Terrafugia in Transition

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Terrafugia, a company started by a group of inspired college friends, has made it a mission to bring a flying car to the marketplace.  Quite literally – it’s in their mission statement: “Terrafugia’s mission is to create the ultimate mobility solution – flying cars.”  Even though the term is somewhat decried in current parlance – things like urban air taxis or sky taxis that would provide Urban Air Mobility being preferred. The Transition Their first craft, the Transition, earned a high hype score, with even Hammacher-Schlemmer including the flying car in their catalog.  It flew at AirVenture in 2013, demonstrating its folding wings and reasonable Light Sport Aircraft performance (even with a waiver for its “heavy LSA” gross weight). In some respects, the Transition is like Molt Taylor’s famous Aerocar, the first such vehicle certified for land and air travel.  It’s a great deal simpler to operate, though, not requiring a trailer like the Aerocar to haul the wings and …

Terrafugia’s TF-2

Dean Sigler Batteries, Electric Powerplants, Hybrid Aircraft, Sky Taxis, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Terrafugia, unabashedly calling its vehicles “flying cars” in many of its public pronouncements, has floated a concept that is a serious departure from their two previous designs.  The TF-2 will be the equivalent of a shuttle bus, but with an aerial means of making a longer haul than mere in-town hops. Started by MIT graduates, many of them members of the rocketry club, Terrafugia has managed to garner an enormous number of media hits.  It even became a possible Christmas gift in the 2010 Hammacher Schlemmer Christmas catalog. It flew its Transition before the crowds at AirVenture in 2013, and was able to obtain certification as a Light Sport Aircraft since then, but with a slightly higher than original LSA weight allowance.  That seems to be moot at this point, since the FAA is going to allow LSA pilots to fly aircraft up to 3,600 pounds. Popular Science reported in 2014, “To meet highway-safety requirements, the Transition needs to be …

Geely Looks Skyward, Buys Terrafugia

Dean Sigler Batteries, Hybrid Aircraft, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Geely is a huge enterprise, and while not the largest maker of electric cars in China, sold 766,000 gas and electric vehicles in 2016, growing 50 percent over the previous year.  Its profits grew 126 percent last year, primarily due to sports utility vehicle (SUV) sales.  As EV Obsession reports: “The 351,861 electric car sales registered in China during 2016 represent approximately 46% of ALL plug-ins sold worldwide this year, with Chinese carmakers responsible for 43% of all EV production in 2016.” Geely, surprisingly, owns Lotus, Malaysia’s Proton Motors, the firm that makes London’s iconic taxis, and Volvo.  Volvo just announced that all its cars will be electric or hybrid starting in 2019.  Fortune reports that the company has become highly profitable, with 2016 net returns doubling to 5.1 billion yuan ($741 million), and possibly rising to 7 billion yuan in 2017. What is a successful company to do with all that money?  The South China Morning Post reports on one …

Carplane Makes a Comeback

Dean Sigler GFC, Sustainable Aviation 1 Comment

The German firm Carplane made an entry into the media a few years ago, especially when it compared its bi-modal flying car with a Burt Rutan design.  That started a brief kerfuffle of edgy comparisons between the two groups, but no necessary winner.  Now, having shown at least a finished and apparently drivable vehicle at Aero 2015, Carplane has renewed prominence in the media.  And the blog brings it all back, prepared for less-than-flattering comments. Stating what may stir others to contend for their rival mounts, Carplane makes a bold claim.  (The italicized and bolded word is Carplane’s emphasis.) “Flying cars will soon be a reality. And Carplane® is the world’s only flying car currently undergoing formal certification. Watch this page as we complete the process.” Some of the “automated” features on the design as originally conceived included a wing that pivoted out from its storage between the twin fuselages and attached itself to the central assembly.  The builders have apparently retained that …

Unique, From A (for Aerodynamics) to Zee

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Ilan Kroo, according to his biography page, is a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, an advanced cross-country hang glider pilot, and designer of the Swift flying wing hang glider, unmanned aerial vehicles, a flying Pterosaur replica, America’s Cup sailboats, and high-speed research aircraft.  Currently on a leave of absence from Stanford, he has started Zee Aero, “a bay area start-up company focusing on bringing new technologies to civil aircraft.” Zee Aero, on its first of five sparse web pages, proclaims, “We’re creating an entirely new aircraft,” a heady claim considering the lack of supporting descriptions or illustrations.  But other sources have been made available, including Zee’s patent applications, which show a slim tricycle-gear fuselage surmounted by variously drawn structures holding eight upward-facing propellers and two propellers in the tail, apparently to push the whole assembly along. KGO television sent a news crew to Zee’s Mountain View headquarters, and broadcast nice views of the secure building in which …