back to article Flying 'Motorbike'/Reliant Robin 'to take off next year'

A radical "motorcycle" able to pop out a pair of wings and take to the skies will make its first flight next year, according to reports. Concept of the Switchblade 'sky bike' by Samson Motorworks More Trotters Independent Traders than Judge Dredd movie Lawmaster, really. The "Switchblade sky bike" from US firm Samson …

COMMENTS

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  1. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Colours?

    Will it come in yellow?

  2. Paul 4

    How about

    A 200BHP 'busa engine?

  3. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge

    Just as well it does have three wheels

    If it WAS a bike, at well over half a ton, imagine trying to pick it up after dropping it on its side!

  4. K
    Thumb Up

    Awesome..

    But they seem to have forgotten the entrance..

  5. harryhedgehog
    FAIL

    Already been done...and it failed

    Sorry this is old hat stuff. Reliant Robins flying was done ages ago and covered on Top Gear.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b4WzWFKQ20

  6. Youngdog
    Thumb Down

    "road grunge and rock dings"

    I may have to change my my handle to old-fart-dog for this but they are two genres of guitar music that must have passed me by.

    Perhaps because of the Moller-Skycar-red paintjob I'm a little sceptical about this, er, ever getting off the ground.

  7. disgruntled yank Silver badge

    Oh, great

    Donorcycles raining from the sky, just what we need.

  8. Steve Brooks

    BG 1980

    Oh dear, flying motorcycles, Battlestar Galactica 1980 all over again, it was a bad idea then, what has changed in the meantime that makes it any better?

  9. Dave Edmondston
    Grenade

    Waste of time

    I can get airborne on my 1250 Bandit without the need for wings.

  10. Paul Smith

    Investment opertunity?

    Anybody else think those wings look a little bit too small to be realistic?

  11. Steven Jones
    Alert

    Centre of Gravity

    Where on earth (or in the sky) is the CoG of this thing? As far as I can see the centre of lift from the main wings is right at the back of the machine if it is as illustrated. I can't see how the tiny wings or main body could generate enough lift to make the difference, so that think looks destined for a nose-dive given that the pilot (at least) is a long way forwards.

    Well, that's unless this is yet another half-baked artist impression owing more to form than function. Now we've never seen The Register feature those have we.

  12. DrStrangeLug
    Thumb Down

    Flying Motorcycles?

    Galactica 1980..... *shudder*

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Freedom motors

    Is Moller's power-plant division. I'm pleased to see this bike comes in "skycar red" too!

  14. Bilgepipe
    FAIL

    Fail

    This will never work.

  15. Mark York 3 Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Wings

    Remind me of the bastard son of the ones on TB1 & TB2.

    PH because she has no fear of flying. :D

  16. Anton Ivanov
    Flame

    Interesting

    Looks like a variEze with oversize cockpit to accommodate the folded wings and ducted fan. Proportions are not so off actually. It may actually be able to fly. The drag from the cockpit will be much higher than on an Eze, but as the saying goes: "Pigs can fly, provided that they have been given a sufficient amount of thrust".

  17. Seanmon
    Boffin

    Flying motorcycle, but...

    ..if you stuck two of them together, you could have one of those Bespin cloud-car things. Does that count?

    </geek>

  18. Robert E A Harvey
    Stop

    Been Here before

    Moller, Skyvan, macro, Terrafugia.

    Let's see a few hundred in everyday use before we get excited.

  19. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    Motorcycle?

    Well weighing in at 1400lb would certainly make it a car under european regs. Which would of course mean it would have to comply with all the various regulations for cars. Which would in itself probably add considerably to the weight. Which would probably keep it glued to the ground.

    If US regulations are such that all you need is three wheels to qualify as a motorcycle I'm amazed there aren't a lot more three wheelers over there.

  20. I didn't do IT.
    Grenade

    RE: Flying Motorcycles?

    What about Megaforce? Impressionable minds we were in the early 80's... :)

    Grenade, because that movie had BOOM.

  21. James 55

    Target market

    From their website: "...room for golf clubs,"

    Also, if it's due to fly in a year (haha) why don't we have a real picture??

  22. Simon Harris
    Thumb Up

    Haven't we seen this before?

    I think The Reg can claim prior art on this one...

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/01/sinclair_flying_cars/

  23. John Gamble
    Linux

    Wait, Not A Kubuntu Release?

    I guess "Reliant Robin" has a while to go yet.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    maybe.........

    we'll see a modern version of "only fools and horses"

    come on ladies get 'em while they're hot......

    luvly Iphone 5G, complete in pink with lightweight tracking unit so you can always locate your 'ole man, or perhaps this lightweight netbook, optomised for online shopping, complete with list of fake credit cards numbers........

  25. phoenix
    Grenade

    Anyone for air rage

    Jeez it's hard enough for some tubes to not bang into each other in two dimensions add a third a watch out.

  26. Clive Harris
    Black Helicopters

    Engine + Avionics for $20K?

    They're allowing $20K for the engine and avionics! That's a bit optimistic. It wouldn't even cover the 1000hr overhaul for a standard Lycoming aero-engine. Last year someone at our flying club dinged the prop of a Cherokee in a heavy landing. The engine repairs alone came to $28K.

    (Black helicopter because their engines are even more expensive!)

  27. The BigYin

    In road mode...

    ...60mpg (estimated) is reasonable enough. I guess that is inferior Yankee gallon, which makes it 72-ish mpg or about 3.9 l/100km in real money.

    Anyways, rip the wings off, lose the fan, the rest of the flight gubbins and that will improve. Probably be light enough to get classed as a motorcycle too. Bit like a C1 for two people.

    Hmm...thought....clueless Volvo and BMW driving retards on "two" wheels....*shudder*

  28. Juan Inamillion
    FAIL

    Oh yeah...

    ... and the next thing would be Volvo-shaped ones flying around Golders Green with the same level of driver competence as the ordinary road vehicles....

    Serious Darwin Award contenders at the best of times.

  29. Andus McCoatover
    Welcome

    Rodney!

    You Plonker! Paint the Plastic Pig yellow again!

    (I for one welcome our new Trotter Overlords)

  30. Wize
    Coat

    The fuel efficiency will drop...

    ...with all the fat geeks flying them.

    Mines the one with the pie in the pocket

  31. Thomas Kent 1
    Thumb Up

    @ In road mode

    I agree. Lose the aircraft bits & I'd buy one for commuting purposes.

  32. crypt
    FAIL

    Agh!

    pffft! WINGS!

    Wheres my goddamn antigrav-bike!.

  33. Joel
    Thumb Up

    in kit form?

    So these numpties are going to be trying to build these things themselves, and THEN killing themselves...

    Sounds like sneaky genocide to me!

  34. Tim Brown
    Troll

    MPG

    The drop in MPG from 60 to 22 doesn't sound like much of a problem. A 60 mile journey by road might only take 22 miles once you're airborne - so either way you'd still only use 1 gallon.

    In fact, given the wayward state of some roads, a 60-mile ground journey could easily turn into a 10-mile journey - even better!

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    @Steven Jones

    Remember the old canard about the CG not needing to be over the wings.

  36. Rob 44

    Not gonna happen.

    Lets just think about this for a second.

    We have something called border controls. You need passports and suchlike to travel from one country to another. So lets say for example Mr Criminal has just robbed a bank nearby dover. All he has to do is find a small stretch of road and take off and pop over to france. No immigration, no security checks, no passport.

    Now I know none of these so called flying cars are gonna be taking us from the uk to the usa or something like that. But do you really think governments are just gonna let people fly wherever they want whenever they want ? I don't think so. It's just too risky.

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