Armchair Pilot

A mod for those who have always viewed the highway as wasted tarmac space.

by Nick Kolakowski

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Tucked amid the gleaming SUVs and supercars at the New York Auto Show, Milner Motors’ AirCar was hard to miss, especially once you caught sight of the large, foldable wings bolted to its bullet-shaped body. The flying car, the fantasy of every red-blooded driver ever since George Jetson took off from his driveway, had finally arrived on the floor of the Jacob K. Javits Center. It shouldn’t be long now!

Indeed, if you believe the marketing prospectus, Milner’s $450,000 lightweight four-seater will hit the market starting as a kit plane in 2011. Two years before that, another company — Woburn, Massachusetts–based Terrafugia — aims to release its own flying car, the even sportier two-seat Transition, with a projected base sticker of just $148,000.

Can’t wait even that long? You can always fly the Transition this very afternoon via a free downloadable mod for the X-Plane flight simulator (terrafugia.com).

Powered by a four-stroke Rotax 912 S engine, the Transition is designed to fly like a sport plane — capable of a peppy enough 115 mph and some catlike maneuverability, especially when taken for a circuit at 3,600 feet over the desert on a clear day. The finely rendered cockpit features top-of-the-line avionics and conveniently placed controls, including a square red button above the radar that proves useful to the stall-happy rookie — click on it, and a chipper red-and-white parachute snaps open from the tail, ensuring a gentle descent.

If there’s one drawback to the Transition, it’s what happens when you’re back on the ground. Come in for your first planned landing, quickly pull to a stop (only 1,700 feet of blacktop required), push the button to retract your wings and . . . nada. For reasons we’ll never fathom, the rocket scientists at Terrafugia designed a flight sim for the world’s first flying car that doesn’t drive. So close, but still so far. 

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