The Urban Aeronautics concept for a flying car, or "fancraft" as they like to call it, centers on a ducted fan concept which was tested by the US military long ago with unacceptable results. Fast forward several decades and add much larger control surfaces, high-power and more reliable hardware, much better controls logic combined with the magic of modern computer processing speeds and the concept is no longer so far-fetched.

The Israeli company currently has a proof of concept scale prototype which runs on electricity, but they're in the final stages of completing a full scale test mule powered by a pair of gas turbine engines which will supposedly be ready for its maiden voyage in about two months. When fully developed, the craft should be able to achieve vertical takeoff, hover, rotate 360 degrees at a standstill, reach speeds up to 115 MPH and drop vertically into a tight urban landing zone.

Currently envisioned uses include ambulances and general rescue vehicles, "air jeeps" for military usage, since the vehicle would be able to get into places no helicopter would dare, and holding down a parking space at Jalopnik HQ. [The Register]

It was bound to happen. After all, where’s the real excitement in modern Formula One? With its rev caps, engine development freezes and lack of ground effects, turbochargers and winglets.

Instead of race car standbys carbon fiber and titanium, Montreuil’s Ferrari X-Racer is made of pure unobtainium. His renderings are peppered with all sort of crazy specs, including that glowing orifice in the rear, exhaust tube for the twin turbostator engines.

They also come equipped with “Xtrem FireForce”. Whatever that is, I bet Kimi Räikkönen would like to have it installed in his underperforming F60 on a hurried schedule.

The human nervous system is perhaps not equipped to deal with race speeds in excess of twice the speed of sound. Still, we can dream. Of gung-ho drivers with genetically modified visual cortices racing across the surface of an alien planet in winged cars. If one assumes correctly from Montreuil’s sketches, one such grand prix will be held on the ice planet of Hoth.

Source: Yanko Design

Modern Cairo was built to house four million people. It has now swelled to some 17 million which is why narrow two-way streets on the banks of the River Nile, are by 0900 local time transformed into four-lane carriageways.

Drivers swerve with the greatest dexterity into the tiniest of spaces. Nearly every car or bus carries the scars of battle.

The rules are pretty simple. Full-beam headlights and blaring horns somewhere behind usually mean you are about to be overtaken - or undertaken - at high speed, even though there is no space between your car and that concrete wall beside you.

One more business opportunity, it seems, for flying cars. Proper flying cars, that is, in the Jetsons manner.

Source: BBC, Photo Credit: KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images

We're expecting more details out of a Terrafugia press conference at 9:30 AM this morning, but for the moment we're able to announce that the Transition, their first "roadable aircraft" (we're going to go ahead and call it a Jetsons-like "flying car"), took its official first flight on March 5th, 2009 at Plattsburgh International Airport. It's the first time we've seen an actually plausible "roadable aircraft" work in real life

What do we know about the Transition? Well, it's an unleaded-fueled front-wheel drive vehicle on the ground, It gets a fuel economy of around 30 MPG and has a top speed of 65 MPH. The design features an automotive-style entry and exit and it'll retail at a street price of $194,000 when it eventually goes on sale. But, you can reserve one now for just $10,000 at Terrafugia's website.

We'll have more as soon as the 9:30 AM press conference is over.

UPDATE: Terrafugia's just sent over the press release from this morning's press conference providing a few more details on the Transition. The most important? The two-seat aircraft is able to fly 450 miles at over 115 MPH and is designed to transform from plane to car in less than 30 seconds. Here's the full presser:

HISTORIC TAKEOFF MAKES "FLYING CAR" A REALITY

The Transition® Roadable Aircraft Completes Successful First Flight

Boston, MA – March 18, 2009: Terrafugia, Inc., a game-changing aircraft company, announced today the first flight of its Transition® Roadable Aircraft Proof of Concept. Often referred to as a "flying car", the Transition® is a two-seat aircraft designed to take off and land at local airports and drive on any road. Transforming from plane to car takes the pilot less than 30 seconds.

An historic milestone for aviation, the flight comes after six months of static, road and taxi testing. The Transition® cruises up to 450 mi at over 115 mph, can drive at highway speeds on the road, and fits in a standard household garage. The vehicle has front wheel drive on the road and a propeller for flight. Both modes are powered by unleaded gasoline from a regular gas station.

"This breakthrough changes the world of personal mobility. Travel now becomes a hassle-free integrated land-air experience. It's what aviation enthusiasts have been striving for since 1918," says Carl Dietrich, CEO of Terrafugia.

By giving pilots a convenient ground transportation option, the Transition® reduces the cost, hassle, and weather sensitivity of personal aviation. It also increases safety by incorporating automotive crash structures and allowing pilots to drive under bad weather.

For its first flight, the Transition® was flown by Phil Meteer, Colonel, USAFR (Retired) at Plattsburgh International Airport in Plattsburgh, NY. The chase aircraft was piloted by Giora Guth.

Categorized as a Light Sport Aircraft, the Transition® requires a Sport Pilot license to fly. The Proof of Concept will undergo additional advanced flight and drive testing and a pre-production prototype will be built and certified before first delivery. Refundable airframe reservations are being accepted.

Terrafugia (terra-FOO-gee-ah), based in Woburn, MA, is comprised of a team of award-winning engineers who have been advancing the state of personal aircraft since 2006. Founded by five pilots who are graduates of MIT and supported by a world-class network of advisors and private investors, Terrafugia's mission is the innovative expansion of personal mobility. "Terrafugia" is Latin for "escape from land."

The Transition® will temporarily be on exhibit at the Museum of Science, Boston on March 18, 2009.

Terrafugia would like to acknowledge and thank its corporate sponsors: Solid Works Corporation and CableOrganizer.com. Additionally, the following business partners have contributed to a successful first flight by furnishing equipment and services: Garmin International, Dynon Avionics, CO Guardian, David Clark Company, Bose Corporation, Icom Inc. and Air Graphics LLC.

SB091-014 TITLE: Personal Air Vehicle Technology

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Ground/Sea Vehicles

OBJECTIVE: Define new and innovative technology components that enable building a vehicle which can either be used as a 2-4 person ground transport that can both drive on roads or be changed into a flying craft with vertical take off capability. Identify selected technologies providing propulsion, morphing wings, and/or flight controls that provide core elements for this multi-person vehicle. Identify issues to be resolved via trade studies and define demonstrations establishing the feasibility of the identified core component technologies.

DESCRIPTION: A personal air vehicle that could transport 2 to 4 personnel either by driving on the ground or by flying would be suitable for many military scouting and personnel transport missions. This personal air vehicle should also have a vertical take-off capability that is not restricted to prepared surfaces for the most military utility. Desired personal air vehicle characteristics would be the ability to fly for 2 hours carrying a 2 to 4-person payload on one tank of fuel and can also safely travel of roads. The vehicle must be no wider than 8.5 feet and no longer than 24 feet, and no higher than 7 feet when in the road configuration. Vehicle control must support manually driving the vehicle on the ground and fully automated flight with manual flight control inputs that can override the fully automatic system. The challenge is to define the major components of such a vehicle that would be suitable for military scouting and personnel transport missions, yet are small enough, inexpensive enough, and easy enough to operate that it can be widely used. To achieve this it will be necessary to explore new and innovative technologies in one or more of the following areas:

- Propulsion concepts that include vertical take off and vertical landing, optimized disk loading for the combined fly/drive mission, size, weight, and power suitable for a road drivable vehicle, efficient power plant and energy management combined with low specific fuel consumption, and installation considerations related to safety, vehicle controllability, and passenger/payload carrying on a vehicle. The optimized disk loading should allow safe take off/landing at unprepared sites.

- Morphing wing/surfaces considerations including safe and rapid deployment and retraction, rugged construction, and ease of operation for a vehicle that can drive at up to 60 mph and fly at up to 150 mph.

- Flight control considerations include human interfaces to autopilot, flight director, and/or auto-navigation systems, automated navigation/ positioning, automated sensors, automated fight planning and de-confliction with other users of the airspace. Size, weight, and power must be paramount as well as redundancy and reliability suitable for human passengers.

PHASE I: Prepare an initial personal air vehicle concept design that supports the modeling of selected key elements (propulsion, morphing wing/surfaces, flight control). Develop detailed analysis of predicted performance for the selected key technical elements (propulsion, morphing wing/surfaces, and flight control). Perform modeling and simulation of the selected key technical elements, and define and develop key component technical milestones. Phase I deliverables will include for the selected key technologies suitable simulations, and modeling results and the development plans.

PHASE II: Construct and demonstrate the operation of prototypes of the key component technologies (propulsion, morphing wing/surfaces and/or flight control). Establish performance parameters of these key technologies through experiments using the prototypes.

PHASE III DUAL USE APPLICATIONS: Develop, demonstrate, and validate a full scale flying/driving prototype of the personal air vehicle. The prototype personal air vehicle should be able to transport 2 to 4 personnel either by driving on the ground or by flying. This personal air vehicle should also have a vertical take-off capability that is not restricted to prepared surfaces for the most military utility. The prototype personal air vehicle is to be suitable for many military scouting and personnel transport missions (urban scouting, casualty evacuation, inserting SOF teams) or commercial counterparts and to be robust enough to support initial military user evaluation of its potential utility.

[DoDSBIR via Wired]

• From reviewer mateo22: "I picked up this item as a birthday present for my wife. She was pretty upset because it's also evident this is the economy model. Call me traditional but it simply does not hold a candle to my Delorean. It looks like a poor conglomeration of Avanti and Peugeot and maintenance issues are out of this world."
• C. Tretter says: "I ordered this a few weeks ago.. Love it.. It makes my life so much easier to get to and from work.. No more bloody traffic!
  I cant say a bad thing about it.. It also is compatible with my iphone!!
• Chris Tichenor on the fuel economy: "So I decided to take a long trip and see how well the gas miliage is. I decided to go to Madagascar. It said on the box that it gets (and I quote) up to 9 million miles to the gallon. Let me tell you though!!! It does not.

The picture you see above is indeed an official image from Moller, but it's just a photoshop-composite of a toy scale model that's been altered as an approximate guess of what the final product might look like. Even the silver car in the wind tunnel looks like a pretty rough guesstimation of the final shape. From what we can see so far, it looks like if the Autovolanter ever does get made, it will hardly have any resemblance to the original Ferrari. So what's the point? After all, if you're going to make an Italian supercar into a flying machine with giant wings, why not start with a Lamborghini? [via Autoblog, TopGear]

But why is it so awesome? First, because it looks like a Fiat attached to the back of Cessna, yet still manages a cruising speed of 135 mph and a driving speed of 60 mph. Second, it's the only car to be approved both for flying and highway driving. Third, it's still flying today. Fourth, it's the inspiration for a future Aerocar that will probably never be produced.

[Photo: MentalFloss, DetNews]

The most promising part is the vid on their website where a styrofoam model takes off and flies around. Obviously proof of full scale concept. This investment is at least as good as dumping a hundred grand into a Bondo covered Mustang. [LaBiche Aerospace]

Were we aware that this long-held ambition for liftoff would again manifest itself when today we dug up some tattered prototypes for hybrid and electric cars? No, but we should have seen commenter BZR's, comment a-comin':

Yeah, well can these things fly? I'm still waiting for my nuclear-powered hovercar to the moon that we were promised to have by 1980. It's a conspiracy, I tell you!

Indeed, BZR, we share your disgust. Nothing new, however. We all wanna fly, and the need to overcome the conspiracy against has deep roots. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins captured the urge well in 1918 when he wrote: "I whirled out wings that spell/And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host./My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,/Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,/To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace."

The Italian helicopter pilot and self-styled futurist wants his Cell Craft to be capable of vertical take off and landings, as well as hovering. He knows this can be achieved through a vectored thrust system, similar to that used by the Harrier jump jet, but he hasn't quite cracked the engineering code on how to make it controllable. He knows he wants to make all the Craft's functions operable through a single joystick, but he doesn't know how to do that yet, either. And he knows he wants it to be both light and safe, but doesn't yet know which materials to use.

We, too, share Gino's dream of high-speed flight and of course hovering for the masses. We just think it's a bit farther off than he does.

Gizio

Ever since "Monster Garage" premiered on Discovery Channel in June 2002, Jesse James led teams to build vehicles that make beer, do wheelies, shake trees, even transport gorillas. But all the while, Jesse was turning his thoughts and his dreams to the sky. Everyone said he couldn't do it, and the lawyers begged him not to do it, but Jesse James and his 9 man team managed to take a $100,000 Panoz Esperante sports car and create an airborne vehicle whose first flight matched the success of the Wright Brothers'. After the team tore out the Panoz's plush interior to make room for a roll cage, installed a used propeller engine in the trunk, mounted 36' handmade wings to the car's exact center and secured a rear tail with a 15" fuselage, the flying car was taken to Kitty Hawk, NC, home of the Wright Brothers' first flight. Under the power of the original Panoz engine, Jesse taxied the flying car onto the runway, started the propeller engine and, after hitting 80mph, guided the automobile off the ground for 280 feet, landing safely without even a scratch to the Red Baron paint job. THE DESIGNERS: Jesse James, custom-bike builder/designer, West Coast Choppers, Long Beach, CA, Fireball Tim, artist and car designer, Malibu, CA, Dan Panoz, founder and owner, Panoz Auto Development Company, Braselton, GA, Ed Sweeney, aircraft mechanic, Black Forest, CO, and Neal Willford, engineer, new product development, Cessna Aviation, Andover, KS. THE BUILDERS: Jesse James, custom-bike builder/designer, West Coast Choppers, Long Beach, CA, Jason Barnes, vehicle engineer, Panoz Auto Development Company, Flowery Branch, GA, Niclas Jancic, Panoz Auto expert, GA, Mark Palmer, aircraft-design engineer, Peru, KS, Ronnie Powers, airplane builder and owner, Atlanta Air Salvage, Griffith, GA, Johan Ragnarsson, custom-car builder, Beuford, GA, Chris Rusch, fabricator, Two Rivers, WI, Andre Stowe, welder and metal-shop owner, San Diego, CA, Ed Sweeney, aircraft mechanic, Black Forest, CO, JD Terry, avionics/electrical engineer, Cessna Aviation, Wichita, KS, and Neal Willford, aircraft engineer, Cessna Aviation, Andover, KS. VEHICLE SPECS: Height: 80"; Width: 38'; Length With Parts Extended: 26'; Ground Clearance: 2.5". **SOLD ON A BILL OF SALE ONLY. SPECIAL CONDITIONS APPLY**

...when all these companies just continue to tease us? Whether it's Moller and their amazing UFO flying disc-car supposedly entering production, the X-Hawk supposedly ready to be ready by 2009 or the sweetly tantalizing finds of Google Earth — we just end up getting our hopes up and then have them dashed like leaves in the backwash of a jet engine. Heck, we even got all excited about GM's flying car marketing campaign — if only as an escapist fantasy. Maybe we shouldn't be getting so down on ourselves — we mean, Good Morning America just covered the Moller — maybe it really will be built. Yeah, we'll believe it when one's parked outside our door. [PAL-V]

Moller, better known for the yet-to-reach-production Skycar, have already started work on the 67 orders received so far. They envision uses including extreme off roading - the Volantor is unencumbered by any ground-based obstacles - or as a ferry between a yacht and the land. In the long run, they'd like to see the vehicle used as the ultimate congestion busting commuter. Maximum payload is 250 pounds, so you'll need to buy one for each adult member of the family.

The company is actively seeking military or government clients, who they suggest could use the vehicle for anything from skyscraper rescues to fire fighting.

MOLLER INTERNATIONAL LAUNCHES PRODUCTION OF JETSONS-LIKE GROUND-EFFECT VEHICLE Davis, CA, [June 28, 2007]—Moller International (OTCBB: MLER) has completed tooling and has begun producing parts for its Jetsons-like M200G volantor, a small airborne two passenger saucer-shaped vehicle that is designed to take-off and land vertically (see www.moller.com).

The M200G is the size of a small automobile and is powered by eight of the Company's Rotapower® rotary engines. This vehicle is intended for operation continuously in "ground effect" up to approximately 10 feet altitude.

Dr. Moller calls the M200G, "the ultimate off-road vehicle" able to travel over any surface. "It's not a hovercraft, although its operation is just as easy. You can speed over rocks, swampland, fences, or log infested waterways with ease because you're not limited by the surface. The electronics keep the craft stabilized at no more than 10 feet altitude, which places the craft within ground effect where extra lift is obtained from operating near the ground. This lets you glide over terrain at 50 mph that would stop most other vehicles" he continued. While the Company does not foresee the requirement for significant training or licensing to operate the vehicle, it is prepared to offer demonstration sessions in Davis, California once the vehicle is ready for market.

Production on the initial six airframes started earlier this week using hard-tooled molds with the capability of producing one fuselage per day.

Depending upon engine production volume the M200G price could start as low as $90,000. The key component in determining the M200G production price is the cost of its Rotapower® engines. The Company is working with a strategic partner to produce this engine for a number of different applications in order to obtain the cost benefits of high volume production. Persons interested in purchasing a M200G volantor may reserve a delivery position by making a refundable escrowed deposit.