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Flying cars not such a far fetched idea |
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Written by Amanda Moreno
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Tuesday, 16 June 2009 |
In recent years, the auto industry has made numerous improvements. Some of those improvements help out the environment, and others have to do with safety features and body style. Currently, price has become a major issue with the failing economy, but does this mean that improvements have to stop. In the past 50 years or so, improvements such as flying cars have entered into consumers minds. Is it a possibility?
To date, there are no "flying" cars that have been mass produced, but the notion of it has been visited numerous times.
Glenn Curtiss is credited with creating the first flying car in 1917. His invention was called the Autoplane, but it never really flew. His design was a box shaped car like cabin, four wheels and three wings. The propeller was located on the rear. It could do 45 miles per hour on the road and the wings could be detached. Those that saw it fly said that it hoped instead of flying.
Flying cars may seem like a modern thought, but it has been a ventured thought since the early 1900s. Popular Science even did an article on it in 1926. Henry Ford even ventured in the flying automobile industry. Ford's design did not go as planned. He had more problems than achievements in his testing stages.
Around the 1940s and 50s, numerous flying machines emerged. Once again, none of them were successful enough to make their way to mass production.
According to Kevin Bonsor's article, How Flying Cars Will Work, Robert Fulton designed the Airphibian. He took the idea of the flying car and turned it around. He ventured out to make a driving plane. His design had detachable wings and tail for better road travel. The propeller was also detachable. The conversion process took about five minutes. His design was the first to be certified by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. It was able to drive at 50 miles per hour and fly at 120 miles per hour. Even though his invention was the most successful, so far, the financial backing was not able to be found.
A few of the other designs include, the ConvAirCar, the Avrocar, the first flying car designed for military use, and the Aerocar.
Moulton Taylor is known for creating the most successful flying car to date. His design was meant to drive, fly and then drive again without interruption. It also received Federal Aviation Administration approval. It also came close to production, but the oil crisis in the 70s smashed that process.
Even though there were numerous attempts to build a flyer car, nobody fully succeeded and some even paid with their life. One thing that did come from the venture into the unknown was that they proved a flying car was possible and not merely a dream.
It may have taken a few years, after the wave of interest, but the process to building a flyer car did not stop.
Paul Moller was the next person to make a name for himself, when it came to flying cars. He introduced the M200X in 1989. It has flown 200 flights and has reached 50 feet above the ground, according to Bonsor's article.
In 1990, Kenneth Wernicke had a design that was small enough to fit into a parking space, flew 200 to 400 mph and drove at 65 mph. It was called the Aircar.
Moler continued his attempts and designed the Skycar M400. It can land and take off vertically, in small spaces and reach up to 400 mph, and can travel about 900 miles. It can be fueled by gas, diesel, alcohol, kerosene or propane. It is said to achieve the mileage of a mid-size car, averaging about 20 miles per gallon. The downside would be that the starting price for a Skycar would be $1 million and eventually be lowered only to $60,000.
The Skycar was said to be powered by rotary engines and use 720 horsepower. For safety reasons it would be completely controlled by a GPS system and be completely automatic, allowing only minimal manual control.
There was talk about having the Skycar out sometime soon, but Molar was unable to raise the money to continue building. According to Molar, it's hard to raise $25 million dollars for something that possible could never happen or at least be five to ten years away.
Molar does say that he believes flying cars will play a role in our future of transportation. He thinks that vehicles reflecting the Skycar and electric cars and hybrids will be the final product.
Flying cars have numerous obstacles to overcome, price being one of the major hurdles, but safety and operation are a close second. There are accidents that occur on the roads that are fatal, getting over the safety precautions of an accident in mid-air are even harder to solve.
Flying cars could be the solution to traffic jams, but could easily bring about more problems than solutions. For now, flying cars are still only a distant dream, but maybe not as distant as we once thought. For now, hybrid technology is what the industry is focusing on.
Hybrids seem to be a thought that was once only a distant dream, but more and more automobile companies are developing hybrid lines. A hybrid is defined as any vehicle that combines two or more sources of power that can directly or indirectly provide power, according to HowStuffWorks.com
Currently, most hybrids on the road are gasoline-electric powered. There is, however, a French car maker that is developing two diesel-electric cars. In a gasoline-electric powered hybrid is a compromise between the gas powered car and the electric powered car. There are two types of hybrid cars, parallel hybrid and a series hybrid. The parallel hybrid uses the fuel tank to provide gas to the engine and a set of batteries that supplies power to the electric motor. Both of these engines are capable of turning the transmission at the same time and the transmission then turns the wheels.
On the other hand, the series hybrid uses the gasoline engine to turn a generator and the generator gives the charge to the batteries or power to the electric motor, which then drives the transmission. In this type, the gasoline engine never actually gives the car its power.
Hybrids may seem like just a way to bring us into the future, but in fact they serve environmental purposes as well. Not only do they improve gas mileage, which with the current state of ever fluctuating gas prices is a good thing, but it also reduces tailpipe emissions.
The future of cars is ever changing and everyday improvements and developments are being made. The future is sure to hold a new model of automobiles, but the question is will it end at hybrid car technology or will it go on to further inventions for flying cars. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 17 June 2009 )
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