Terrafugia - The Flying Car Demos How It Works In Public

Kaustubh Katdare · 2013-07-31T17:29:24+00:00

Terrafugia is one of the interesting automobile projects - that aims to turn a car into a flying machine with some crazy engineering. We'd call it a 'foldable' plane. Until now, we had only seen the photos and designs of the machine, but now, Terrafugia has come out in public and has shown how it works. Check out the following video - The price of these planes is going to be north of $250k and is expected to hit the roads (and skies) no sooner than 2015. What do you think? Cool yeah?

Terrafugia - The Flying Car Demos How It Works In Public

Kaustubh Katdare

Administrator

Updated: Oct 26, 2024

Views: 1.3K

Terrafugia is one of the interesting automobile projects - that aims to turn a car into a flying machine with some crazy engineering. We'd call it a 'foldable' plane. Until now, we had only seen the photos and designs of the machine, but now, Terrafugia has come out in public and has shown how it works. Check out the following video -

The price of these planes is going to be north of $250k and is expected to hit the roads (and skies) no sooner than 2015.

What do you think? Cool yeah?

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vikaskumar11233

Member • Jul 31, 2013

Yeah. It's really cool to see the now technology going to run on roads soon. But it's not the first time this flying car has taken a flight. A prototype was flown in 2009 followed by same in 2012. But, it was not made public that time. The Terrafugia couldn't be called car like in design as it is too close to a plane. According to Terrafugia president of business development Richard Gersh, it's described as a four-seater, plugin hybrid electric flying car with fly by wire vertical takeoff and landing, to make flight just as straightforward as driving.

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Anil Jain

Member • Jul 31, 2013

They have Cras design that have flying machines (air crafts design); main pain points for this project per me?

- Size, balancing a small size craft (CAR) in air
- Fuel, would be very interesting to see that how do they manage this aspect
- If they manage the above two, how do they manage the same on roads
- Traffic management in air

Any clue to these doubts?

-CB

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Kaustubh Katdare

Administrator • Jul 31, 2013

#-Link-Snipped-# - Yes, it's a hybrid vehicle. The bigger question is - Will it be practical to use it to take off on regular public roads? Or we'll have to keep looking for airports and permissions?

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Gandalf

Member • Jul 31, 2013

In India , Airports, permissions , Licenses will eat up major part of the innovation time , and on Roads in India it is out of Question with the potholes that creep up in the Best Roads of the Country during Monsoon season making it unsafe for such hybrid vehicles , Need to go through more technical specifications before we can comment more about its practicality and use in other countries

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Anil Jain

Member • Jul 31, 2013

One more question,
What about the flat tire issue?

What if while taking off tire is in perfect condition, however while landing it face a flat tire issue (landing on nails, or not so good area on road??) That will be prone to accidents, right?

-CB

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Jeffrey Arulraj

Member • Aug 1, 2013

crazyboy
One more question,
What about the flat tire issue?

What if while taking off tire is in perfect condition, however while landing it face a flat tire issue (landing on nails, or not so good area on road??) That will be prone to accidents, right?

-CB
Well a nice question

This has already been answered in tube less tyres But if they get punctured they are a little costlier to fix

But driving over a few nails and stuff won't damage these if it is not done intentionally

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Jeffrey Arulraj

Member • Aug 1, 2013

About this

Gandalf
In India , Airports, permissions , Licenses will eat up major part of the innovation time , and on Roads in India it is out of Question with the potholes that creep up in the Best Roads of the Country during Monsoon season making it unsafe for such hybrid vehicles , Need to go through more technical specifications before we can comment more about its practicality and use in other countries
Simple the height these travel will be restricted well below the flight height of airplanes

And there will surely be enforcement to prevent people to venture any where with in a one Km square cirle around the airport That should be more than enough for a flight to effectively take off

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Anil Jain

Member • Aug 1, 2013

Conqueror
Well a nice question

This has already been answered in tube less tyres But if they get punctured they are a little costlier to fix

But driving over a few nails and stuff won't damage these if it is not done intentionally

I had a nissan car with tube less tire, and that got punctured quite a number of times (atleast 3-4 i remember) both and Indian and US condition.

So considering tubeless tires doesn't get flat is not a right assumption.

-CB

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vikaskumar11233

Member • Aug 1, 2013

Kaustubh Katdare
#-Link-Snipped-# - Yes, it's a hybrid vehicle. The bigger question is - Will it be practical to use it to take off on regular public roads? Or we'll have to keep looking for airports and permissions?
According to the comments made by Terrafugia, owners must have pilot's licenses, and will need to pass a test plus complete 20 hours of flying time to be able to fly the car. This hybrid car requires a runway, the TF-X can take off from a vertical position because of motorised rotors on the wings. These rotors will work in a similar way to helicopter rotors. Being able to take off from standstill means owners will be able to go from the road to the air straight from their driveways, car parks and even when stuck in traffic. So I think that this hybrid car is totally practical to use and will run on roads soon.

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