Gadgetory

generating a lot of interest at the 2012 new york international auto show is this the Terrafugia transition a lot of you have read stories about this may be seen youtube videos of it flying around this is what you probably think of as a flying car but terribly gia says no this is really a roadable aircraft the idea is that you can drive this from your home to a local airport take off fly around a bit land again and drive it back home let's go and see what makes it work now the engine is back here it powers this prop obviously when it's in flight that prop has a carbon fiber shaft that goes to the engine the engine is a hundred horsepower rotax style and there's also a power transition feature that the pilot can operate shifting the power from this prop to the wheels when you want to go to the ground these wheels are down here off of the swallow style rear air frame those are run by a pulley that runs into the engine top speed on the road is about 65 miles per hour in the air 105 miles an hour despite how cool you might think this is not many people are going to find a use for this thing it's really on the level of amphibious car about a hundred people have actually signed up to buy one and that's probably as many as can really use it because it's not something you're going to drive to the airport fly long distances then drive really far again and take long trips back and forth like that in fact terrafugia estimates that most people probably only drive it about fifteen percent of the time and fly at 85 percent of the time think of it it is an airplane that you don't have to keep at the airport you can actually drive at home although you won't want to drive it too far home because at its top speed and considering this design it's probably not going to feel really safe on the freeway they'll probably want to keep it on lower speed roads at 45 40 miles an hour top speed I'm Wayne Cunningham looking at the terrafugia transition at the 2012 new york international auto show you