
light sport aircraft
Maybe they should have went to one of Britains light weight car specialists to get it really light.
Paris 'cause it's such an intelligent comment
The Terrafugia Transition, closest thing to a flying car yet built, has received a unique exemption from the US government allowing production models to be 110 pounds heavier than a normal "light sport aircraft". This will permit the car/plane combo to satisfy safety requirements when driving on roads. The Terrafugia …
"Hmm ... in the spirit of franglais then with the latin "fuga" meaning "flight" this surely any one with the remnants of a "proper education" can read this as....
"terra-fugia" == "terror-flight"
... not quite what they intened"
Anyone with the remnants of a 'correct education' would tell you that fugia does indeed mean 'flee' in Latin, however terra does NOT mean terror. It means 'earth' or 'ground'.
So Ground flight/earth flight, or just some combination of ground and flight, thus its a good name!
Not knocking it at all, I think it's great, but it's not really a flying car is it? It's an aircraft that's capable of being driven on the road.
Now as eny fule know a Fraud Mondeo is not a very capable off road vehicle, but it is very capable on the road. A Landrover is not the best at dealing with a twisty ribbon of tarmac at speed, but it is cracking in the dirt. Yes you can adapt a 4x4 to be a good road car, but the better it gets on road the worse it gets off it. And the same is true of taking a road car onto the dirt. In the end you get something that's OK in both environments, but not outstanding in either.
Likewise I bet this thing doesn't fly as well as a normal plane, nor will it drive as well as a normal car. That's only to be expected, but I hope that it has been biased towards airworthyness at the expense of roadworthyness. After all you wouldn't want to have to deal with too many compromises at 12,000 feet. If your softroader can't get up a bank because it's roady tyres won't grip the mud it's not the end of the world, the flying equivalent wouldn't be so easy to laugh off.
Paris? I'm sure she could do it in any environment.