One of the many striking scenes in the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace takes place on the planet Coruscant, a completely urbanized planet whose skies are filled with vehicles, moving in orderly lines just as cars move along our city streets. It’s one of the quintessential science fictional visions of the 20th century, found in many earlier SF movies, not to mention old issues of Popular Mechanics.
Yet the dream of personal airborne vehicles as ubiquitious as the automobile has eluded us–until now. In a few weeks, Moller International of California plans to take its four-person Skycar on its maiden flight.
If any company in the world is going to make this particular dream come true, it’s Moller. Dr. Paul Moller, the company’s founder, has been working on it for more than 30 years. Technology is finally making it possible.
Technically, the Skycar is known as a “volantor,” a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft capable of quick, agile flight. “Vertical takeoff and landing” means that, like a helicopter or the Harrier jump jet, the Skycar doesn’t need a runway: it can lift straight up off the ground before making the transition into forward movement.
It does that using high-speed fans installed in four large nacelles, one on each corner of the Skycar. Each nacelle also contains two specialized rotary engines. The engines spin the fans, and the air rushing out of the nacelles can be angled downward to create lift, or toward the rear to create thrust.
The nacelles, plus the large tail fins and rear wing, make the Skycar look more like the Batmobile than any aircraft you’ve ever seen. But once airborne, it will be able to outperform even the Dark Knight’s famous car: it’s estimated the Skycar will have a top speed of 560 kph. It will be fuel-efficient, too, managing 6.3 kilometres per litre. The rotary engines can also burn just about any kind of fuel, from diesel to propane.
Safety is obviously a concern in any aircraft. The makers of the Skycar believetheir vehicle will actually be safer than current airplanes–or automobiles, for that matter.
Unlike an airplane or helicopter, a Skycar can land almost anywhere in the event of a problem. It can land safely even after the loss of an engine; and in the event of a catastrophic failure, it will carry two different parachutes, one for low altitudes and one for high. Either parachute should keep the passengers safe in the event of a forced landing; if both are deployed, the car itself should even escape damage. Inside, the car will be equipped with airbags.
Although initially only licensed pilots will be able to fly the Skycar, it will actually be extremely easy to fly That’s because it uses a “fly by wire” system in which the pilot uses two simple hand controls to tell a built-in computer what direction and speed he wants; the computer then does the actual flying. The computer also automatically stabilizes the Skycar as it moves from hovering to forward flight, reducing the risk from unexpected wind gusts.
Although initially each Skycar will have to be hand-built and will thus cost about $1 million U.S., if the Skycar is a success, that cost could eventually drop to about the same as a luxury automobile–$60,000 to $80,000. Moller sees a time when Skycars will travel from city to city along designated airlanes, almost completely under computer control. And if even $60,000 to $80,000 sounds too steep, relax; Moller also expects there to be thriving Skycar rental and taxi industries.
The potential benefits are enormous. Millions of hours are wasted by people sitting in traffic; Skycars could alleviate that. They could completely change the way people look at commuting. You could live in, say, Weyburn and commute to Regina in the same time it currently takes you to drive around the Ring Road.
Skycars have environmental advantages, too. They’re much quieter than airplanes or helicopters. Their rotary engines produce little pollution. And Skycars probably wouldn’t have to be replaced as often as automobiles, reducing the consumption of resources.
But all that’s in the future. Right now, the Skycar is being readied for its first flight, in which it will rise to a height of two metres or so, hover for one minute, then land.
It’s not much, but it could be the first step toward a whole new future in personal transportation–and a dream come true for a lot of aging readers of Popular Mechanics.
