First Flying Car Receives FAA Approval
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted approval to a hybrid ground-air vehicle that can travel at 100 miles per hour and fly up to 10,000 feet in the air.
The Terrafugia Transition received a Special Light-Sport Aircraft airworthiness certificate from the agency, giving it the green light for takeoff. However, the flying card can only fly for now, and the flight-only version of the craft is now available to pilots and flight schools. But it not yet ready to get on the road as it still needs to meet motor vehicles safety standards.
The flying card has a 27-foot wingspan that folds down to a size small enough for the whole thing to fit inside a single car garage, based on the information provided on the company’s website. Those interested in taking it for a spin will have to posses both a driver’s license and a sport pilot’s certificate to get on the driver seat of the finished product.
A full air and road model of the two-seater craft is planned for release in 2022 based on information provided by the company when FAA approval was received. However news came out today that suggests that we might never see the craft on the road or up in the sky.
Forbes reports that most of the U.S. employees of flying car maker Terrafugia have been laid off and the company will wind down U.S. operations later this year. Roughly 80 to 100 employees at the company’s headquarters in Woburn, Mass., have been let go already.
Terrafugia’s intellectual property and any possible future developments of the Transition are being moved to China by owner Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, which bought the company in 2017. Zhejiang Geely also owns the carmakers Volvo, Lotus, Geely and Proton.
Terrafugia was founded in 2006 by a group of MIT graduates with the aim to develop an airplane with folding wings that could be driven on roads. It was the runner-up for the 2006 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.
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Bummer to see Terrafugia fold so late in the certification process. It’s been the dream of many inventors to make a flying car (or roadable airplane), but successfully combining requirements for two vastly different vehicles (both heavily regulated) in a safe, reliable, affordable platform is akin to developing cheap, reliable and renewable energy. I guess it’s a good thing people keep trying.