What’s a Skycar?

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If you live in any major urban area, you probably know the frustration of long drives, traffic jams, and having to factor in extra time to get almost anywhere. You’ve probably even sat on the freeway wishing your car could lift off and just fly over the miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Paul S. Moller, PhD and founder of the Aeronautical Engineering program at UC Davis, has spent 40 years doing something about it. He has built a working flying car.

Moller’s M400 Skycar might be a bit pricey, costing $3.5 to $5 million US dollars (USD) a time when initially approved by the FAA for urban use, but don’t let that put you off. Costs are expected to drop to a reasonable $60-80K as demand increases.

The Skycar can hum to 350 mph (approximately 563 kph) getting 28 miles (approximately 45 km) per gallon. It’s a personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle that can cut the drive from an hour to just a couple of minutes. It can run on gasoline, diesel or alcohol, making it versatile and adaptable to any available fuel source, and it is a low-pollution vehicle. Rotary motors are small, light, and efficient, with few moving parts resulting in little maintenance. The thrusters rotate downward for vertical takeoff, then plan to push forward or backward. All systems are redundant for maximum safety, including hydraulics, IT and motors. Plus, this vehicle can fit in a single car garage or a standard parking space designed for any vehicle.

But there are some drawbacks. With three wheels, the Skycar is street legal, but is intended for short road trips below 35 mph (about 56 km/h). The vehicle produces significant noise on takeoff and landing, necessitating the use of vertigos, designated areas for personal VTOL craft to land and takeoff. The idea is for the owner to drive to a nearby vertex and then go to work. The vehicle would travel to another vertical port near the destination point, then drive to the actual destination. By contrast, large companies can build their own rooftop vertices, allowing employees to land and park. The incentive would be high for such construction, since a vertical port does not require much more than a small, flat, hard surface and, in the example, access to a parking or storage structure.

The Skycar will require the driver to obtain a “power lift” pilot’s license in the FAA “normal power lift” category. That said, it only has two simple controls that the pilot uses to tell the highly advanced computer system what maneuvers he wants to perform. The computer does the actual flight, and this autopilot system is backed by redundancies to ensure safety.

Supposedly, the FAA is developing a system to control personal flight craft similar to the way they control public aircraft. This would prevent accidents that might seem inevitable if people personally piloted through the skies to work. Instead, the pilot sets a course, and the FAA feeds back into the Skycar’s computer system with the flight plan it will follow to reach its destination.

In later generations, Moller envisions driverless air taxis that simply answer dispatch calls and take passengers where they want to go through a simple interface. In these later generations, a pilot’s license will not be required.

A personal VTOL craft was believed to be impossible to create due to inherent problems in the physics required for such a vehicle. This makes the Skycar unique among a small number of proposed flying cars, many of which require runways and fly more like fixed-wing aircraft than helicopters. As the design improves to reduce engine noise on takeoff and landing, vertices may not be needed and spontaneous takeoff and landing in urban areas could be allowed.

Flying cars of this type have so many economic and environmental advantages that it is almost impossible to overstate the impact an affordable and safe model could have, especially in urban areas. Much of the pollution generated by traffic comes from cars idling or running at low speed. Skycars would spend most of their travel time at high speeds, burning much cleaner. They would alleviate congestion and would not require expensive infrastructure. Even a neighboring field could serve as a designated vertex. They also work with alternative fuel sources, such as clean-burning alcohol.

Flying cars would allow families to live where they want, further from urban workplaces in more accessible areas, including rural settings. However, the Skycar would not require new roads or road systems to be paved over land. The environment would be preserved. Current highway systems would also eventually see less wear and tear, saving money on infrastructure repair. Carpooling would also be feasible since any destination would be just a few minutes away, and after a long day at work, no one would have to drive. This vehicle also opens the door for employment in other states, while a daily commute of up to an hour can be well spent while the autopilot gets the passenger to their destination. Traffic accidents would decrease proportionally, as would the potential for drunk driving or fatigue accidents.

The economy would also benefit from a flying car like the Skycar. Malls, restaurants, and businesses of all kinds would enjoy non-local traffic, since traveling up to 100 miles (161 km) for dinner would only be a 17-minute drive. Many lives could be saved as hospitals would be nearby. Specialized Skycars will likely also be used for military and emergency applications.

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