A Real Flying Car Coming Next Year

Every kid (and more adults than you would think) dream of having a flying car … a car with fold out wings that could drive you to work and fly you to different sunny locations.

Think about it: no more driving to the airport to go on vacation, no more waiting for hours and hours at the flight desk.

All too often kids have whiled away hours at their classroom desks, and adults have spent mornings in their offices thinking about the adventures they could have if they had their own flying car. The only thing you would have to pay for would be fuel costs! Well, dream no more!

The Street-Legal Flying Car

The US company Terrafugia has created a prototype flying car that has been shocking engineers worldwide. The Terrafugia Transition is the first vehicle ever to be deemed both street legal and air legal – meaning that it has passed both its National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Aviation Administration tests.

The Transition can drive 35 miles on one gallon of fuel, but fly only 28 miles per gallon. Furthermore, while it can be filled up at your local gas station and it is small enough to be parked in a large garage, it needs nearly two thousand feet of runway in order to take off.

However, the creators argue you are never normally more than half an hour away from an airstrip anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Once the Transition is in the air, it can fly an extremely impressive 644 miles without having to refill its fuel tank.

Is it Worth Buying?

While the world’s first true flying car already has two hundred back orders, is it really a plausible mode of transport for the ordinary American? The answer, realistically, has to be no.

The Terrafugia Transition will not only be expensive to run, it will be extremely expensive to buy initially. Furthermore, the level of maintenance that it will require to remain air safe will be a tremendous burden upon any ordinary American’s income.

It seems then that the Transition’s real use will be as a novelty vehicle for the wealthy to parade around in and to occasionally put to the test. However, more importantly, it is a landmark technological step in automobile and aviation history as it will doubtlessly lead to further developments that will not only create more efficient and technologically advanced vehicles, but will also increase their affordability.

While it is sad to say next year every American won’t own a flying car, or probably the year after that, the dream of a workable and affordable flying car has never looked so plausible!

Mary contributed this guest post. Passionate about science and education, she likes writing about everything from flying cars to science experiments suitable for classroom desks.