No Joke: Flying Car Runs on Ethanol with 180 Mile Range
The flying car has been the inventor’s enigma since the dawn of motor vehicles, but using a simple fan and parachute combo, a British engineer has created the an ethanol-powered road-legal flying car with a range of 180-miles.
Best part? All you need is a one day course and a powered-parachute license to fly the Skycar.
“I started making a paramotor on wheels that you sit on and take off and it suddenly occurred to me, ‘Why not just have a car that does everything?’” said Gilo Cardozo, who owns a Wiltshire-based company called Parajet.
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Cardozo plans to fly the vehicle 3,700 miles from England to Timbuktu on January 14th to prove that the vehicle is a fully-functional flying machine.
“It will be a serious aircraft but also a proper road machine, with acceleration to match your average sports car,” said Cardozo. “I’m not going to sell millions of them but even if we sell 20 we’ll be laughing.”
Once it’s in the air, Cardozo says the vehicle can reach speeds of 80 mph. The car is equipped with a rocket-launched emergency parachute to use in the case of a malfunction or damage to the parachute-wing. While on land, the small buggy looks totally normal if you ignore the large fan strapped to the back.
“The fan’s static when you’re driving around,” says Cardozo. “The engineering challenge was getting a really reliable system that will switch power between wheels or fan.”
Photo Credit: Barmala on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
Someone needs to invest in a zoom lens. Amateurs.
I like the long view, and the link does have a closeup: revealing that it looks like a bit of a chilly ride to Timbucktoo at 80 mph…
So is it actually able to take off by itself or does it need some form of help?
Nevermind.
I read the article where it says:
“The car’s fan pushes the vehicle forward and at a speed of 35mph the Skycar takes off without any need for input from the driver. Once airborne, pedals steer the Skycar by pulling cables that warp the shape of the wing.”
So if it will go 180mph on ethanol, how far would it go on a more efficient fuel?
Doug it can travel for 180 miles not 180 miles per hour
I suspect the speed would be limited by the shape and structural integrity of the parachute rather than the speed of the propeller. Any faster than that and the parachute may collapse… which would be less than optimal.
Flying at 80mph will get you to your destination faster than driving at 80mph because you don’t have to worry about congestion or artificial barriers like speed limits and traffic lights.
It finally appears a (nearly)practical “flying car” is on the horizon. For nine hundred dollars spent on a powered parachute license,well-conceived rental outfits that can properly maintain the hardware, & some necessary government-regulated air corridors, I believe we could start seeing a lot of these airborne-RV-type machines around. It will make sense to a lot of us that can’t afford the time and money to maintain more complex aircraft (and obtain and hold a full-blown pilot’s license). I really believe that these vehicles can be very safe when compared to other heavier-than-air craft, since running out of fuel presents a much smaller danger to both the parajet’s occupants & everyone on the ground. Makes me wonder why a parasail/dune-buggy concept took so long to conceive in the first place. Miami,Waikiki,Rio & Venice Beach,(along w/ every other resort adaptable to the new fad) your latest form of tourist attraction is (almost) ready!
Autogiro will be more practical and safer.
Where’s Obama’s high speed rail system? We need 400 % fuel efficiency, not impractical flying kites, gyro-copters and the like from the flying side-shows of the 1930’s. Petition Obama for some indication of where, and when he will start on the rail promises! Kites with motors won’t do the trick! Bio-diesel desert plants, on a “Manhattan Project” scale and huge tax incentives for bullet train development, solar, wind, wave, hydro, tidal and geothermal power stations and T, Boone Pickens Wind power schemes, will pull the U.S. out of the great repuglican depression, not fancy flying wings and funny diversionary flying fantasies! Get down to brass tacks, dammit! and focus on saving America!