Terrafugia

NHWannabe said:
I know posting without pics is verboten but it was still pretty cool to see. It was one Terrafugia flying car and a Cessna that I will describe as a "chase" plane.

I'll be sure to have my phone nearby next time.
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Well only a Cessna is slow enough that it could fly chase. :)

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There was some comment about it getting bird strikes from the rear.

When I saw the first plywood mockup of the thing at Oshkosh probably 20 years ago, I thought it would never fly.
 
I've never been a fan of the Terrafugia's looks. It's a 1995 geo metro with wings glued on

This thing also just flew.. looks much more like a car (or a plane). Not that I think either of these will be a commercial success, but something that follows the Icon/Lambo/koenigseggseggseggseggseggsegg look will likely attract more buyers

Either way, that's really cool that OP got to see one in person, flying!
 
Tantalum said:
I've never been a fan of the Terrafugia's looks. It's a 1995 geo metro with wings glued on

This thing also just flew.. looks much more like a car (or a plane). Not that I think either of these will be a commercial success, but something that follows the Icon/Lambo/koenigseggseggseggseggseggsegg look will likely attract more buyers

Either way, that's really cool that OP got to see one in person, flying!
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I'd sooner fly that than a Raptor, lol.
 
SoonerAviator said:
I'd sooner fly that than a Raptor, lol.
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Why? Because it appears to be competently designed by a team of people who know what they're doing?

It's pretty sick. The company is located actually not far from where my aunt lives in Nitra, Slovakia
https://www.klein-vision.com/

The Raptor had (has, maybe, still?) so much potential but to quote Andrei Bonovia (to captain Tupolev) he's an arrogant a$$, he's his own worst enemy to the project's success
 
Then there was the imfamous TerraFuscia
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Who could have predicted this?
 
Sounds like ex Mooney employees could understand. China ownership didn't work out too well there either
 
YKA said:
Can it do loops and aileron rolls? And if so would it have to be followed by a forced tear filled youtube video for the drama factor? I guess what I am asking is can it handle 2 positive Gs or is it ridiculously fragile.
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I'm guessing it can do exactly one loop.
 
Flying cars are always a big compromise. Someone always comes along with one promising to “be the one” to bring flying cars to the public on a large scale. They’ve been trying for how many years? Molt Taylor and his Aerocar came the closest in 1950. If a sensible flying car was ever designed and built that could survive constant road and traffic abuse it would cost more than 10 Ferraris and probably fly slower! Oh well, at least it keeps the designers busy for awhile.
 
Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. A friend of mine had an opportunity to invest in Terrafugia back in 2013. Their CEO said they planned to release their first flying car in about 2015 and then their second model a couple years after. Their target market was traveling retirees who already owned $250k-$1M RV's and were used to towing their cars behind them. With the flying car they would be able to fly to their next city and then drive to a place for dinner.

But ultimately my friend declined to invest because he had a hard time understanding the value proposition. Who really wants to spend a few hundred thousand dollars on a vehicle just to avoid renting a car at their destination? With Uber and other car sharing services, what's the real benefit here? The comments above makes it seem even crazier to have an FAA approved aircraft on the normal roads ... or parked at the local shopping mall where an oblivious teenager could put a door ding into a wing. And pity the poor soul who didn't preflight after an unattended shopping cart rolled into his rudder.
 
yeah, i just read the headline in the AOPA newletter email..... it makes me SICK that so much has moved to China...and this is yet again one more.
My first reaction is about their taking or buying our intellectual property leaving the folks here unemployed and nothing being manufactured here....
But then I had a thought that as long as this thing has been around and it seems no further along that it is, then it's probably not really worth all that much...at least not to us here in the US. Maybe China will be able to take the technology and sell it someplace not saddled with so many restrictions....
80 to 100 people loosing jobs. Sad.... but I have to wonder what that many people were doing. It's not like the things are being manufactured, is it?
 
I'm happy to lose this one to China. Better them having cars falling out of the sky on them, than us.
 
The Terrafugia was an ugly 90s looking abomination anyway.

 
Brad W said:
yeah, i just read the headline in the AOPA newletter email..... it makes me SICK that so much has moved to China...and this is yet again one more.
My first reaction is about their taking or buying our intellectual property leaving the folks here unemployed and nothing being manufactured here....
But then I had a thought that as long as this thing has been around and it seems no further along that it is, then it's probably not really worth all that much...at least not to us here in the US. Maybe China will be able to take the technology and sell it someplace not saddled with so many restrictions....
80 to 100 people loosing jobs. Sad.... but I have to wonder what that many people were doing. It's not like the things are being manufactured, is it?
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The flying car has no realistic use here in the US. They sold the company to some foolish investors in China. The owners are probably happy as can be that they offloaded that mess. Something more akin to the quadcopter would at least allow short flights and no need for a runway to land. You essentially create a personal helicopter that people could, in theory, use to go to work or make short runs in. However, even that is a long way off.
 
Probably all pilots at one time or another end up with crew or rental car difficulty and think for a moment about how nice it would be to fold the wings and get on the way. It’s a pilot’s dream.

Well, maybe more of a nightmare. There’s more to it than spending $300K or whatever a Terrafugia might cost to deal with the comparatively inexpensive rental car situation. Consider this: you’d be spending that $300K for a vehicle that on the road resembles a smart car, and in the air resembles a light-sport aircraft. Either of which are fine, if that’s your thing. But I’d hazard a guess that for most of us, that level of transportation for that cost is simply a non-starter.
 
SoonerAviator said:
The flying car has no realistic use here in the US. They sold the company to some foolish investors in China. The owners are probably happy as can be that they offloaded that mess. Something more akin to the quadcopter would at least allow short flights and no need for a runway to land. You essentially create a personal helicopter that people could, in theory, use to go to work or make short runs in. However, even that is a long way off.
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If I didn't have to shell out $350/mo for a crappy T-hangar, I'd be happier. That's quite a bit of fixed expense that seems to go up every year. However, I'm not willing to sacrifice range or speed, so...
 
Adam Weiss said:
If I didn't have to shell out $350/mo for a crappy T-hangar, I'd be happier. That's quite a bit of fixed expense that seems to go up every year. However, I'm not willing to sacrifice range or speed, so...
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Right, but if people were using a quadcopter-type transport you wouldn't need the hangar as you could conceivably park it at home. Land in a parking space or open area near work, fly off back to the house. Not much different than a helicopter other than likely a slightly smaller footprint, mostly autonomous, and fewer mechanical bits. I still don't see it happening in my lifetime other than one-off prototypes and such. The FAA/ATC would be having a conniption over all of the traffic under 500' agl if they were available at a sub $300K price point.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Right, but if people were using a quadcopter-type transport you wouldn't need the hangar as you could conceivably park it at home. Land in a parking space or open area near work, fly off back to the house. Not much different than a helicopter other than likely a slightly smaller footprint, mostly autonomous, and fewer mechanical bits. I still don't see it happening in my lifetime other than one-off prototypes and such. The FAA/ATC would be having a conniption over all of the traffic under 500' agl if they were available at a sub $300K price point.
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I think that works for an urban commuter mission, but my mission is 90% XC. I really like the idea of parking at home, driving to the airport, and taking off for a long XC. Quad-copter won't ever fit that mission (IMHO).
 
SoonerAviator said:
The flying car has no realistic use here in the US. They sold the company to some foolish investors in China. The owners are probably happy as can be that they offloaded that mess. Something more akin to the quadcopter would at least allow short flights and no need for a runway to land. You essentially create a personal helicopter that people could, in theory, use to go to work or make short runs in. However, even that is a long way off.
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The "foolish investors" are Geely. You know, the Volvo people.
And most of the US staff is now out of work.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Right, but if people were using a quadcopter-type transport you wouldn't need the hangar as you could conceivably park it at home. Land in a parking space or open area near work, fly off back to the house. Not much different than a helicopter other than likely a slightly smaller footprint, mostly autonomous, and fewer mechanical bits. I still don't see it happening in my lifetime other than one-off prototypes and such. The FAA/ATC would be having a conniption over all of the traffic under 500' agl if they were available at a sub $300K price point.
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Quadcopter...I dunno, don't think you can autorotate those things.
 
It's less than the AMC Gremlin, more like the 20th Century The Dale. . .
 
I was gonna say Gremlins can fly, but then I remembered it wasn't a Gremlin, it was a Ford Pinto:

cdfa9af25a8ed61d088fbcd120bef895.jpg
 
Brad W said:
yeah, i just read the headline in the AOPA newletter email..... it makes me SICK that so much has moved to China...and this is yet again one more.
My first reaction is about their taking or buying our intellectual property leaving the folks here unemployed and nothing being manufactured here....
But then I had a thought that as long as this thing has been around and it seems no further along that it is, then it's probably not really worth all that much...at least not to us here in the US. Maybe China will be able to take the technology and sell it someplace not saddled with so many restrictions....
80 to 100 people loosing jobs. Sad.... but I have to wonder what that many people were doing. It's not like the things are being manufactured, is it?
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I'm not happy so much has moved to China, either. Not one bit. My first reaction is about us giving or selling our intellectual property leaving the folks here unemployed and nothing being manufactured here....
 
Dana said:
I was gonna say Gremlins can fly, but then I remembered it wasn't a Gremlin, it was a Ford Pinto:

cdfa9af25a8ed61d088fbcd120bef895.jpg
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Or an AMC Matador? It was in the Bond film The Man With the Golden Gun.

Destined to fail...high wing. :D

Or maybe because of those Hefty bags over the air inlet?
amc-matador-the-man-with-the-golden-gun-1974-2-640x640.jpg
 
On the flying Pinto, wasn’t it the failure of a common, hardware store sheetmetal screw that caused the wing to come off in flight?
 
WillFly4Food said:
On the flying Pinto, wasn’t it the failure of a common, hardware store sheetmetal screw that caused the wing to come off in flight?
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It had poor tack welds on the wing strut to Pinto connection. Just did a lot of research on it for a Facebook conversation. There is a video of it flying online and eye witness testimony of what happened.
The AVE Mizar.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
Quadcopter...I dunno, don't think you can autorotate those things.
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No, but I suppose with some ingenuity they could make some sort of compensation with thrust from other available motors assuming one of them went offline. Nothing you can do about a total system failure or complete power loss. Pull the big red caps handle i suppose, but I don't there would be much time to deploy under 500' agl.

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Man, the Matador is still one of the best looking cars made. It just needed 100+ more HP...

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"An exit from the U.S. market just as likely stems from a calculus of future sales potential for Terrafugia’s flying car, says Schmidt.

“The Transition is too expensive with too limited utility to really find any significant sales here,” he says.

With a sales price rumored to be $350,000 to $400,000 — Colburn confirmed it would be “well north” of $250,000 — the Transition would cost considerably more than almost all other light sport aircraft while lacking performance on par with many."
 
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