Flying cars on the rise

Revealed by aviation pioneer Glen Curtiss in 1917, the Autoplane was probably the first serious attempt to combine the attributes of an automobile with those of an airplane. The aluminum craft had three removable wings that spanned more than 40 feet. Belts from the engine drove a 9-foot, 4-blade pusher propeller behind a passenger compartment that looked like a car. It hopped down a runway a few times, but was never successfully flown.

Bing Images: Curtiss Autoplane

Successfully tested in 1947, the Airphibian was the first roadable aircraft to be certified by the Civil Aeronautics Administration. In flight, it looked like a small airplane. For road use, its entire aft section, including the tail and wings, was detached and rested on its own small wheels. The propeller was also removed. The Airphibian was quite airworthy, and on a dare from Life magazine, inventor Robert Fulton once used it to travel from his home in Connecticut to Manhattan to attend a Broadway show. Fulton blamed government regulations for making it unmarketable.

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Designer Moulton Taylor came up with the idea of folding wings when he designed the first Aerocar prototype, which debuted in 1949. A Lycoming engine was mounted over the rear wheels and drove a propeller behind the tail. For road use, the wings folded back alongside the tail, which was disconnected and towed like a trailer. It was a CAA-certified aircraft and could cruise in the air at 100 mph, or reach 65 mph on the road. Four examples of the first design were built and sold, and one is still flying.

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The brainstorm of Washington state pilot Trey Johnson, the Plane Driven PD-1 is based on a Glasair Aviation Sportsman 2+2 kit plane, and has folding wings. Johnson and his team at Plane Driven devised a pod that slides with the rear wheels on rails. For road use, the pod slides aft to correct the center of gravity for highway stability. A 500cc Yamaha engine mounted in the pod powers the PD-1 on the road. Because it has three wheels, it's licensed as a motorcycle in Washington. Johnson flew the PD-1 to the EAA AirVenture air show in 2010. Future prototypes may use electric motors to drive the road wheels.

Bing Video: Plane Driven PD-1

Developed by British paramotor builder ParaJet, the Skycar is a road-legal, 2-person vehicle that can fly under a parafoil wing when propelled by a paramotor propeller. The Skycar, powered by a Yamaha motorcycle engine, can reach 140 mph on the ground and cruise at 82 mph in the air, with a flight range of 200 miles, ParaJet says. If the engine fails, the $80,000 Skycar simply glides back to earth. The company is accepting deposits — $16,250 will hold your place on the waiting list — though there hasn't been a new post on its website since late 2010.

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Certified in 2010 by the Federal Aviation Administration as a "powered parachute," the Florida-built Maverick was developed as a rugged vehicle for people living at the frontiers of the world. Powered by a 190-horsepower Subaru car engine, the 2-seat, 800-pound Maverick has a tubular steel frame with an off-road suspension. Engage the pusher propeller, deploy the ram-air parachute wing, and the Maverick can take off in about 300 feet, reach an airspeed of 40 mph, and climb as high as 10,000 feet, all of which is handy when there's simply no road. The price is $84,000, and you'll need a sport-pilot license to fly it.

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The BiPod, a roadable, twin-fuselage, 2-seat electric-hybrid aircraft, is the last design by the legendary aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan, who retired in April 2011. Rutan designed the suborbital SpaceShipOne aircraft and the Voyager, which completed the first nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world in 1986. The BiPod's 50-pound wings can be removed in 10 minutes and stowed between the fuselage pods for road travel. To date, the BiPod has been tested only with wheel power; it reached 80 mph and can become airborne. It's designed to carry two 450cc internal-combustion engines to charge lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which power four electric motors: two driving the wheels, and two driving the twin propellers. Further development will require funding from outside investors.

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In 2010, through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon budgeted $65 million to develop a combat-ready, 4-person roadable aircraft that can lift off without a runway; imagine a Humvee mated with a helicopter. The objective is to create a vehicle that can fly over problems on the ground, such as a road laced with bombs, for raids, reconnaissance or evacuation missions. DARPA has named AAI Corp. and Lockheed Martin as the system's developers. Design proposals use a rotor for vertical takeoff and landing and a small wing for high-speed cruising.

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In 2012, you could arrive at your next business meeting in a Transition. Customer deliveries of this roadable, light-sport aircraft are expected to begin next year, pending final highway crash-safety tests. Terrafugia was founded in 2006 by a group of MIT-trained aeronautical engineers and entrepreneurs who also are pilots. The Transition has wings that fold and unfold at the push of a button while the pilot remains in the cockpit. Drive it from home to the airport, take off and land, and then drive to your final destination, all in one vehicle.

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Successfully tested in the air and on the road in 2009, the Transition carries two people and can cruise at 105 mph in the air with a range of about 490 miles. A 100-horsepower Rotax engine powers the rear wheels and a pusher propeller. In road trim, it's more than 18 feet long, so you'll need a big garage, and its side-by-side cockpit is a snug 48 inches wide. A Transition pilot will be required to have at minimum a sport-aviation license, which takes about 20 hours of training. The expected price is $279,000.

Bing Images: Terrafugia Transition

Veteran moto-journalist and Wisconsin-native Charles Plueddeman has been driving, riding and testing automobiles, motorcycles, boats, ATVs and snowmobiles for more than 20 years. He is a regular contributor to Boating Magazine and Outdoor Life, and his product evaluation articles have appeared in Popular Mechanics, Men's Journal, AutoWorld, Playboy, Boats.com and many other national publications and Web sites.

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