Designers: Flying car based on a Ferrari possible in two years

[Jayems]

Crazy. 150 MPH in the air with a range of 75 miles.

The 'Autovolantor' - based on a £200,000 Ferrari 599 GTB - is being developed by "Moller International".
It will have the ability to take off vertically and hover thanks to eight powerful thrusters which direct air down for take off. Vents then tilt so the car can fly forward.

The car is expected to be able to do 100mph on the ground and 150mph in the air.
The calculated airborne range is 75 miles and ground range is 150 miles.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...two-years.html

[Rathji]

Meet George Jetson!

[evman150]

Obviously extremely limited, but it's a start.

All modes of transportation started with something "primitive" and impractical like this. Doesn't imply this particular mode of transport is the future, but it's a start.

[Flash]

Whether it flies or not, I love the Ferrari 599 GTB.

It'll be cool to see the finalized result.

[Azure]

30 years late.

[Barnes]

Interesting....

With wings that stick out like that, this car would be hard to drive in places like parking lots, intersections, tunnels, overpasses, underpasses, two-lane roads, four-lane roads, highways, byways, motorways, parkways, autoroutes, interstates, turnpikes, and service roads.

It would work well on a runway though.

This is my favorite quote;

"Using it allowed us to quickly modify a readily available scale model and run some wind tunnel tests to establish the technical feasibility of the project.
"At first we were very sceptical that we could adapt a ground-vehicle with our technologies and make it work.
"But the model allowed us to quickly verify that it could in fact be done."

Really? I had this model as a kid. Could you make it work?

[3 Justin 3]

$20 says on test day it crashes and blows up.

[GoinAllTheWay]

A little late indeed. If we ever do reach the point where we buzz around in flying cars, man are things going to be dicey. I just don't see society as a whole being anywhere near ready/responsible enough to do it. People are bad enough drivers on any given day, let alone pilots. I can't wait to see aviation get into the hands of "Joe Plumber". Even your most basic aircraft undergoes massive amounts of maintenance every 4000 hrs of flight time or so.

On top of that, do we have to establish hiways in the sky? How do we mark boundaries? What happens when the first one falls out of the sky and right through someones roof? Drunk flying? Will people have to file flight plans each day they go for a rip?

Even if they do develop affordable flying cars, so much redtape and safety concerns is going to make it a long ways off from reality.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE one but how realistic is it even in our childrens lifetime?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

On top of that, do we have to establish hiways in the sky? How do we mark boundaries?

(Somebody needs to watch Back to the Future II- which is actually only 7 years away from being set in the "present.")

But seriously, the concept of the flying car is quite dated. We now use high speed surface modes of transpotation, and that is the way of the future. Heck, create super-highways with 300 km/h speed limits and strict regulations about who can drive on them and what kind of condition your car is allowed to be in. All of that can be transmitted using some sort of Bluetooth from your car to the highway sensors.

Then we can start the threads about people only going 290 in the left lane.

[ok, ok,....I get it]

uhmmmmm, hellooooo.....the Homer....