Terrafugia Triumph: At Long Last, Here Come the Flying Cars

Buy me, fly me, drive me

Sure, video chat on Facebook is important, but what will really let us know the future has arrived are the flying cars. I’m totally serious. And it’s about to happen. Massachusetts startup Terrafugia is cleaning the final hurdles to getting its $250,000 flying car in the skies — and on the roads.

But does this thing have a real business plan?

First, an important distinction: the Terrafugia Transition isn’t exactly a car that flies — it’s more like a plane that drives. Or as Terrafugia puts it, a “roadable aircraft.” It has dual flight and driving controls, wings that fold up, and requires a relatively easy-to-get sport pilot license to operate.

And we already know it works. The Transition successfully took to the skies in 2009.

It has also received some special exemptions from the government, mainly to avoid having to use windshield glass and tires that would add excessive weight. Next up, crash testing. Then… well, get ready to see you some flying cars. Terrafugia has taken $10,000 deposits from a 100 salivating customers.

Now, one could easy peg this elegant contraption as a plaything of rich early adopters, gadget-heads, and plane-geeks. But the truth is, it cracks the code on a serious transportation problem in the U.S. — that of our underutilized regional airports.

Distributed transportation nodes

This has always been part of Terrafugia’s pitch:

Private aviation and the local airport infrastructure that supports it is currently one of the most underutilized transportation resources that this country has. It would be wonderful if more people were to complete the Sport Pilot certification process and use aviation as part of their personal travel regularly.

The company is right. The vast majority of people who fly, fly commercial and are enslaved to the airlines’ hub system, with increasingly limited access to regional carriers. Terrafugia sees more than 5,000 small airports scattered through the nation as a way for people to add a whole new layer to getting around. And to evade the living hell that air travel has become, without resorting to NetJets or begging wealthy friends for a ride on the G-V.

This made a lot of sense when I wrote about the Transition in 2009:

Regional airfields are like islands in the transportation ocean, and there are thousands of them. The Transition can zip in and out either by air or on the ground. Massive range is unnecessary because the Transition can always land and refuel, and its versatility means that trips can be made door-to-door. Apart from the wings, which can fold up in 30 seconds, nothing here is particularly esoteric. It runs on regular gas and uses the same engine to drive the prop and the wheels. The Transition wants to make island-hopping an option.

Customers?

But who would use this system — and justify the purchase of a $250,000 plane-car? I often use the example of a vineyard manager who has to visit several far-flung sites in a day. Many hours of driving could rapidly be reduced to just a few hours of flying/driving.

But there are other possibilities, as well. High on that list would be a sort of flying car regional taxi service, which could offer point-to-point service over distances that would normally involve two cars and a either a small plane or jet, not to mention highly trained pilots.

With low operating costs and plenty of potential customers, especially regional business travelers, the Transition could establish a new kind of hassle-free, everyday travel over distances that would definitely not have been seen as hassle-free in the past.

We can all admit that the romance of air travel has vanished. But with the Transition, that void could easily be replaced by an exhilarating practicality. So bring on the roadable aircraft! And lots of them!

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Photos: Terrafugia