Development of flying cars

In 1950s, people began to study the actual actions of modern flying cars. In the journey of climbing modern flying car technology, an American named Jordan Moore Taylor is the first person to carry forward the past and forge ahead into the future. He made unremitting efforts. 1986, modern automobile and aviation technology finally combined into a flying car that can run on the ground and fly in the air, and the relevant government departments issued a flight license. Taylor has since been hailed as the pioneer of modern flying cars. However, because the flat fixed wing is 5-6 times wider than the car body, it will not only affect the normal traffic order when driving or taking off and landing on the expressway, but also be limited by roadside obstacles, which makes it difficult to teach people to be practical. Therefore, Taylor's first flying car had to be a prototype at the test site.

Inspired by flying dreams, Slovak engineer and designer Stefan Klein has been focusing on developing flying cars for decades. Now, the prototype has been successfully tested, and Klein's team has started to upgrade the "flying car", hoping that it can be listed as soon as possible. Klein began to develop flying cars in the early 1990s, and named this dream aircraft "air movement". The earliest prototype was "Mobile in the Air" version 1.0, which has now been upgraded to version 3.0. September 20 13, Klein personally piloted the version 2.5 of "Air Maneuver" for the first test flight. This flying car is blue and white, with a steel frame structure and a carbon fiber composite shell. It has a streamlined cockpit and a smooth tail, and its shape is quite beautiful. It is 6 meters long and has a net weight of 450 kilograms, which can be used by two people.

Sit, with foldable wings and a propeller at the tail, is driven by Rotax9 12 engine. After the wing is put away, it can be conveniently parked in a general parking space or garage, or it can be refueled at a general gas station; When driving into the airport, it can spread its wings in a few seconds and become an ultralight plane with a wingspan of 8.2 meters. The flight test results show that the maximum speed in flight mode can reach 200 kilometers per hour and the ground speed is 160 kilometers per hour. After filling up with oil, the air flight distance is 700 kilometers and the ground driving distance is 500 kilometers.

In this regard, Traverjia responded that it will begin to develop the next generation flying car "TF-X" and announced its design model. According to the company, "TF-X" is more advanced than the first generation of flying cars. It has more internal space, can accommodate four passengers "as comfortable as a car", can take off vertically like a helicopter, has no runway, and can fly 500 miles (about 804.67 kilometers) without interruption.

Robert Mann, a well-known aviation industry analyst who owns an aviation consulting company in Washington, new york, USA, believes that Traverjia's products are the closest to what people think of as "flying cars". But he also pointed out that the problem of "transition" lies in the sales market.

Mann said that the general aviation market has been declining for the past 20 years due to fuel costs and high manufacturing costs. "For enterprises and consumers,' flying' is not cheap. In view of its uniqueness, this product can have a certain sales volume, but the question is whether it will be profitable. "

In the 1990s, in order to make flying cars really practical, some experts broke through Taylor's design mode and devoted themselves to the research and development of folding flying cars.

This technology was pioneered by Kenneth wernicke, an engineer of Airbus Technology, Design and Development Company in California. He developed a flying car with foldable wings and propeller blades. Fold the wings on the car body and you can drive on the road like a car; After the wings are spread out, you can take off and fly. The car has four seats and can fly up to 660 kilometers. The flying altitude is 5000m, and the range is160km. When parking, the wings and propeller blades are folded to occupy the position of a family car, thus opening the door for the flying car to walk out of the proving ground. The first test flight speed 185 km. On land, this PAL-V is more like a closed motorcycle than a car, and its mechanical and hydraulic system enables it to turn obliquely. Its fuel economy is 28 miles per gallon in highway mode and 9.5 gallons per hour in flight mode.

2015 February 13, the world's first flying folding car came out. It can fly and legally drive on the road.