DARPA Asks for a Flying Car, Gets a Dual-Rotor Road Warrior Turned Helo

Popular Science ^ | 7/13/2010 | Clay Dillow

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Just after the new year, DARPA put out a broad agency announcement requesting a flying car, specifically a one-to four-person, vertical takeoff and landing-capable vehicle that can negotiate off-road conditions as well as take to the skies. Today, Fort Worth-based AVX Aircraft has responded with a proposal, releasing some mock-ups of a dual-rotor, ducted-fan driven aircraft that’s also road-ready.

AVX says the four-seater will be able to carry a 1,040-lb. payload 250 miles on a single tank of fuel, peaking at 80 miles per hour over land and 140 miles per hour in the air. It’s coaxial rotor design would certainly satisfy the vertical take-off and landing requirement, and at least the sketches make it look off-road rugged. Unfolding the rotor blades for flight should convert the vehicle from road warrior to aircraft in just one minute.

Of course, sketches are only sketches and it will be interesting to see if AVX can flesh this design out into a practical battlefield vehicle that reliably complies with the written laws of physics and the unwritten practicalities of combat. But as concepts go this one is pretty cool. Feel free to pull the pic above into Photoshop and add the air-to-surface armaments of your choice

[Doug Loss]

One RPG, no more flying car. Heck, even small arms fire is likely to take this thing down. Non-starter.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Bio-fueled! It’s green, even.

(I found out that my 1-cylinder Yard-Man lawn mower runs great on straight ethanol the other day, when a can of if was handy and the gas was not.)

That contraption looks great for sport, but I’d hate to have to count on it for any kind of travel. Too easy to tangle the sail cords up in something, and how do you manage the sail once on terra firma?

[Dagnabitt]

Popular Science magazine’s corporate charter requires a minimum of one future-flying-car article per year.

[TomasUSMC]

oH NO, not another damn thing with helodystropy. Use jet propulsion like the Harrier, much faster. Helicopters are so easy to knock down.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Then I am glad I posteed it

[count-your-change]

That’s just anti-gravity at work. The Duke of Hazzard had a real flying car.

[Fresh Wind]

Now that’s what the Corvair should have been!

[VRW Conspirator]

Just needs a flux capacitor and the universe is the limit.

[cranked]

Agreed, a huge waste of money.

[Reeses]

It's not safe for soldiers but DARPA could mount an autonoumous robot sniper rifle on that contraption. 100 of these could fly into a city, set up roving robot snipers on every road while also flying slow overhead, and pin down the entire city. The sound from incoming enemy shots could be triangulated to direct bombing runs. A city could be taken over at the push of a button with no loss of American life.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks sonofstrangelove.

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