Massachusetts-based Terrafugia aims to provide true door-to-door transportation with a flying car within the next decade. The firm’s concept vehicle TF-X is a solution to the ever-growing traffic, which is a pain for people who commute between work and home by car daily.
Prototype of TF-X is expected to be flying by 2018 while the car might hit the stores within the next eight years. The price will be on par with high-end luxury cars might be somewhere around $279,000.
TF-X quick facts:
The four-seater hybrid with wings that require no runway: TF-X will park in garage, runs some distance and then thrusts into air. And for the entire process, the machine requires no runway.
Speed: The vehicle will glide with a speed of 322 km/h, along 805 km flight range.
Twin electric motor pods: For flying purposes, it’ll have fold-out wings with a pair of electric motors attached to each end.
Electric motor teamed up with 300 hp engine: With a 300 hp engine, the attached twin motors will shift the car from a vertical to a horizontal position.
Computer controlled flight: Semi-autonomous TF-X will be operated through computer controls. After all, operating would be much safer than driving a flying car.
Just tell it where to go: The TF-X will adjust itself to tower-controlled airspace thus avoiding air traffic and bad weather.
Full-vehicle parachute system: In case of emergency while in air or if there occurs fault while auto landing, the operator can activate full-vehicle parachute system embedded in the TF-X.
Non-approved landing zones: In emergency, the vehicle can be brought to land in non-approved landing zones while parallelly the system autonomously notifies the authorities about the situation.
Automatic emergency system: If the machine receives no response from operator’s side, it’ll implement an automatic emergency mode and auto-land at the nearest airport.
Operational training: Learning to operate the flying machine won’t be a difficult task. The time would be relatively less than learning to fly a traditional aircraft.
Please find the animation below, where Terrafugia shows how the TF-X would work.
A megawatt of power for lifting: Just before taking off, the machine switches its electric-powered propellers to 90 degrees.
Propellers fold for cruise: While for forward flight, the propellers take horizontal position parallel to the car’s body.
Ducted fan provides thrust: With the activation of ducted fan, the spinning of propellers ceases and folds back into the nacelles.
The two seater compact aircraft that can fold its wings when not in flight and park in garage, sounds interesting, reminds me of the slucious car (the nachos loaded high-tech car created by Boov in the movie Home.)
