Barry Gardner wrote:
Paul,
You can say what you will about Moller's technology but his PR team is absolutely first rate.
Here's the article originally in MIT's Technology Review, then reprinted in Friday's Wall Street
Journal. Whoever does publicity for Moller is the person I'd like to meet.
Barry Gardner
Wheaton, IL
MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
An Aircar in Every Garage? [Image]
[Go to Page] ALSO ON
The fantasy of a personal flying machine is lurching
toward reality, as companies ready vertical-takeoff TECHNOLOGY
aircraft for market, and information technology endows * Tech Stocks 5/23
planes with the ability to fly themselves. Finish Flat
Friday
By DAVID LOUIS DREIER * Ballmer 5/23
Sells Part of
"I've been lecturing on this subject for about a decade Microsoft
and a half," says Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at Stake
NASA's Langley Research Center, "and at the end of
every talk, people ask me two main questions: Where can * Sales Are 5/23
I buy one; and where can I get a franchise to sell Strong for
them?" 'Matrix' Game
MORE
"These things" are aircars -- a.k.a. flying cars or
personal VTOL (vertical-take-off-and-landing) aircraft.
and many people do want them. What could be a more
appealing vision of the world of tomorrow that stepping advertisement
into one's own flying machine and heading off into the
wild blue yonder?
[Illustration] This vision could be realized
Illustration from sooner than you think. The
MIT Technology technology of personal VTOL
Review transportation is "expanding and
will soon be exploding," says Mr.
Bushnell, with at least a dozen
individuals and groups in the U.S. now competing to
produce a safe, dependable aircar. The U.S. Army and
Navy are developing aircar-type vehicles for military
applications, and a NASA researcher has also been
working on a design. Most of the action seems to be in
the U.S., though at least one foreign company -- Urban
Aeronautics in Israel --is also in the race. These
aircraft, Mr. Bushnell contends, are "not only feasible
but inevitable."
The development of aircars stems from a confluence of
need, desire, and enabling technology. To gauge the
need, one need look no further than our [Image][Image][Image]
automobile-choked roadways. "Building virtual 'highways
in the sky' would be a modest technical achievement in
the almost unused airspace above us," insists Paul
Moller, a California aeronautical engineer who thinks
the automobile has had its day and has been working for
many years to develop a flying car.
Beyond the clogged roads, there's the problem of an
increasingly dysfunctional airline industry. Airport
hassles, delayed flights, fears of terrorism, and the
rising threat of new infectious diseases such as SARS
have made airline travel a stressful experience. Most
people who fly do so out of necessity, not because they
relish spending two or more hours in a cramped airplane
seat with a bag of peanuts. Aircars, if they're ever
made practical, would let people zip across the city,
or across the country, in their own flying machine.
David Louis Dreier is
What is making aircars a more imaginable possibility is a science and
information technology. Thanks to highly sophisticated technology writer
and compact computers, GPS and other advanced based in Chicago.
navigational technologies, and aerial
collision-avoidance systems, it is possible to build
aircraft that, through a combination of on-board
guidance systems and ground control, would fly RELATED INDUSTRIES
themselves. The "operators" of an aircar would simply [Image]
get into the vehicle, key in (or maybe just speak)
their destination, and let the vehicle, like some *Food & Tobacco
futuristic flying carpet, carry them up and away. Mr. *Pharmaceutical &
Moller contends that current airplane navigational Biotech
systems could handle most of a flight, except for
takeoffs and landings. Fully automated flights from Personalized Home
beginning to end, he readily admits, would require a Page Setup
new system. Put headlines on
your homepage about
A system that could serve as the starting point for the companies,
controlling personal VTOL aircraft is the Small industries and
Aircraft Transportation System (SATS). A joint project topics that interest
between NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration, you most.
SATS aims to outfit a nationwide system of more than
5,000 small airports connected by virtual -- yes --
"highways in the sky" for the use of a new generation of small, safe, easy-to-fly, and inexpensive
airplanes. NASA and the FAA expect the system to be fully operational after about 2015.
But if limited to airplanes, this idea has a couple of obvious flaws. First of all, it's
questionable whether many people would want to buy and maintain an airplane. And even if they did,
they'd still have to use an automobile to get to and from airports -- hardly the ideal solution to
our transportation problems
[Go to MIT Tech Review] Mr. Moller has long insisted that the answer to this dilemma is
Also in MIT Technology aircars that could operate completely free of airports. SATS would
Review have to be greatly expanded to include VTOL's departing and
(www.technologyreview.com) landing at a multiplicity of locations far removed from
traditional landing strips. Will that be done? In fact, says
* Cloning, Stem Cells, and NASA's Bushnell, "The SATS vision has always included that as an
Medicine's Future end point." He adds, though, that until the infrastructure for
aircar guidance has been completed, we will see a transition
* Managing Antiterror period in which the vehicles will have to be piloted by the people
Databases flying them during the takeoff and landing portions of the flight.
* Browser Boosts Brain An infrastructure that supports aircars won't be much use if there
Interface are no aircars to buy. But such flying vehicles could become
available in the not too distant future.
One company that appears close to bringing an aircar to market is
Mr. Moller's enterprise, Moller International in Davis, Calif., which has developed a VTOL vehicle
called the Skycar. A four-passenger Skycar, dubbed the M400, is undergoing extensive flight
testing aimed at getting FAA certification. The company says the M400 will initially cost just
under $1 million, but as manufacturing volume ramps up, the price will come down to $40,000 to
$60,000 -- comparable to a mid-range luxury automobile. The company hopes to have the
million-dollar version on the market by mid-2006.
The Skycar looks a bit like a small fighter jet with stubby wings. It is powered by eight rotary
engines, similar to the ones used in some Mazda sports cars. Two of these engines, which turn fan
blades to produce thrust, are mounted in each of four large pods, called nacelles, at the front
and back of the fuselage. The nacelles tilt downward for takeoff and landing and turn horizontally
for level flight. These engines will enable the Skycar to cruise at 480 kilometers per hour at a
height of 9 kilometers (though so far it has been tested only in low-altitude flights). The Skycar
is designed to keep flying if one or more engines fail, as long as they are in different nacelles.
In the event of multiple engine failures -- which could happen from, say, flying into a flock of
birds --two ballistically ejected parachutes will carry the vehicle gently to the ground.
The Skycar does have one shortcoming that could put it in a bind: it's mostly sky and a lot less
car. Although it can taxi around, the vehicle is not meant to be driven on the ground for more
than a few kilometers. Moller is counting on aircars being able to operate to and from a variety
of urban spaces, such the tops of buildings, making it unnecessary for them to be driven any
appreciable distance on the ground.
NASA's Mr. Bushnell, however, believes it is unlikely that the FAA or municipal governments will
allow swarms of personal aircraft to be buzzing around highly built-up areas. Lots of people are
therefore going to continue traveling in and out of big cities -- and they'll most likely have to
do so on roads. Thus, says Mr. Bushnell, for aircars to be mass-market vehicles, they will have to
operate just as efficiently on the ground as in the air.
Some people are putting their money on just this concept of an auto/aircraft hybrid. The idea has
even been incorporated into the name of at least one company, Roadable Aircraft International of
Camarillo, Calif. Roadable, which is designing an aircar-type drone for the Navy, is developing a
civilian VTOL -- named, with a nod to the Wright brothers, The Flyer -- that it claims will be as
roadworthy as any conventional automobile.
Nicholas L. Geranio, Roadable's vice president for product development, says The Flyer will be
capable of traveling as fast as 135 kilometers per hour on the ground and 400 kilometers per hour
through the air. Mr. Geranio says the company has tested two prototypes and is now working on a
model for FAA certification. Once Roadable receives FAA certification -- which Mr. Geranio hopes
will happen by late 2006 -- the company expects to sell the vehicle at an initial price of
$300,000 to $400,000 Roadable has plans to market a $100,000 kit version of The Flyer, minus the
engines -- a jet turbine engine for flight, a piston engine for ground travel -- by the end of
2004.
The seductive vision of personal flight for everyone has its skeptics. Among them is R. John
Hansman, director of the MIT-based International Center for Air Transportation. VTOL aircraft are
difficult to design, Mr. Hansman says, because they must lift all their weight with vertical
thrust before they can attain forward flight and stay in the air with lift. "Because weight is
such a critical consideration, it's hard to design a vehicle that is as crashworthy as a
traditional car," he says. He is especially doubtful about aircars of the hybrid type. "You can
design a good airplane, or you can design a good car," he says. "When you try to do both, you
inevitably compromise somewhere, so you have a suboptimal car and a suboptimal airplane."
Mr. Hansman thinks there could be greater possibilities for small aircraft that achieve lift
quickly and can take off, and land, on the flat roofs of large buildings. But of course, that
takes us back to the question of whether large numbers of small aircraft would ever be allowed to
fly in cities.
While he's dubious about the near-term prospect of millions of Americans flitting through the air
in their own flying machines, Mr. Hansman is careful not to deny the possibility. He just thinks
that if that day does arrive, it will not be for a long time, in part because it will be quite a
while before people will be willing to trust their lives to fully automated aircraft.
Nevertheless, Paul Moller and others in this growing sector of aeronautics agree with Dennis
Bushnell that aircars are the inevitable next step in personal transportation.
This article appeared May 23, 2003 on the Web site of Technology Review, an MIT Enterprise
Copyright (c) 2003 Technology Review, Inc. All rights reserved
Updated May 23, 2003 11:52 a.m.