Flying Car

A Boston-area companies plan, test flights starting this year with two passenger planes that moonlight as a car.

The move is to take a stab name, the gap between the cars and airplanes. Some people call the flying car. The company develops and sells vehicles, aircraft preference "road-term in the situation."

Anyway boiling below: You sat behind the wheel, driving the lane, had two wings and take off. You can fly tank 500 fuel - regular unleaded - and when you arrive, you can simply fold the wings and the station you want. At the end of the day, go home and fly to the park in the garage.

Terrafugia, Woburn, Massachusetts, is not the first company to try what may be the main hybrid.

"It is probably a concept that people have thought that its airplanes and cars," said Dick Knapinski Experimental Aircraft Association with a 55-year-old Aviation Group in Oshkosh, Wisconsin base.

A company called Aerocar Longview, Washington, made his debut as one of the first flying car in 1949. The company built six prototypes, one in the EAA museum, but never put into production.

Terrafugia, founded in 2006 by a group of MIT students took deposits of more than 40 transitions, and plans to begin deliveries in 2010, said Richard Gersh, vice president of business development.

The cars sell for $ 194,000.

Advances in materials and propulsion systems technologies are the reasons why Terrafugia is set for commercial success. But equally important, "said Knapinski, a relaxation of legal rules on private planes and pilots.

In 2004, the Federal Aviation Administration, a new category of aircraft and aviation sporting license, an attempt to revive interest in flying to drops and fewer pilots.

In the United States, approximately 600,000 people in planes, which are allowed, a decrease of 25 per cent since 1980 to beat, Knapinski said.

"Directed by the FAA and the aviation industry must find a way to get people interested in flying. Even today, the pilots had to fly somewhere to start with a basic level. There was a point of entry was practical and affordable, "he said.

Pilot Sport does not need as many hours of training, and private and commercial pilot licenses, but start the pilot sports are not allowed to land on the runway with air traffic control towers. The medical requirements for pilots of sport are not even less stringent than for other types of pilot licenses that the match required for a license.

"What can the FAA and the Government that this rule is that these vehicles on the same level of complexity that vehicles have," said Discovery News Knapinski. "They fly in airspace non-complex to a relatively low speed."

Regulations for the new category of sport planes will also be reduced.

"It gives us a chance," said Gersh Terrafugia. "We can never compete with Boeing and Cessna."

One of the main obstacles to a company like Terrafugia creating a plane that is not technical or even cheaper, Knapinski. It is the perception.

"Comfort is not a significant percentage of the population," said Knapinski. "They do not believe they have this kind of machine."

Maybe with a camera under the same roof as the family car will be just the thing.