Terrafugia's Flying Car Completes First Public Demo Flight At Wisconsin Air Show

There can’t be many vehicles that can drive itself home from the airport, but with Terrafugia's Transition Flying Car Plane it is possible.

Terrafugia have designed and just demonstrated a new car that can actually fly! They revealed their prototype publicly shown off going from road to flight to road again for the first time in a 20 minute at the EAA AirVenture airshow in Wisconsin last Wednesday and just as planned, the car went from land to air and back again without any trouble. After landing, the pilot parked for a minute to show off a crucial feature: motorized self-folding wings. The pilot/driver can fold the wings up after a flight and be ready for street driving without ever having to get out of the vehicle. The vintage Aerocar, on the other hand, had removable wings that had to be towed when it was driven on the street.

The vintage Aerocar had removable wings that had to be towed when it was driven on the street

They’re calling it the Terrafugia Transition, and with good reason. The vehicle transforms itself to a mode for flying and back with ease. The demonstration offered two laps around the course, one on the ground, and one in the air. The entire demonstration, including the transition from car to plane, went like clockwork, which bodes well for the future potential of flying vehicles.

While everything seemed to go as planned for the Transition, at the 31-second mark in the first video (below) we noticed that the wings didn't fold up at the same speed, which has us questioning the effectiveness of the prototype's wing-folding mechanism. It's a good thing that this is the second of three generations of prototypes, so Terrafugia has plenty of time to iron out the details.

Terrafugia's Flying Car wings didn't fold up at the same speed

Look for the Transition to go on sale in 2015 or 2016 with a projected price tag of $279,000. The company is taking $10,000 refundable deposits now, the Journal Sentinel reports, and over 100 people have already reserved their own flying car. Check the takeoff, flight and landing in the video below.

While it may not be the ultra-futuristic flying car that science fiction has shown us over the years – it looks quite like a plane with its wings folded up when in car mode.

Future Trends

Terrafugia's Flying Car Completes First Public Demo Flight At Wisconsin Air Show