Buyers don’t need a pilot’s license to operate the aircraft, though they must complete training and take an FAA knowledge test.
That’s absolutely fucking insane. How did the FAA approve this? The only saving grace here is that the $200k price tag means few, if any, will be sold to random idiots who want a flying car.
It’s an ultralight. You don’t need a pilots license to fly one in the US. You can even build one yourself if you want to. You don’t even need any inspection or airworthiness certificate. Since they can’t legally be flown over populated areas, it’s unlikely for anyone except the pilot to get injured or killed.
There are lots of fairly standard high end cars that go for more money than that. So the potential is quite high for these to sell well
That’s horrifying to think about. Most people seem to barely be able to handle 2 dimensions while driving a car.
Yeah no kidding…
A high end luxury car has a lot more utility than this thing. This is more like a $200k atv or snowmobile (ie, a very expensive toy)
That seems to make sense and maybe most people will think that and this will stay niche. However I can see a legitimate use case of skipping traffic in a large city which gives significant utility. Also many people own expensive toys like toyhaulers and Canam Mavericks which come out over $200k in total. What I’m saying is I really won’t be surprised if these get incredibly popular.
It also means the people operating them will have a high threshold for consequences and maybe not care so much about the community.
Because anything and everything about this administration is for sale.
Flying car
So an aircraft?
The only thing I consider to be a flying car is when the technology is completely different from what we have now.
Tired of these plane/copter/drone-type vehicles that they claim are also cars.
We need Star Wars/Fifth Element/Back to the Future II/Blade Runner-type vehicles.
30 minutes range. Which, in practice, probably means ten.
In practice that is zero - you are not allowed to take off unless you have enough fuel to fly for an hour after landing. flying is safe in large part because of hard learned rules like this.
I’m sure that doesn’t apply to ultralights.
that depends on the pilot. it doesn’t apply to bold pilots. There are bold pilots and old pilots - but no old and bold pilots.
I’ve never seen a rule requiring any specific fuel reserve except for when filing IFR where you need enough fuel to get to your destination, and alternate, and still have 45 minutes of fuel.
91.151 Fuel requirements for flight in VFR conditions.
(a) No person may begin a flight in an airplane under VFR conditions unless (considering wind and forecast weather conditions) there is enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing and, assuming normal cruising speed—
(1) During the day, to fly after that for at least 30 minutes; or
(2) At night, to fly after that for at least 45 minutes.
(b) No person may begin a flight in a rotorcraft under VFR conditions unless (considering wind and forecast weather conditions) there is enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing and, assuming normal cruising speed, to fly after that for at least 20 minutes.
I had not heard that, thank you for sharing. I just go by IFR standards or better for my personal limits, so this never came up.
Note that those are minimums. The pilots I know try to be well above the minimums as a personal rule. Landing without fuel is something they practice in the simulator, not something they ever want to try in real world conditions.
Ya absolutely, I never want a fuel exhaustion event. Always put more in than necessary
People will die, rather quickly, and that will be the end of it.
Their privacy policy is stupid. Here’s an archive link, so you can avoid la time.
I can’t wait until some influencer is half way from LA to Vegas when the low battery dummy light comes on.
Looking at some of those photos, I guess ‘vertical’ is also applied, at least partially, to the vehicles orientation 😳
Scott Manley has a video on this company and flew it himself, he was quite impressed.
