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Terrafugia's flying car simulation
The flying car, a staple of science fiction for the better part of the last century, could be one step closer to reality. Terrafugia Inc., which has been working on its “roadable aircraft” since 2006, is planning to execute the first flight of its “Transition” air-car sometime over the next three weeks.
The flight, which is expected to simply take the vehicle off the ground briefly and then land it, will be the first aerial demonstration of Transition. Road tests and simulations have already taken place. In 2007, the company flew a one-fifth-scale version of the vehicle and followed that with additional flights to gather data.
The first flight of the full-scale version of the Transition will be at an undisclosed landing strip in upstate New York, according to the Woburn-based company’s founder, Carl Dietrich.
“There are some B-52 landing strips in upstate New York that are the closest thing to salt flats we have in the Northeast,” he said.
The event, according to officials, is a significant moment for the company, which has been working on the vehicle since 2006, when Mass High Tech first wrote about Dietrich, then an MIT student, and his $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. Dietrich was also named a runner-up in that year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.
Terrafugia’s two-passenger vehicle is a crossover between a small aircraft and a passenger car. Executives avoid the term “flying car” because the vehicle is aimed at pilots looking to drive locally and fly longer distances, rather than drivers hoping to take their everyday vehicles to the skies. That said, the Transition does draw from the automotive world, running on unleaded gasoline and getting about 27 mpg. It also has bumpers, license plates and other accoutrements of a passenger car, as well as retractable wings to make it viable for street travel.
Foster Hinshaw, an experienced pilot, founder of Marlborough’s Netezza Corp. and CEO of Cambridge’s Dataupia Corp., said the idea of the Transition could have merit with pilots, assuming the performance is enough to make trips worthwhile. At the Transition’s listed cruising speed of 115 miles per hour, trips from Boston to places like Nantucket or New York would be viable, but anything farther may not be worth it, he said.
From a technology standpoint, Hinshaw said doubters may want to rethink their position. “People may scoff at this, but so much has changed in the materials and the knowledge around designing and building interesting new kinds of aircraft that something like this is very much possible,” he said.
Assuming the Transition’s flight goes according to plan, Dietrich expects to begin limited production in 2009 — with as many 100 made next year and larger scale production planned for 2012. Initial price estimates put the two-seat vehicle at about $148,000.
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