Flying Car (and 0-60 in less than 4 seconds!)

How angry will the birds be when I tell them they are doing it wrong?

Auto drivers take the same kind of weather and maintenance risks when trying to conform to a schedule (when is the last time you went over 55mph on the 101 in the rain to catch a flight?). GxP for pilot training and cockpit management implore a "Safety First" approach, but it all still comes down to pilot decision making (which must be distinguished from "licensing rigor").

"Motorcycle with a parachute" is a pretty good way to describe this (although really it's a dune-buggy with a parachute--it has a roll cage and seatbelts). Looks less dangerous than a fixed-wing aircraft for the pilot and passengers (parachute landing at very slow speeds). Certainly less dangerous for the human and other "obstacles." So, low risk to you (less than your neighbor's SUV, for sure).

It would be like frequencies too, you would only be able to fly in a limited amount of "space". The rest would be reserved for airplanes and helicopters.

It's only the same as airplanes having to follow flight paths, there would be directions that car-o-planes could go in.

I know what you are saying but imagine London or New York with flying cars everywhere. The end result would really be no different. Concentrated areas with millions of cars flying in it.

Although... http://www.firebox.com/product/415/Moller-Skycar-M400

I understand what you're saying, and you're wrong. You're wrong because as far as the FAA is concerned, it is an aircraft, and if you want to fly in their airspace, you're going to have to follow the same exact rules as any other aircraft of the same category. They're not going to let you skimp on their safety and maintenance requirements just because you happen to drive it on the road part of the time.

>In other words, I would expect the work and associated costs (including a fully certified A&P) to be quite different on a hot air balloon, let's say with an added engine driven propeller, than on an airplane. The complexity difference is relevant because there is less to go wrong for safety and repair.

A hot air ballon does have very different maintenance requirements, mainly because it doesn't have an engine (the "P" in "A&P" is for Powerplants). As I keep saying, the main driver of added costs isn't so much things in need of repair, it's periodic maintenance. The FAA has rules that say, "After every n hours of engine time, you have to take your aicraft to an A&P for [inspection or overhaul]." (There are other types of intervals as well, in terms of airframe time or calendar time.) They don't care if those hours were spent flying or driving, either way you have to go pay an A&P to do that stuff. Those costs simply do not exist for cars, where maybe you have to stop in for an annual smog check. The simplicity might save you a few hours of labor costs with the A&P, but your cost structure is still going to be much closer to "airplane" than to "car."

But even when something does need fixing, you're still going to pay a lot more than you would to get a car fixed. The FAA won't let you go to a car mechanic to get the "car parts" fixed, they will insist on having all maintenance performed by an A&P. They are correct to insist on this, because any time you are flying it isn't 50% car or 40% car or 70% car, it's 100% aircraft.

>Maybe Maverick LSA hasn't thought your points through, and their project path is flawed. My belief is that it would be workable as a car.

I think their target customer is a very small niche: people of means trying to get around a country with lousy infrastructure. Odds are pretty good that a country that lacks quality roads also lacks a serious aviation administration, so all the stuff I've said about satisfying FAA safety requirements probably wouldn't apply. That still leaves the very real safety issues of flying around in something that wasn't maintained by someone qualified to work on aircraft, in a place where the nearest repair and medical facilities are potentially days away. A lot of this will probably be resolved by the fact that the kind of person who is going to motor off into the wilderness of a third-world country is probably the kind of self-sufficient person who gets qualified as an A&P before venturing off into the middle of nowhere.

He says it needs about 300 feet to take off and land--any decent bush pilot can do that with the right plane, and the best can do far better[1]. A used bush plane probably costs about the same as one of these things, and you can go several times faster than 40 mph. You could carry a lot more stuff, too.

But what if the landing strip is any significant distance from the place you're trying to get to? Well, if all of the terrain in-between is unsuitable for landing (forest, jugle, or just plain rugged), it's probably too rough for a tiny little car like this, too. Even if you [i]could[/i] use the car mode to go that last mile or so, it would still probably be faster to fly the first several hundred miles of the trip in a bush plane and then go the last bit on foot (or mule, etc.) rather than fly the first part at 40 mph and drive the last bit.

If you're talking about shorter trips (tens of miles instead of hundreds) without roads, it would be cheaper, faster, safer, and more effective to just get a jeep.

Can anybody propose a (non-edge case) scenario where you wouldn't be better off with either a bush plane or a jeep?

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbHSRrcxzq8 (I should note that, while the plane in the first part only needs a few feet to get airborne, the part it doesn't show is where the pilot has to stay in ground effect to accelerate for another 200 feet or so before he can climb away.)