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The Flying Car
The Flying Car
The Flying Car
The power systems of the TF-X consists of two electric motors coupled with a 300bhp petrol engine which can provide a combined output of a MegaWatt
of power (which is quite a lot of energy). The power transmission system present inside the TF-X will allow it to soar at a maximum speed of 200mph and
cruise speed of 160mph providing flight ranges of about 500 miles. The twin electric motors will assist the rotor blades during takeoff and landing at
vertical thrust configurations. During cruise conditions the fan blades will fold back into an aerodynamically efficient shape while a rear end fan provides
the cruise thrust. The rotary motion from the fan blades will also be used to recharge the electric drive motors during cruising.
The onboard electronic systems are the basic equipment found in general aero-vehicles. A gyroscope to sense orientation, a pitot tube for airspeed,
barometers, altimeters, GPS location systems, tachometers, hydraulic control systems for pitch, yaw and roll and various other sensors, controllers and
actuators required for autopilot functions. The on road controls are the normal ones which you would find in any plug-in hybrid vehicle which are already
available. Steering when and accelerator-brake pedal configuration of on road driving and stick and rudder pedal configuration for flight control are present
on board.
Coming to the structural design perspective, the size of the aero-car (or the car-o-plane) is small enough to fit inside a regular single car garage. The
foldable wings are mainly responsible for this as due to this reason it does not require the user to own a separate hangar for this purpose. Material for the
TF-X has to be very light and for this reason carbon-fiber body is used around a steel chassis to support the avionics and transmission systems. The
foldable wings on the outside and the foldable steering systems on the inside are controlled by electromechanical folding mechanisms
Figure 4The TF- Transition test runs during land and flight mode
A prototype has already been built by Terrafugia used to test its concepts and the TF-X model will only improve on the
results obtained. It has undergone many test runs successfully, both on road and airborne conditions. The Transition
although uses a gasoline engine to power both the propellers in air and the transmission drive train on road. It differs from
the later released design concept TF-X by, the foldable wings are present at the lower side; single propeller at the rear end
and a double tail configuration. The transition proved the concept of a flying car successfully leading test results which
will only improve the design results as applied on the TF-X. The specification of the transition as released by Terrafugia
are shown in the below table.
Cruise Speed 100 mph (160 km/h)
This is the biggest question in hand with the flying car concept in general. The idea has been around since a long time but
has not been implemented so far which means that it has many factors hindering its application. Although it just seems like
attaching a propeller blade to a car and making it fly, it is a lot more complex. For instance, the aerodynamics of a car (a
very fast one) is primarily to keep it on the ground and allow air to glide through it, while the aerodynamics of an airplane
is get the maximum lift off of the airfoil. At the current state of transportation, it is hard to say whether this will catch on
primarily since this mode of transportation doesn’t exist practically yet. We can hardly scratch the surface of the problems
and complications which will arise, like the traffic rules and monitoring (air traffic policing). Therefore the approval of
such a product by national aviation authorities might take a long time once the actual product is released which will add to
the time we see a street (and air) full of car-o-planes.