Zipping around the skies in your own personal plane has long been a vision of the future, but after a century of appearing only in sci-fi films, the flying car is now a reality.
American company Terrafugia says its new car/plane combination called the ‘Transition’ could transform the world of personal flight.
The two-seater mini-plane can be stored in your garage (the wings fold up), driven to your local airstrip, and then flown to your destination. After you land, you just hit the road and continue your journey.
Though dubbed a ‘flying car’, the Transition is really a plane that can be driven on roads, rather than a car with wings. But rather than running on expensive aviation fuel, you can fill it up on regular unleaded petrol. It even has a giant parachute that can be deployed in the event of a malfunction, which saves the entire plane!
But the cost of being George Jetson won’t come cheap; a Transition aircraft will set you back around $250,000. However, despite the high price tag, already 100 deposits have been put down with the first delivery expected next year.
You can learn to fly a Transition in as little as 20 hours but a world where you can jump in your flying car and jet off to Spain is still a while away. In fact, flying light aircraft over urban areas is generally restricted so don’t expect to be doing a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang anytime soon. However, you’ve got to admit, the Transition is an extremely exciting evolution in the world of flight.
