Remember the James Bond movie “The Man with the Golden Gun”? It featured an AMC Matador which could actually fly. The bad guy Scaramanga used it to escape from 007.
Now, thanks to a US and a Dutch company we may be on the verge of having flying cars in our garage. With gas prices at record highs, this may be the last thing on our minds, but there they are, the “Transition Street-Legal Airplane” from US company Terrafugia and the “Personal Air and Land Vehicle (PAL-V) from Dutch company PAL-V.
They are very different animals, with the US product being a car/airplane combination while the PAL-V is a car/helicopter.
Interestingly, the Transition seems to have had more problems with proving that they comply with road safety regulations than with proving that it was an airplane. For example, they had to get government clearance to use lighter tires and glass than is normal on a car and they had also been granted clearance not to equip the Transition with electronic stability control… not when it operates as an aeroplane but when it is a car!
The Dutch PAL-V is a helicopter when it is not a car and as such will probably have an edge in certain areas. After all, you do not need to “taxi” to a runway or suitable road to take off like the Transition does. If you have a large enough backyard, that is all you need. In theory at least. Not many countries in the world have rules applicable to aircraft that can land on a roundabout and then join the road traffic in one smooth swing.
To drive a Transition, you need your car driver’s license plus an FAA test and 20 hours air-time, not a big deal for most people.
You can watch the company videos here (Transition) and here (PAL-V).