Thursday, June 4, 2009

The future is here, part 2

Excited by the idea of my own personal two-way wrist TV, I asked where my flying car was. As it turns out, it's just down the road from me, in Woburn, MA.

It's the Terrafugia Transition flying car:
But the Transition is a successful "roadable aeroplane". It takes off, lands and flies like any other light plane, using small local airfields. On the ground, the pilot can press a button and in 30 seconds the wings fold up. The propellor is disconnected, and the Transition becomes a front-wheel-drive car with typical performance. It runs on unleaded, and will fit into a single-car garage. You only need a US "sport pilot" licence - significantly easier and cheaper to get than a normal private pilot's licence - to fly it.
Too cool for school, if you ask me. And if my two-way wrist TV works while I'm flying in it, I'll start expecting my meals to show up in pill form.

But there's a fly in the ointment: this is a beta test version. Terrafugia created a proof-of-concept version, and seemingly they are making a bunch of changes based on their test results. This is pushing out delivery from this year to 2011. They're going to need some marketing buzz to keep the momentum going over the next two years.

UPDATE 4 June 2009 22:32: Edited and shortened.

4 comments:

  1. doubletroubleJune 4, 2009 at 9:16 PM

    AND, if you get the lovely & hi-flying Brigid up here, you gotta know the range is O-P-E-N...

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  2. Z@XJune 4, 2009 at 9:25 PM

    "Oh, and for the two people who read me and don't read her, what the heck are you still doing here?"

    'cause my 'puter HATES ME and locks up or goes schizzo on many of the elaborate sites ... yeah, I know ... get off my keester and get Firefox ... dunno how much more stuff I can stick on this old box... time for a new one... someday...

    I miss Brigid's site... and Barkley!

    ReplyDelete
  3. BorepatchJune 4, 2009 at 9:50 PM

    Doubletrouble, I was hoping you'd say that. ;-)

    James, you might want to consider Linux. You can even try it out from a CD - you don't even need to install it on your hard disk, so if you don't like it, you haven't changed what you currently have.

    Ubuntu is very stable, and it tuns better than Windows on old hardware.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ASM826June 4, 2009 at 10:55 PM

    Never going to get that off the ground. I'm telling you, it will never fly. (snort) What I mean is the federal government will regulate this thing until the company has about as much chance of success as GM. Then they'll send the designer back to come up with a battery powered version.

    ReplyDelete

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