Flying-car venture Terrafugia expands workforce
aopa.org
aopa.org
The problem, of course, is the high level of training required to operate such a vehicle, plus the cost of the vehicle itself.
"Flying car" was never a technical impossibility. It was an economic challenge. "Flying cars" are 50-year long hype.
What is "limited redundancy"? Either it's redundant or it's single point failure. I don't know what that term means.
Poor crash worthiness? Again, please explain.
The American helicopter society published a report in 1994 detailing how the "new" crashworthiness requirements had improved survivability in helicopter accidents. Also noting how many fewer class a/b accidents were occurring due to other safety improvements.
The fatality rate for helicopters is 1.3 deaths per 100,000 operational hours, compared to 1.4 deaths per 100,000 operational hours for fixed-wing aircraft. A person is more likely to survive a helicopter crash than an airplane crash.
I don't know where you got your impressions, but they are not accurate.
Are you sure about that? I'm willing to bet that for each crashed vehicle, there are far fewer people on average on each helicopter than in the average airplane.
Helicopters do crash more frequently than airplanes (on the order of 30% more crashes per flight hour). Part of that is due to how and when helicopters are used. Flying next to 500,000 Volt power lines is dangerous. When the coast gaurd is plucking someone out of the ocean, they use a helicopter, not an airplane. And people don't fall off boats when the weather is nice.
There are no helicopters comparable to a 747 as far as passenger count goes. So from that perspective you're right. But a 747 is also crazy safe and barely contributes to the average accident rate. The small 2-10 seat airplanes are the ones that crash a lot, like 10x more than the average of all aircraft (including helicopters). you're more likely to survive a helicopter crash than a Cessna crash.
In 50 years, there's been 30 crashes of 747s that resulted in loss of life. They are crazy safe. As a comparison, there are more than 200 crashes of Cessna 172 aircraft each year. In 2013 there were more than 1200 small plane crashes resulting in 350+ deaths, but zero large commercial aircraft accidents (in 2009, a 50-passenger plane crashed killing all onboard. There were no 50+ person crashes from 2009-2013)
So yes, large scale aircraft are crazy safe and crash less. But small scale airplanes are worse than helicopters.
You're right of course, that the economic challenge still exists. This one burns about $100/hr worth of fuel, and there's other maintenance costs on top of that.
Clearly there were some major regulatory hurdles they were working through related to licensing and other FAA requirements, but (according to the CEO) they had customers ready to buy and start using them.
The new TF-X model looks a lot slicker, and uses computer-assisted VTOL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHJTZ7k0BXU
Curious to see how this plays out under new ownership.
The whole point of the roadable aircraft is that you don't have to rely on airport infrastructure.
Unlike the Transition which is real https://youtu.be/nnF2yua4KIw?t=1m36s
> The company expects its first product, a two-seat, fixed-wing “roadable aircraft” called Transition, to enter the market in 2019.
> Its next generation concept is the TF–2, a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft designed for cargo and passenger loadings.
I am honestly amazed that Terrafugia is still around. It was a great effort and it was awesome seeing them build a few prototypes, but it doesn't seem to have much hope of getting beyond that.
1) a hybrid vehicle that can both drive on ordinary roads and fly
2) an aircraft that is as easy to fly as a car (is to drive), and possibly doesn’t require a runway to operate.
The Terrafugia Transition is an example of the former, but the category has been around for a long time, though without any really convincing entries in my view. Maybe the compromises required are still too great.
Many exciting developments are happening in the latter category, specifically in the subcategory that I like to call “PEVA”, namely personal electric VTOL aircraft, for example the Volocopter. That category has arisen because of the improvements in avionics and battery tech. It’ll be exciting to watch what happens there.
I wonder whether Terrafugia’s TF-2 falls in the second category.