We may have conquered the art of space flight, dove to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and even said ‘Hi’ to Pluto, but flying cars are one of those modes of transportation that seem forever just beyond our grasp. But, still, that doesn’t stop ambitious start-ups like Terrafugia from making promises of delivering the world the first flying car, come what may.
The American company has now released new designs for its planned TF-X model, an autonomous flying car that was announced back in 2013. The updated design shows a sleeker body shape, a one-tenth scale model of which will be tested in a wind tunnel at MIT. With a new streamlined body that makes it look even more like something out of ‘Star Trek’ the TF-X is the car that hopefully you’ll be able to buy when it eventually goes on sale a few years from now.
The TF-X is an autonomous hybrid electric vehicle. It will have the capacity to carry four people, fit into a standard single-car garage, and be both street-legal and easy to fly — taking, on average, around five hours to learn to operate in the skies. It will also, Terrafugia claims, be able to take off and land vertically, with “auto-landing” at approved sites.
If flying cars sound a bit far-fetched – never mind ones that fly themselves – then you should bear in mind that, not long after the TF-X was announced, Terrafugia gave the first public flight demonstration of its original flying car model, the Transition at EAA AirVenture in 2013. Whereas the Transition requires a runway to take off, however, the TF-X is able to take off and land vertically. The TF-X is the spiritual successor to the Transition.
Rather than opting for the enormously cumbersome wings of a conventional plane the TF-X uses a hybrid rotor system which lifts the car off like a helicopter and then becomes a stubbed wing as the car’s rear propellor kicks in. The combination of the two means that it doesn’t need a runway so you’ll be able to take off from your driveway and then land it again in town. Terrafugia said the new design for the TF-X has been successfully tested in a one-tenth scale model wind tunnel, which is currently on display at the EAA AirVenture aviation convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
The company, founded in 2006 by MIT aeronautics and management graduates in Woburn, Massachusetts, was expected to start delivering its first Transition units at a projected $279,000 in 2015 or 2016. However, delivery of the first units was originally expected in 2011 and has been postponed several times since then — and it’s still expected to take a couple more years and cost up to $400,000.
Terrafugia now says the TF-X will be another 8-12 years in development. Take a look at the video below for an animation of how the TF-X might look in action.
