What’s another name for hell on wheels? For experienced pilots, it could be the new sport pilot flying the Terrafugia flying car. The flying car drives as a car with it’s wings folded up, and transitions into a light sport aircraft when traffic gets backed up. – Just kidding. The Terrafugia Transition seems like a very cool concept, but I’m wondering just how practical it is.
This flying car may have some uses, such as connecting people in far flung rural areas. I don’t see how it would be very practical in a very busy city without strict rules about take off and landings only being performed on actual airport runways.
Before you shell out the down payment of the $194,000 purchase price, you may want to consider this:
Most regular cars suffer significant wear and tear from being on regular roadways. Think potholes, pitted windshields, worn breaks, bad shocks etc.
Will the owners of this aircraft be performing preflight checks each and every time they move from the driving configuration to flying configuration?
Airports closely monitor litter and debris called FOD (foreign object debris) – aside from adopt-a-highway programs, and street sweeping, roadways are nowhere near as well maintained for potholes debris, etc as airport taxiways, runways, ramps, and tarmacs.
I think that road debris, and shoddy road maintenance may be the achilles heel of the plane car and because of that along with the significant purchase price, I doubt that it will gain widespread use anytime soon…
Private Pilot Lessons Kick-Off
I picked Royal Aviation because they have a wide selection of trainer planes, and I really liked their upbeat attitude when I walked in to talk with the instructors.
Also, learning at an airport with major commercial airline traffic, like John Wayne does, provides the advantage of having to learn how airports with commercial traffic handle small and general aviation traffic. That definitely isn’t farm flying. The experience of flying there seems a bit overwhelming when you see an Alaksa Air 737, 3 Southwest 737s arrivals and departures, and a 757 taxiing toward you from it’s gate.
My instructor also told me that the runways at John Wayne airport are built too close together by today’s standards, because of that the air traffic controllers have to ensure that you maintain separation from large jets. Commercial airplanes give off their own wind turbulence known as wake turbulence. If you are not careful to avoid the wake turbulence, it can be dangerous.
Even though it is a challenge, I welcome this kind of flying, and I’m ready to tackle it head on. My goal is to get at least my Private Pilot certificate this year, but I certainly don’t want to stop there. For me, nothing beats the feeling of flying, and learning in Southern California means that as a Private Pilot I can go to a bunch of cool places. I already have plans to go to Vegas, Phoenix, Lake Havasu, San Francisco, Monterrey, and a bunch of other places. Catalina anyone?