Sunday, July 10, 2011

Aviation Alchemy


From AOL News/Huffpost comes this, the apparently latest incarnation of the flying automobile.  Even though the idiot TV news guy calls it "the world's first flying car", the concept has been around since the 1930s.

This appears to me to offer the driver/pilot the worst of both worlds: A car that's smaller than a SmartForTwo, with a Rube Goldberg designed airplane around it.



I don't know what kind of roads you have in your area, but where I drive, railroad tracks, semi tire treads, parking lot entrances and wheel stops would wreak havoc with that canard (not to mention kids in a parking lot using it for a trampoline).  The notion of parking that thing in a public area, then coming back and flying it - crazy.

If I were to commute some distance to work or such, better choices would be a combination of a 172/Sundowner/Cirrus, and a small commuter car (Scion xD) at the airport.  (Back in the '80s, my Dad had a major account that did work on highly sophisticated aircraft  brimming with electronics (E-3, E-4).  Driving across the major metropolitan area to their operation took about 2-1/2 hours, but occasionally, he would fly his Aeronca Champ - my folks live on an airpark - directly to the contractor's airfield in about an hour, to the delight, and probably amusement of the engineers that he was meeting).

For purely recreational flying, I could be really happy with one of these:


I like the Airaile because it offers side-by-side seating so that you can converse with your passenger, and essentially both have an unobstructed view.  Having flown in Champs, Cubs, and bi-planes, fore-and-aft communication (with or without a headset) just isn't the same.  One of my fantasies would be to retrace the Oregon trail in an Airaile, over the course of a week or so, at a few hundred feet AGL watching the majesty of the continent unfold, with a bedroll, bivy tent and campstove.

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