Tech | October 17, 2008 | 9 comments

The flying car gets real

source: http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2008-10/flying-car-gets-real?page=1

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The team at Terrafugia is about to fulfill the fantasy of every driver pilot: a consumer vehicle that can take to the highways and the skies. All they have to do is finish the first one.

And yet they’re doing it. As this article goes to press, a full-scale, fully functional proof-of-concept vehicle is being readied for a flight test in November. Every expert I spoke to expects the design to fly. More than 40 customers have put down a good-faith deposit of $7,500 to $10,000 for a Transition, and the company has roughly $1 million in private funding. The investors have been told that the first customers will be driving it next year. In a category marked by decades-long efforts, it’s an insane schedule. But the group has hit every one of its benchmarks since starting out two years ago, methodically pushing through its plan. Dietrich and his partners have adorned their bumpers with the message “My next car will be an airplane.” To them, this is not a joke. It’s the headline to a list of promises they intend to keep.
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