Flying Cars and Roadable Aircraft
A flying car or roadable aircraft is a vehicle which can travel on roads and in the air. It is both an aircraft and an automobile. All the working examples have required some manual or automated process of conversion between the two modes of operation.
A slightly different concept that is sometimes referred to as a "flying car", particularly in science fiction, is that of an aircraft that would be practical enough for every day travel, but would not necessarily be drivable on the roads.
The creation of a vehicle that will serve both as a motor vehicle and as an aircraft just seems to be an idea that won't go away. It has been over 100 years since the advent of the first powered flight. Although there have been many attempts, to this point in time no one has created a flying car design that has filled the skies with dual-purpose vehicles. Is it possible to fulfill this dream?
The major consideration probably is the fact that the automobile and the airplane, as we now know them, are incompatible in many ways. This overview is an attempt to examine and define the challenges to be faced in overcoming these problems. The first challenge is to establish a satisfactory weight for the machine.
| Slno | What we want? | Car | Aircraft | Flying Car |
| 1 | Door-to-door convenience | Yes | No | Yes |
| 2 | Operable in any weather with low-cost/ training/proficiency | Yes | No | Yes |
| 3 | High speed with safety | No | Yes | Yes |
| 4 | Minimum transportation system investment | No | No | Yes |
| 5 | Minimum storage and upkeep | No | No | Yes |
| 6 | Minimum operating costs | No | No | Yes |
Private aviation today is causing a continuing decline in the pilot population and an increase in community attempts to close small airports.
As I see it there are two factors that cause this decline:
1. Airplanes are too expensive for a large part of the general population to afford, particularly considering their utility.
2. The dependable cross country transportation capability that this population would expect from an airplane, is not available without prohibitively expensive training and equipment enabling highly skilled flight under instrument conditions. (IFR)
As a result of the above, the average traveler has, in the past, used his automobile for most travel and the airlines when he had a long distance to go; in today's airline market he has done the same when he has considerably more money and spare time to do it.
Let's take a look at the appeal of the automobile. For years it has been able to take people where they want to go: door to door at reasonable cost, in all types of weather, any time of day, and at the skill level of the average person. Can you imagine how many cars would be on the road in bad weather, if the driver had to get instrument qualified in airplane style in order to drive?
What alternatives are there? What if you could get a very high mileage ground vehicle that could fly when the weather was good and drive when the weather conditions prohibited flying? This is exactly what a roadable aircraft (flying car) will do!
Not only that, but because it is necessarily very light and streamlined in order to fly well it will provide a road vehicle that will travel well over twice the distance on a gallon of gas that any popular car will today. You not only get to fly at aircraft speeds in good weather, but you always have an economical and environmentally sound second road vehicle for family use. Using current light aircraft usage statistics the driving will constitute 95% of the total vehicle usage and flying 5% Raise this to 10% flying and you will be allowing for more frequent airborne usage with current airline flight cancellations and higher fares. This is the reason the driving portion of the roadable aircraft is so important.
Believe it or not, the skill level for good weather flying is very close to that for driving. The new Light Sport Airplane FAA specs call for just 20 hours total time in the aircraft before you are ready to make trips on your own, just about the same time a responsible parent would require of a new driver in the family.
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