Woburn Company Close To Selling Flying Car

By Anthony Silva, WBZ NewsRadio 1030 New England Business Editor

April 3, 2012 11:59 PM

(Photo courtesy: Terrafugia-Facebook)

Reporting Anthony Silva

Filed under

Business, Heard On WBZ NewsRadio 1030, Local, News, Syndicated Local, Watch + Listen

Featured Content

BOSTON (CBS) – The latest version of the flying car is another step closer to going on sale.

Terrafugia of Woburn says it’s prototype has completed its first test flight, flying for about eight minutes at 1,400 feet.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Anthony Silva reports

But Terrafugia vice president Richard Gersh says the car can fly much farther.

“It has a range of about 400 to 450 miles, which would take you somewhat in the order of three to three-and-a-half hours,” Gersh told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.

Gersch says the Transition flying car will be formally introduced this week at the New York Auto Show and orders are piling up.

“We have approximately 100 orders on the books and we expect first delivery within the year,” he said.

The Transition has folding wings and seats two.

Woburn Company Close To Selling Flying Car

(Photo courtesy: Terrafugia-Facebook)

So, how do you drive or fly it?

“It drives just a like a car. It has a steering wheel, a gas pedal and a brake pedal. And, essentially, it has an automatic transmission. That’s when the wings would be folded up,” Gersh explained.

“When the wings are unfolded at your airport, it converts to flight mode, which disengages the road transmission and engages the propeller. And in that case, to fly the vehicle, you have a control stick, which, actually is located on the floor of the vehicle, kind of like a fighter pilot plane. And when you are flying the aircraft, you use the stick on the floor, but the wheel does remain attached, you just don’t’ have to use it in the air.”

The Transition does not come cheap.

It will sell for about $279,000.

1stackmack

people can’t seem to drive on the ground,nevermind flying around.also where in woburn is this company based.l’ve never heard of it until this thing was thought of years ago.

DRT

The government will regulate this, tax it, restrict its use everywhere. This will never see the light of day as a viable transportation method.

TiredOfWiners

ah yes… and the boogey man is hiding beneath your bed… don’t even bother getting out of bed in the morning because it’s too scary.. boo! At a price of 297,000 dollars, I don’t think many of us will be able to ever buy such a vehicle…

http://1059sunnyfm.radio.com/2012/04/04/flying-car-unveiled-at-new-york-auto-show/ Flying Car Unveiled At New York Auto Show

[...] The New York Auto Show is known for debuting innovative and unique automobiles, well before their time. This year’s show is no exception, according to CBSLocal.com. [...]
Richard Chaney

That thing will never be legal to drive on a road, plus it is a death trap.

Zac

It’s street legal
George Bush

Also looks like any crosswind would blow you right off a bridge.

Uncle Obama

Man I could really use one of these babies right now….no more DUI’s and you can forget about being found and deported!

George Bush

How are the crash test ratings? negative 5 stars? I dont’t even see a rear bumper.

Matt Breweski

http://mavericklsa.businesscatalyst.com/index.html

A much cheaper flying car–a real flying car, compared to this airplane with folding wings.

Johnny B.

Dude, it’s a flying parachute attached to a dune buggy. Please.

r

Parachute gives good lift obviously, plus its technically safer, in case you have a malfunction, you don’t plummet to death.

Bill Duke

This isn’t the world’s first flying car. Not even close to it. Flying cars have been around for decades.

Lee

Right, Bill. The first to gain FAA certification was Molt Taylor’s design in the 1950′s. Taylor thought he was going to sell a lot of them, I think he may have built three. That tells you what the market really is. With a price tag of $279,000 they will never sell enough to recoup even a part of their decade long development costs.

Patrick Henry

Wow! I would definitely choose a Maverick, since it’s a real car. Cheaper too!
Mikey

That’s one hell of a blind spot you have there…

BTW, what’s up with the gibberish posts from what is clearly a bot?
David Larkin

Definitely not the first flying car. Molt Taylor built one in the 50s or early 60s and Ford came pretty close to producing it, but concerns about liability made them come to their senses.
Engineering compromises necessitated by the dual function mean that you end up with a very expensive contraption that is a poor airplane and a terrible car. I pity the poor souls who invested in that one!
starlifter

By far not the first, maybe the latest

karl anglin

THEJETSONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

B Gibby

CBS should check its facts. This is far from being the world first flying car. I know of a least two others that were market failures.
http://www.spootylinks.com/28052.html Woburn Company Close To Selling Flying Car « CBS Boston | SpootyLinks.com

[...] http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/04/03/local-company-shows-off-flying-car/ This entry was posted in Link by Spooty. Bookmark the permalink. [...]
Jon

Good stuff, but do a little research: this isn’t the world’s first flying car. It’s not even the worlds second flying car! Check out the Moller SkyCar, for one; it was produced over 50 years ago.

FiMBrony

Uh, the Moller SkyCar has never done a test flight. It showed flight potential in a hover test, but has undergone serious reworkings since. Also, I’ve read nothing about the Moller SkyCar actually aiming to be a street legal vehicle in addition to a flight vehicle, though I could be wrong on this as I haven’t researched their SkyCar too much. But their philsophy for a “flying car” is to have a plane that anyone who is able to drive can fly. So it’s a highly automated flight system that requires only two inputs from a user (left and right) as opposed to Woburn’s flying car that is being designed to be street legal and also flown in the same manner that you fly an airplane (joystick with multidirectional input).

Regardless of Moller’s vision, Woburn beat them to having the first flying car with a proven model. Remember that many others had airplanes before the Wright Brothers, but they couldn’t sustain flight.

S

Not the first by a long shot. Google “Taylor Aerocar” or “Waterman Arrowbile”. Almost a century late to the party.

Tex

The late Bruce Hallock built and flew a tailless, folding-wing design he called his “Roadwing.” He flew it numerous times, and his family still has the prototype in a garage in Austin.

TickerTacker

A pointless plane, costing $100k+ more than the flying competition and rewarding that differential with a horrendously awful driving experience, for sure. Utterly pointless. 100 orders on the books, is that 100 orders or “100 deposits”, because there’s a huge difference.
Greg

Not first
http://www.aerocar.com/

Jerky Miester

Thanks Greg. Stole my thunder. This is the age of “no source” journalism. If someone claims it … it must be true.

Mike-N-TN

I owned a flying car back in 1987. It was a Dodge Colt. I only flew it once. It was quite unexpected and the landing nearly killed me. But hey… no one can argue that I didn’t fly that puppy!

Archer

@Jon, Moller has been trying to build his SkyCars since the 1970s and he has yet to fly one with a passenger. If I didn’t know better I’d say he’s a scam artist.

That said, the Taylor Aerocar flew decades ago. The problem with flying cars is that they’re not very good as a car, and they’re not all that good at being an airplane either.
Mrs McGinty

They told us in the 60s we’d all have “flying cars and space craft’ by 2000. I mean, they had shows on TV like the “Jetsons” and it was just a matter of scientists making it happen for real…
ginamusic

The FIRST Flying Car was actually in the early 70′s, and was nicknamed “the flying pinto.” The inventor died in 1973 during a routine flight, and so ended that prototype. However, other people did try to imitate it and eventually failed to get it going commercially. The headline is very inaccurate, as is most news storys today.
Curmudgeon10

Why is this being featured as the “world’s first flying car?” There have been flying cars dating back to the fifties.

The reporter must be 18 years old.
travis

That is not a flying car. It’s a roadworthy airplane. A flying car will not have wings and you won’t need a pilot’s license to navigate one. This is more media hype about nothing more than a rich man’s hobby.

1stackmack

remember the amphicar.it was a slow underpowered car,and an even slower more underpowered as a boat.but it was different.

Jerky Miester

In defense of Terrafugia, the company never claims to be the first flying car. CBS just pulled that one out of their azz. They’re giving NBC a run for the “sleaziest” news organization of the planet!

http://www.terrafugia.com/news_media.html
ginamusic

Oh, yeah, forgot about the aerocar! ( I knew there was one in WA state but, couldn’ t remember when it was.Thanks for the reminder!
Mark

“First flying car” That is an out and our lie. When I was a child in the 1960s I used to see flying cars overhead quite frequently. The author of his piece is nuts.
Norman

If it flies then it is NOT a car. It’s an aricraft. Do we call the planes that can land and maneuver on the water boats?