur is March 2012, and deliveries will occur no earlier than late 2012.

The Sweeney family came together in Auburn, Ca., today, quite by accident, to discuss their historic Aerocar. Eric Sweeney runs Auburn Aircraft Works, specializing in unusual airplanes, and is the current caretaker of the Aerocar. Brother Sean brought his company’s Cessna 310 in for modifications and takes care of it in Kissimme, Fla. Aerocar owner Ed Sweeney from Colorado Springs, Colo., was in town for personal business after educating the public on the Aerocar at Reno. Sean has 20 hours in the Aerocar, an hour for every year his dad has owned it. Eric started flying it more recently and has a few hours as well. Check out my reports on Twitter.com. Try here first. The Twitter site is having technical difficulties, but search under altonmarsh.

Glenn Curtiss gets credit for the first flying car with his 1917 Autoplane that married a flivver (resembling a Model T) to a biplane–make that triplane. Aerofiles.com found the photos and drawings. The car, patented in 1919, was capable of short hops–bunny hops, to be exact. It tried but never achieved sustained flight. By the way, if you think the old Curtiss company is long gone, meet today’s Curtiss-Wright Corporation, the same company formed in 1929 with the merger of 12 Wright and Curtiss affiliated companies. It’s still there, and still in aviation.

In the `70s a California Ford dealer (still in business today) offered a Flying Pinto that had only one problem; it wasn’t fully developed yet. It needed a bracing strut across the bottom of the car, linking the two wing struts. A wing later came off the car used for this 1970s video , killing the pilot and the inventor, but another Pinto prepped to fly remains with the dealer. Some people doubt that the Pinto actually is flying in the video. The video runs 10 minutes, so if you are short of time move the slider to these time spots: between minute 5 and minute 6 you will see a complete description of the Mizar Flying Pinto; at time 7:27 you will learn that an option is a parachute to float car and wings to the ground. Those are the highlights. Backing up a bit, at time 3:05 you will see how frustrated the pilot is with an airplane that can’t convert to a car. At time 2:11 you will notice that when the wife flies with her husband and family, she always knits. At time 1:34 you will learn that there are 1.5 million pilots, or about double the total today. (There’s no sound until 26 seconds into the video.)