Car of the future has wings - and $279,000 price tag

Terrafugia

With as little as 20 hours of flight instruction – and a check for $279,000 – the Transition will let a motorist leapfrog traffic – and potentially pull hours off longer trips – by taking to the air.

By Paul A. Eisenstein, msnbc.com contributor

Anyone who has ever had to deal with New York traffic will likely drool over the unusual offering making its debut at the city's annual auto show this week.

The Terrafugia Transition isn’t your typical automotive entry, something immediately obvious even with its wings neatly folded up.  With the completion of its maiden flight last month, and a sign-off by both federal air and automotive regulators, the Transition is set to deliver on a dream that has haunted dreamers since the days of Henry Ford.

With as little as 20 hours of flight instruction – and a check for $279,000 – the Transition will let a motorist leapfrog traffic – and potentially cut hours from longer trips – by taking to the air.

Flying cars roll a little closer to takeoff

“Don’t think of it as a car that flies. Think of it as a plane that drives,” said Carl Dietrich, CEO of Massachusetts-based Terrafugia and one of five former MIT graduate students who came up with the idea for the car/plane, er, plane/car six years ago.

The idea of combining automobile and airplane has been around since the first Flivver rolled out of Henry Ford’s assembly plant in Detroit. Ford devoted what would today be millions of dollars to the concept, only giving up when the corporate test pilot, a close friend of the automotive pioneer's, crashed and was killed in one of the prototypes.

Since then a variety of flying car projects have surfaced, typically capturing plenty of headlines but never making the flight into production. But it may be an idea whose time has come, with the help of advances in materials, powertrain and computer technologies to overcome the many hurdles. 

Even the federal government is getting into the act. The Defense Department’s research arm recently commissioned a program aimed at developing a sort of flying sport-utility vehicle that would allow soldiers to race to the front lines but avoid ambushes along the way.

For now, Terrafugia appears to have a jump on its competition. The firm’s March 21 test flight in Plattsburgh, N.Y., was a critical step forward, winning it preliminary certification – though the final design of the Transition is still in development for a vehicle expected to hit the market in 2013.

Winning approval has not been easy.  The Transition has had to meet potentially conflicting demands that satisfy both the Federal Aviation Administration and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But the results may actually appeal to potential buyers.  The craft will feature automotive-level safety features normally not found in a private airplane, including force-limiting seatbelts, airbags and a crumple zone to absorb the force of a front-end collision.

AP

The Terrafugia Transition is pictured shortly after a takeoff.

There are also such niceties as a GPS navigation system.

The Transition is powered by a 100-horsepower Rotax aircraft engine and can run on conventional premium unleaded fuel, rather than aviation gasoline, which could be hard to find, never mind extremely expensive.

In airplane mode, the engine drives a rear-facing “pusher” propeller. Hit the switch that electrically folds up the wings and a transmission shifts power to the rear wheels. In the air, the vehicle will make about 100 knots, or 116 mph, all day, while developers claim Transition can comfortably cruise at up to 80 mph on the highway. 

The vehicle is rated at 35 mpg on the highway and will burn about 5 gallons an hour when flying – around 23 mpg.  Range is 600 miles with the wings spread, although "you are going to want to land before the plane needs to," said Richard Gersh, the company’s business development manager.

The Terrafugia Transition is only 19 feet long, with a wingspan of 27 feet.  Fold the wings and the vehicle readily fits into a garage that can handle a big SUV like a Cadillac Escalade, said Gersh.

And at $279,000, a buyer is likely to own something in the luxury class, he acknowledged. The high cost is due to a variety of factors, including years of development as well as the use of extremely light – and extremely costly – carbon fiber. 

While the price tag might be high, Terrafugia Chief Operating Officer Anna Dietrich, Carl's wife, said she believes the plane/car will prove particularly appealing to those who’ve always wanted to fly but were unwilling to go through the extensive training traditionally required for a pilot’s license.

Flying car lands at New York Auto Show

The project was enabled, she added, by a shift in strategy at the FAA, which created a sport pilot category that cuts training requirements in half, to as little as 20 hours of instruction, although 28 hours is more typical, said Gersh.

The Transition doesn’t completely live up to the dream of leapfrogging traffic jams by quickly taking to the air. An owner would still have to use an airport for take-off and landing.

"Tthe biggest obstacle for a private pilot is weather,” said Carl Dietrich.  And where the owner of a regular small plane might be trapped for days, he insisted “You’ll never be stuck” with Transition. In a storm, a pilot/driver could simply fold up its wings and head out on the highway.

Another flying car concept could prove even more appealing to city motorists who might want to jump over traffic. A Dutch firm has just made its own maiden flight of the PAL-V, which is more of a cross between a motorcycle and a gyrocopter.  That firm hopes to begin deliveries in 2014, about a year later than Terrafugia believes it will launch sales of the Transition.

CNBC's Phil LeBeau has the details on the flying car named "Terrafugia," meaning "escape to Earth," outside CNBC in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.