OPENING QUESTION: Are flying cars commercially available? (In other words can we go out and buy a flying car or other such personal aircraft where we could take off from our front lawn and fly to work?
LEARNING GOAL FOR TODAY:
I will research a personal flying cars and be able to share the pros and cons of that aircraft to my colleagues during today's class
WORDS O' THE DAY:
WORK O' THE DAY:
It's a bit of a stretch to call this plane an experimental aircraft, but it showed up in my news feed this morning and I thought I'd show it to you. What potential problems did the builders/designers face in making this amazing plane?
Speaking of my aerospace news feeds, I was completely inundated (swamped) with stories about personal flying machines about a year ago. At that time I thought it might be a fun topic to explore in aerospace during our Experimental Aircraft unit.
Let's start by checking out this news article from 2014 "The race is on for flying car start ups"
They aren't so much experimental in terms of the technology (as you'll see the tech is pretty well proven). The experimental part is just how well and really *IF* the public will rush out to buy them.
To wit:
Please *gently* research one of the personal flying aircars shown in that story (or pick out another one that you find on the web) and be prepared to report out:
- The name of the aircar
- The company name of the outfit that is building that aircar
- The cost of that particular aircar *right now*
- The range that aircar can fly without refueling/recharging
- The altitude or (ceiling) that aircar can fly
- Whether that aircar uses fuel (gasoline or some other) or electric batteries
- The type of license you need to fly that aircar (if any)