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It has been suggested that Roadable aircraft be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since July 2021.

A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of light aircraft or personal air vehicle that provides door-to-door transportation by both road and air. The term "flying car" is also sometimes used to include hovercars.

Many prototypes have been built since the early 20th century, using a variety of flight technologies. Most have taken off and landed conventionally using a runway, although VTOL projects are increasing. None has yet been built in more than a handful of numbers.

Their appearance is often predicted by futurologists, with their failure ever to reach production leading to the catchphrase, "Where's my flying car?" Flying cars are also a popular theme in fantasy and science fiction stories.

History

Early developments

Glenn Curtiss, the chief rival of the Wright brothers, was the first to design a roadable aircraft. His large, three-wing Curtiss Autoplane was able to hop, but not fly.

In 1935, inventor Constantinos Vlachos built a prototype of a 'tri-phibian' vehicle that caught fire after the engine exploded, while Vlachos was demonstrating it in Washington, D.C. Vlachos' prototype is most notable for a newsreel that captured the incident, which left him in hospital for several months.

The Autogiro Company of America AC-35 was an early attempt at a roadable aircraft. On March 26, 1936 the AC-35 was flown by test pilot James G. Ray with counter-rotating propellers. These were later replaced with a single conventional propeller arrangement. On October 2, 1936, Ray landed the AC-35 in a downtown park in Washington, D.C. where it was displayed. On October 26, 1936, the aircraft was converted to roadable configuration. Ray drove it to the main entrance of the Commerce Building, where it was accepted by John H. Geisse, chief of the Aeronautics Branch. Although it was successfully tested, it did not enter production.

In 1936, Henry Ford displayed an experimental single-seat aeroplane that he called the "sky flivver". The project was abandoned two years later when a distance-record attempt flight crashed, killing the pilot. The Flivver was not a flying car at all, but it did get press attention at the time, exciting the public that they would have a mass-produced affordable airplane product that would be made, marketed, sold, and maintained just like an automobile. The airplane was to be as commonplace in the future as the Model T of the time.

The first roadable fixedwing aircraft actually to fly was built by Waldo Waterman. Waterman was associated with Curtiss while Curtiss was pioneering amphibious aircraft at North Island on San Diego Bay in the 1910s. On March 21, 1937, Waterman's Arrowbile first took to the air. The Arrowbile was a development of Waterman's tailless aircraft, the Whatsit. It had a wingspan of 38 feet (12 m) and a length of 20 feet 6 inches (6.25 m). On the ground and in the air it was powered by a Studebaker engine. It could fly at 112 mph (180 km/h) and drive at 56 mph (90 km/h).

World War II

In 1940, Henry Ford famously predicted: "Mark my word: a combination airplane and motorcar is coming. You may smile, but it will come.”

In 1942, the Soviet armed forces experimented with a gliding tank, the Antonov A-40, but it was not capable of flying on its own.

In 1942, the British army built the Hafner Rotabuggy, an experimental roadable autogyro that was developed with the intention of producing a way of air-dropping off-road vehicles. Although initial tests showed that the Rotabuggy was prone to severe vibration at speeds greater than 45 miles per hour (72 km/h), with improvements the Rotabuggy achieved a flight speed of 70 mph (113 km/h).

However, the introduction of gliders that could carry vehicles (such as the Waco Hadrian and Airspeed Horsa) made the Rotabuggy superfluous and further development was cancelled.

Postwar era

Although several designs (such as the ConVairCar) have flown, none have enjoyed commercial success, and those that have flown are not widely known about 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 roadable aircraft 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 1950 and, although it was not a commercial success (financial costs of air worthiness 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.

In the period between 1956 and 1958, Ford's Advanced Design studio built the Volante Tri-Athodyne, a 3/8 scale concept car model. It was designed to have three ducted fans, each with their own motor, that would lift it off the ground and move it through the air. In public relation release, Ford noted that "the day where there will be an aero-car in every garage is still some time off", but added that "the Volante indicates one direction that the styling of such a vehicle would take".

In 1957, Popular Mechanics reported that Hiller Helicopters was developing a ducted-fan aircraft that would be easier to fly than helicopters, and should cost a lot less. Hiller engineers expected that this type of an aircraft would become the basis for a whole family of special-purpose aircraft.

In 1956, the US Army's Transportation Research Command began an investigation into "flying jeeps", ducted-fan-based aircraft that were envisioned to be smaller and easier to fly than helicopters. In 1957, Chrysler, Curtiss-Wright, and Piasecki were assigned contracts for building and delivery of prototypes. They all delivered their prototypes; however, Piasecki's VZ-8 was the most successful of the three. While it would normally operate close to the ground, it was capable of flying to several thousand feet, proving to be stable in flight. Nonetheless, the Army decided that the "Flying Jeep concept unsuitable for the modern battlefield", and concentrated on the development of conventional helicopters. In addition to the army contract, Piasecki was developing the Sky Car, a modified version of its VZ-8 for civilian use..

One notable design was Henry Smolinski's Mizar, made by mating the rear end of a Cessna Skymaster with a Ford Pinto, but it disintegrated during test flights killing Smolinski and the pilot.

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, 14-foot-long (4.3 m) two-passenger and was made primarily of composite materials. In 2008, the remaining prototype was sold for £86k on eBay.

Modern developments

As of 2017, several companies were developing electric flying cars, or eVTOLs, for production by 2020, including:

• Sky Drive by Cartivator — the start-up had announced its goal of a flight to ignite the 2020 Summer Olympics torch with its eVTOL, postponed to due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Toyota is a backer.
• Kitty Hawk Flyer by Kitty Hawk Corporation — Larry Page's Zee.Aero and the Kitty Hawk Corporation (backed by Page) are developing flying cars. In April 2017, Kitty Hawk unveiled its "Flyer" VTOL craft, which flies only over water. Part of Kitty Hawk was split off into Cora by Wisk, a joint venture between Wisk Aero LLC and Boeing, in 2019.
• Volocopter 2X by E-Volo, now Volocopter — in August 2019, the Volocopter 2X was successfully tested at Helsinki airport for integrate with air traffic management services for unpiloted aerial craft AirMap, Altitude Angel and Unifly, a key element for commercial flight certification.
• A³ Vahana by Airbus — the Airbus eVTOL prototype made its first flight on 3 May 2019, in Donauwörth, Germany
• EHang 216 by EHang — the EHang 216 carried passengers in Changchun, China during a demonstration flight at the 2019 China-Northeast Asia Expo in late August 2019
• Uber — the international ride-sharing company is working with Karem Aircraft to develop the electric eCRM-003 eVTOL, with first tests expected by 2020, and very limited UberAir service trials by 2023 (Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Melbourne), with 50 vehicles serving five skyports per city.

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.

Urban Aeronautics' X-Hawk is a VTOL turbojet powered aircraft announced in 2006 with a first flight planned for 2009. It was intended to operate much like a tandem rotor helicopter, but with ducted fans rather than exposed rotors. The requisite decrease in rotor size would also decrease fuel efficiency. The X-Hawk was being promoted for rescue and utility functions. As of 2013, no flights had been reported.

Terrafugia have a flying road vehicle, the Terrafugia Transition On 7 May 2013, Terrafugia announced the TF-X, a plug-in hybrid tilt-rotor vehicle that would be the first fully autonomous flying car. It would have a range of 500 miles (800 km) per flight and batteries are rechargeable by the engine. Development of TF-X is expected to last 8–12 years, which means it will not come to market before 2019.

The Moller Skycar M400 is a prototype personal VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft which is powered by four pairs of in-tandem Wankel rotary engines, and is approaching the problems of satellite-navigation, incorporated in the proposed Small Aircraft Transportation System. Moller also advises that, currently, the Skycar would only be allowed to fly from airports & heliports. The Skycar M400 has tiny wheels and no road capability at all. Moller has been developing VTOL craft since the late 1960s, but no Moller vehicle has ever achieved free flight out of ground effect. The proposed Autovolantor model has an all-electric version powered by Altairnano batteries.

The Xplorair PX200 was a French project of single-seater VTOL aircraft without rotating airfoil, relying on the Coandă effect and using an array of small jet engines called thermoreactors embedded within tiltwings' body. Announced in 2007, the project has been funded by the Government of France and was supported by various aerospace firms. A full-scale drone was scheduled for flight at Paris Air Show 2017, followed by the commercialization of a single seat flying car in the years after.

The SkyRider X2R is a prototype of a flying car developed by MACRO Industries, Inc. It is lighter than the Moller Skycar which has never successfully flown untethered.

The production-ready single-engine, roadable PAL-V Liberty autogyro, or gyrocopter, debuted at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2018, then became the first flying car in production, and was set to launch in 2020, with full production scheduled for 2021 in Gujarat, India.

Flying cars were planned to enter Russian market in 2018.

Turkey's top UAV producer Baykar is focusing on working on its flying car named Cezeri. It was first introduced on TEKNOFEST Istanbul in 2019.

In August 2020, a startup in Japan backed by Toyota tested its flying car prototype, which was a quadcopter with 2 propellers and motors per corner that flew for four minutes.

On April 15, 2021, Los Altos, California, became home to the world's first consumer flying car showroom.

Klein Vision in Slovakia have developed a 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.

Design

A practical flying car must be capable of safe, reliable and environmentally-friendly operation both on public roads and in the air. For widespread adoption it must also be able to fly without a qualified pilot at the controls and come at affordable purchase and running costs.

Lift

Many types of aircraft technologies and form factors have been tried. The simplest and earliest approach was to take a driveable car and add removable flying surfaces and propeller. However when on the road, such a design must either tow its removable parts on a separate trailer or leave them behind and drive back to them before taking off again. Other conventional takeoff fixed-wing designs, such as the Terrafugia Transition, include folding wings which the car carries with it when driven on the road.

Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) is attractive, as it avoids the need for a runway and greatly increases operational flexibility. Typical designs include rotorcraft and ducted fan powered lift configurations. Most design concepts have inherent problems.

Ducted-fan aircraft such as the Moller Skycar tend to easily lose stability and have been unable to travel at greater than 30–40 knots.

Rotorcraft include helicopters with bowered rotors and autogyros with free-spinning rotors. For road use a rotor must, like many naval helicopters, be either two-bladed or foldable. The quadcopter requires only a simple control system with no tail. The autogyro relies on a separate thrust system to build up airspeed, spin the rotor and generate lift. However some autogyros have rotors which can be spun up on the ground and then disengaged, allowing the aircraft to jump-start vertically. The PAL-V Liberty is an example of the autogyro type.

Safety

Although statistically, commercial flying is much safer than driving, unlike commercial planes personal flying cars might not have as many safety checks and their pilots would not be as well trained. Humans already have problems with the aspect of driving in two dimensions (forward and backwards, side to side), adding in the up and down aspect would make "driving" or flying as it would be, much more difficult; however, this problem might be solved via the sole use of self-flying and self-driving cars. In mid-air collisions and mechanical failures, the aircraft could fall from the sky or go through an emergency landing, resulting in deaths and property damage. In addition, poor weather conditions, such as low air density, lightning storms and heavy rain, snow or fog could be challenging and affect the aircraft's aerodynamics.

A major problem, which increases rapidly with wider adoption, is the risk of mid-air collisions. Another is the unscheduled or emergency landing of a flying car on an unprepared location beneath, including the possibility of accident debris. Regulatory regimes are being developed in anticipation of a large increase in the numbers of roadable aircraft and personal air vehicles in the near future, and compliance with these regimes will be necessary for safe flight.

Mechanically, the challenges of flight are so strict that every opportunity must be taken to keep weight to a minimum and a typical airframe is lightweight and easily damaged. On the other hand, a road vehicle must be able to withstand significant impact loads from casual incidents as well as low-speed and high-speed impacts, and the high strength this demands can add considerable weight. A practical flying car must be both strong enough to pass road safety standards and light enough to fly.

Environment

A flying car capable of widespread use must operate safely within a heavily populated urban environment. The lift and propulsion systems must be quiet, and have safety shrouds around all moving parts such as rotors, and must not create excessive pollution.

Control

A basic flying car requires the person at the controls to be both a qualified road driver and aircraft pilot. This is impractical for the majority of people and so wider adoption will require computer systems to de-skill piloting. These include aircraft maneuvering, navigation and emergency procedures, all in potentially crowded airspace. Fly-by-wire computers can also make up for many deficiencies in flight dynamics, such as stability. A practical flying car may need to be a fully autonomous vehicle in which people are present only as passengers.

Cost

The need for the propulsion system to be both small and powerful can at present only be met using advanced and expensive technologies. The cost of manufacture could therefore be as much as 10 million dollars.

These flying cars would be used for shorter distances, at higher frequency, and at lower speeds and lower altitudes than conventional passenger aircraft. However optimal fuel efficiency for airplanes is obtained at high altitudes and high subsonic speeds, so a flying car's energy efficiency would be low compared to a conventional aircraft. Similarly, the flying car's road performance would be compromised by the requirements of flight, so it would be less economical than a conventional motor car as well.

Industry groups

In April 2012, the International Flying Car Association was established to be the "central resource center for information and communication between the flying car industry, news networks, governments, and those seeking further information worldwide". Because flying cars need practical regulations that are mostly dealt with on a regional level, several regional associations were established as well, with the European Flying Car Association (EFCA) representing these national member associations on a pan-European level (51 independent countries, including the European Union Member States, the Accession Candidates and Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine). The associations are also organizing racing competitions for roadable aircraft in Europe, the European Roadable Aircraft Prix (ERAP), mainly to increase awareness about this type of aircraft among a broader audience.

List of flying cars

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (January 2015)

Most flying cars fall into one of two styles:

• Integrated — all components can be carried in the vehicle, or on a trailer attached to the vehicle.
• Modular — some aeronautical sections are left at the airport while the vehicle is driven.

Chronological list of types

Types are listed by year of first flight:

• Aerocar or Taylor Aerocar (1949), US, six manufactured.
• Piasecki VZ-8 Airgeep (1959-62), prototype vertical takeoff and landing "flying jeep".
• In 2005, Monster Garage's host Jesse James built a roadable aircraft by combining an old Cessna with a Panoz Esperante.
• Terrafugia Transition (2009) and TF-X prototype.
• PAL-V (2012). Liberty production model under development.
• Klein Vision AirCar (2021) prototype.
• Moller M400 Skycar prototype (project started in the 1960s, unsuccessful as of 2019)

Sortable list

Popular culture

Where's my flying car?

The flying car was and remains a common feature of conceptions of the future, including imagined near futures such as those of the 21st century.

In 1999 the U.S. journalist Gail Collins noted:

Here we are, less than a month until the turn of the millennium, and what I want to know is, what happened to the flying cars? We're about to become Americans of the 21st century. People have been predicting what we'd be like for more than 100 years, and our accoutrements don't entirely live up to expectations. (...) Our failure to produce flying cars seems like a particular betrayal since it was so central to our image.

As a result, flying cars have been referred to jokingly with the question "Where's my flying car?", emblematic of the supposed failure of modern technology to match futuristic visions that were promoted in earlier decades.

Comedian Lewis Black had a similar routine early in the decade, in which he says, "This new millennium sucks! It's exactly the same as the old millennium! You know why? No flying cars!"

Fiction

The flying car has been depicted in many works of fantasy and science fiction.

Live action films

• Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

  "Spinner" is the generic term for the fictional flying cars used in Blade Runner, set in futuristic-cyberpunk Los Angeles of 2019. A Spinner can be driven as a ground-based vehicle, and take off vertically, hover, and cruise using jet propulsion much like Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. They are used extensively by the police to patrol and survey the population, and it is clear that despite restrictions wealthy people can acquire spinner licenses. The vehicle was conceived and designed by Syd Mead who described the spinner as an "aerodyne"—a vehicle which directs air downward to create lift, though press kits for the film stated that the spinner was propelled by three engines: "conventional internal combustion, jet, and anti-gravity" Mead's conceptual drawings were transformed into 25 working vehicles by automobile customizer Gene Winfield. A Spinner is on permanent exhibit at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington. In the 2017 sequel, the spinner flown by the main character is branded as a Peugeot as a part of a marketing deal that later resulted in a lawsuit between Peugeot and Alcon Entertainment.

• The Fifth Element (1997)

  In The Fifth Element, set in 2263 New York City, flying cars are used as the main mean of transportation. The production design for the film was developed by French comics creators Jean Giraud and Jean-Claude Mézières. Mézières wrote the book The Circles of Power, which features a character named S'Traks, who drives a flying taxicab through the congested air traffic of the vast metropolis on the planet Rubanis. Besson read the book and was inspired to change the Dallas character to a taxicab driver who flies through a futuristic New York City.

• Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II (1985/1989)

  In Back to the Future Part II and the ending of Back to the Future, Doc Brown invites Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer in his modified flying DeLorean time machine, and time travels to the year 2015 where flying hovercars are a common sight.

• The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

  In The Man with the Golden Gun, the ninth spy film in the James Bond series, a flying 1974 AMC Matador coupe plays a starring role. The car is used by an evil duo for kidnapping and driven into a warehouse in Bangkok, Thailand. The Matador coupe is then transformed by attaching a large wing with an airplane engine and a tail unit to the actual aerodynamic car that forms the fuselage and its four wheels as landing gear. It is then driven to a runway with wings 9.15 m (30 ft) long, 12.80 m (42 ft) wide, and 3.08 m (10 ft) high to fly to an island in the China Sea. However, the "flying" Matador was not airworthy, thus a 1 m (39 in)-long remote control model was used for the aerial sequences. The movie stunt car was used for publicity and marketing campaigns.

Animation

• The Animatrix (2003)

  In the animated film The Animatrix (part of The Matrix saga), specifically in the episode called The Second Renaissance, appears a supposed TV commercial announcing a flying car called Versatran.

See also

• Amphibious automobile
• CarterCopter
• Intermodal passenger transport
• Jet pack
• Personal air vehicle
• Roadable aircraft
• NASA Puffin

Notes

1. For example, see Scott, 2007, where she asks "This is not 1901, we all own pocket-sized remote voice receiver/transmitters. The glittering, futuristic year of 2000 was done and dusted over seven years ago... The future is now — so where is my flying car?"

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Further reading

• BBC News Flying cars in 25 years, BBC News Online, 22 September 2004.
• Brown, Stuart F. Why We’re Not Driving the Friendly Skies, The New York Times online, 22 August 2014, and in print on 24 August 2014, on p. AU1 of the New York edition.
• Feltman, Rachel. Why Don't We Have Flying Cars?, Popular Mechanics, 21 February 2013.
• Hakim, Danny. A Helicopter of One’s Own, The New York Times online, 16 June 2014, and in print on 17 June 2014, p. D2 of the New York edition.
• Hodgdon, Theodore, A.; Onosko, Tim (ed.) "At Last —a Convertible Auto-Plane", in Wasn't the Future Wonderful?: A View of Trends and Technology from the 1930s, Dutton, 1979, pp. 152–153, ISBN 0525475516, ISBN 978-0525475514.

External links

• Roadable Times, pictures and descriptions of over 70 designs of flying cars and roadable aircraft past and present.
• How Flying Cars Will Work at HowStuffWorks.
• X-Hawk from HowStuffWorks Archived 9 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
• Waterman Aerobile at the Smithsonian
• Terrafugia Transition video on TED

• Articles to be merged from July 2021
• Roadable aircraft
• Emerging technologies