Flying car
From Free net encyclopedia
- This article is about flying automobiles. For information on the 2002 Kevin Smith film, see The Flying Car.
A flying car is an automobile that can legally travel on a road and can take off, fly, and land like an aircraft.
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History
Vision
It wasn't long after The Wright Brothers made their first successful flight that aviation pioneers began to imagine a hybrid aircraft/automobile. A flying car would be a vehicle for the common man. It could be driven from any home to a convenient take-off area where it could be assembled for flight. Some current projects, such as the LaBiche FSC-1 have built-in automatic conversion.
Early experiments
Glenn Curtiss, the Wright's chief rival, was the first to design a flying car. The Autoplane had three wings and an aluminum body, using the same wings as his Model L Triplane which spanned 40 feet. The assembled length was 20 feet, the body/fuselage using a twin boom rear section with the engine mounted between the booms. The Autoplane never flew but was exhibited at the Pan-American Aeronautic Exposition in New York City's Grand Central Palace in February 1917. The first patent awarded for a flying car went to F. Longobardi in 1918 and Curtiss received a patent for the Autoplane in 1919.
The first flying car to actually fly was built by Waldo Waterman. Waterman became associated with Curtiss while Curtiss was pioneering naval aviation at North Island on San Diego Bay in the 1910s. However, it wasn't until February 21 1937 that Waterman's Arrowbile first took to the air. The Arrowbile was a development of Waterman's tailless airplane, the Whatsit. It had a wingspan of 38 feet and a length of 20 feet 6 inches. On the ground and in the air it was powered by a Studebaker engine. It could fly at 110 MPH and drive at 55 MPH. Five Arrowbiles were completed and two were flown from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio for demonstration flights during air races. Waterman restored Arrowbile No. 6 (No. 5 was never completed) in the 1960s and donated it to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is in storage. Arrowbile No. 4 is reported to still exist in non-working condition.
Post-war development
Image:Flying car, cover of Popular Mechanics, Feb 1951.jpg In the 1950s, the western world was recovering from World War II and everything seemed possible. The flying car was a vision of transportation in the 21st century, and a common feature of science fiction futures.
Several designs (such as the Convair flying car and Molt Taylor's Aircar) have flown, none have enjoyed commercial success and those that have flown are not widely known about by the general public. One notable design, Henry Smolinski's Mizar, made by mating the rear end of a Cessna Skymaster with a Ford Pinto, disintegrated during test flights, killing Smolinski and the pilot.
In the 1950s, Ford Motor Company performed a serious feasibility study for a flying car product. They concluded that such a product was technically feasible, economically manufacturable, and had significant realistic markets. The markets explored included ambulance services, police and emergency services, military uses, and initially, luxury transportation. Some of these markets are now served by light helicopters, proving the accuracy of Ford's marketing. However, the flying car explored by Ford would be at least fifty-fold less expensive.
When Ford approached the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration about regulatory issues, the critical problem was that the (then) known forms of air traffic control were inadequate for the volume of traffic Ford proposed. At the time, air traffic control consisted of flight numbers, altitudes and headings written on little slips of paper and placed in a case. Quite possibly computerized traffic control, or some form of directional allocation by altitude could resolve the problems. Other problems would also need to be resolved in some ways, however, including intoxicated drivers or motorists that drive without a license.
List of Historic flying cars and roadable aircraft
- Curtiss Autoplane - 1917, never flown
- Waterman Arrowbile - 1937 two examples in museums as of 2004
- Aerocar Aerocar - 1949, one example still flying as of 2004
- Aerauto PL.5C - early 1950s
- AVE Mizar - 1973, Cesna Skymaster/Ford Pinto hybrid. Crashed, killing developer.
Modern development
Image:Cover of Pop Science Mar 2006 Cover 1.jpg
Today, there is an active movement in the search for a practical flying car. Several conventions are held yearly to discuss and review current flying car projects. Two notable events are the Flying Car forum held at the world famous EAA Airventure at Oshkosh, WI and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) held at various cities.
Flying Cars can fall into one of two styles:
- Integrated – Take all the pieces with you while you drive
- Modular – Leave pieces to fly at the airport while you drive
Historically, early flying car prototypes were primarily of the modular style, mainly due to the simplicity of construction. Today’s designers are working on integrated styles to allow for complete flexibility in the operator's schedule.
A number of companies actively building vehicles are shown below.
Fictional
The novels of Philip K. Dick, such as Blade Runner, feature VTOL flying cars, in the form of "flapples" and "spinners" respectively. Flying cars and other wingless floating vehicles are common in many (if not most) science fiction movies and series that depict a technologically advanced future, including Star Wars, The Fifth Element, Star Trek, and The Matrix. Usually these vehicles fly without any visible means of staying aloft (perhaps due to anti-gravity or some other exotic technology). The Absent Minded Professor used flubber to convert his own car into a flying model. One of the most iconic flying cars is the De Lorean from the film Back to the Future Part II, which underwent "hover conversion" while time-travelling in the future.
More recently, flying cars have made the transition from science fiction to fantasy in the Harry Potter books, in the form of an otherwise-stock (and long since obsolete) Ford Anglia enchanted to fly.
See also Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Popular culture
In Calvin and Hobbes in late 1989, the following discussion may be found (and appears to be the earliest known 'Where are the flying cars?'): "Hobbes: "A new decade is coming up." Calvin: "Yeah, big deal! Hmph. Where are the flying cars? Where are the moon colonies? Where are the personal robots and the zero-gravity boots, huh? You call this a new decade?! You call this the future?? HA! Where are the rocket packs? Where are the disintegration rays? Where are the floating cities?"
The Flying Car was a humorous short film written in 2002 for the Tonight Show by Kevin Smith. It featured Dante Hicks and Randal Graves stuck in traffic, discussing the lengths to which a man might go to obtain such a vehicle.
The 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun portrayed the villain escaping in a Taylor Aerocar.
A memorable 2001 IBM commercial featured Avery Brooks (of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame) complaining “It is the year 2000, but where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars. I don’t see any flying cars. Why? Why? Why?” Complaints of the non-existence of flying cars have since become nearly idiomatic as expressions of disappointment in the failure of the present to measure up to the glory of past predictions.
See also
External links
- Roadable Times Pictures and descriptions of flying cars and roadable aircraft, past and present. Over 70 designs are to be found here.
- LaBiche Aerospace The Flying Sports Car (FSC-1).
- Flying car (Volante Aircraft)
- The Terrafugia Transition
- Waterman Arrowbile at the Smithsonian
- Flying cars in 25 years (BBC News Online)
- Flying car (apparently)da:Flyvende bil