I'll be sitting on the side until Mike can finish the mFlyMA kit for the Insight.
It's a pretty cool idea but the guy in the video makes it seem like anyone could fly and that it is as easy as turning a steering wheel. Having spent gobs of time in small aircraft, that's a pretty dangerous way to discuss it. Wind, rain, ice, etc. are a very powerful things and if you get caught in the middle of it when it is bad things can become dangerous unless the pilot is well skilled, which is usually the case but not something I'd put myself into knowingly. I know people who charter flights in small jets, one who recently talked about a recent trip back from an island to land where there was so much fog they went around a bunch of times just looking for the runway as their IFR equipment either failed or wasn't being read properly.
...not to mention that for the sake of fuel efficiency and limited resources, single occupancy planes for regular short-trip commuting purposes is not just expensive but very impractical. I couldn't imagine doing a pre-flight check on my car every day and filling flight reports to go to the leave work, go to the grocery store, post office, and then home.
It's a cool dream and small plane flight is very fun and a very enjoyable hobby but once it isn't a hobby and you do it a few times in bad conditions its not as fun, even as a passenger. Large aircraft are a bit different as it isn't felt as much but the wind can really jerk you around in the smaller craft.
Either you build a car drives well and also flies or you build a plane that also drives. Usually when you do both the compromise isn't so great. I'd prefer a better plane that also drives and have issues with landing, packing the chute and moving on, I'd rather have a better plane that can handle the condition that drives so that way when I arrive at the next city or state that I can avoid the hassle of renting or borrowing a car, or finding a ride, or taking a taxi. The expense of flying and licensure, not just fuel either, is why I don't fly and drive an Insight across the country, it saves the hassle of trying to get places once you've landed and also removes the hassles of bad weather conditions and finding my way around at my destination because I'm already in a car.
The guy sent it to me because I have been talking about wanting to build a flying car for the last 30 years, ever since I had a job with a nasty 120 mile round trip commute.
My neighbor down the road has a 1200 foot hay field that was going to me my takeoff and landing field.
Then when I started looking into Ultra lite aircraft and I talked with some owners, and they like MN Driver explained the risk.
Especially in New England where we say "if you don't like the weather, wait an hour and it will change."
Just thought you guys would get a kick out of the video.
I did get a kick out of the video, it would be a great little plane to fly and is unique since usually I see powered parachutes in the backpack form essentially wearing a parachute and a big fan but to have that setup as a car is some inovative thinking. A parachute might be more stable too but I'm still not sure how they handle an extreme wind gust, I'd have to ask someone who takes to the sky with a parachute but I don't know any anyone to ask so I lack the resources of knowing this sort of thing. I wouldn't mind keeping a backup car at a common destination, whether it be work, or somewhere else, and have the one I have at home and if it were a good day take an ultralight or powered parachute as a fair weather sort of thing, I just wouldn't rely on it. ..I'd also be a little afraid to take a roadable aircraft on the road too much since getting into a crash with it would mean I lost my aircraft as well as my car which is a bit too painful for me to lose a dual-purpose vehicle.
While I was in high school and going through college I had a very strong drive to building my own ultralight and now that I see forum posts of people who have built their own electric planes, I'm amazed. It is nice to see because it reduces the cost of aircraft ownership by quite a bit, less to deal with involving getting engine inspections, scheduled teardowns, dealing with fluids that might sit for months over winter, flying an aircraft where the requirement of hearing protection is largely reduced. Only issue for now, short range. If I won the lottery, I'd be all over finding an efficient aircraft body that has a large payload capacity to load high energy density batteries into and try to accomplish some range feats. For now I just dream of it.
My cousin and I built a hang glider over a weekend, with aluminum tubes and some clear plastic with duct tape. We got airborn, but the tape let go, and he got hurt.
We moved to dacron, and sewed seams, and had a lot of fun flying the small hills in woodstock CT.
I just ran into these photos from 1977. http://99mpg.com/Data/resources/down...anggliding.jpg
That is very cool, I'd be afraid to fly something of my own design unless it was based on an already existing design and I was able to make the choices of the things I want to change with very good care to the stability, strength, etc. which would leave not much of a change for me expect for the drivetrain source, which is taking a risk too. I'd probably run two seperate motors and controllers for redundancy if I went electric with it as a prototype since ultralights tend to lose altitude fast when they lose power.
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Flying car
