September 10, 2006: Aerocar

[Undertoad]

It's become almost cliche since the year 2000: we were promised flying cars, where are our flying cars?



There was one, it turns out! Jacquelita forwards this set of photos of the Aerocar, which was first built in 1949.



There were only six of these ever built, and at a rather slow rate. The one shown here was finished in 1960, the fourth one. It turns out that, according to Wikipedia entry on the car, the third one was once ridden by that Raul Castro - Fidel's brother, and the guy currently running Cuba. Unfortunately for Raul, it ran out of fuel and crashed. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it only damaged the vehicle and not Castro himself.




You couldn't get me in one of these - ever, but it didn't go all that fast anyway. The official specs:

Crew: 1
Wingspan: 10.4 m
Length: 7.0 m
Height: 2.1 m
Wing area: 17.7 sq. m
Empty weight: 680 kg
Takeoff weight: 952 kg
Engine: 1x Lycoming 0-320-A1A, 148 hp
Max. speed: 220 km/h
Cruise speed: 200 km/h
Ceiling: 3650 m
Takeoff roll: 200 m
Landing roll: 92 m
Range: 800 km
Payload: 1 passenger

But where's our flying car? Well there is an Aerocar website with a Lotus Elise convertible bolted onto an airframe:



But again, not for me - I'll take a separate convertible and plane, please, thank you very much. Way too much to go wrong, if they ever get it up in the air at all.