Flying Cars From Bratislava

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Most Americans only know Bratislava for two equally horrifying reasons: it is the setting for the blowtorch-to-the-eyeball-scene in Hostel and it’s the place where they make the Porsche Cayenne. Before anybody gets too upset, Hostel was entirely fiction… but before anybody feels too relieved, the Cayenne is definitely real.

Now there’s a third reason to remember the former Gem Of The Eastern Bloc: a flying car!



The claimed specs, subject to verification and/or eventual reality, are:

  • 992 pounds dry
  • 100 horsepower from a Rotax 912 light-sport aircraft engine
  • 124mph airspeed
  • 430 mile range in the air

Speaking as someone who lives about three miles from a general-aviation airport, I would be eager as all get out to own something like this. Just drive to the airport and plot a relatively direct flight path to the nearest GA airport to your destination, then drive from there. Manhattan is a ten hour drive from my front door, but it would be about five hours by AeroMobil. The advantages are even greater if you live in a region where the highways don’t necessarily run straight to one’s destination, as is the case for most of the American South, or if you live in traffic-jammed parts of the country.

Potential drawbacks are… oh, let’s not kid ourselves, there isn’t the room to list the potential drawbacks of a hugely expensive and complex ultralight flying car. Still, watch the video and tell me you wouldn’t rather have that than something similarly expensive like, oh, a Bentley Flying Spur…. That’s what I thought!

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • El scotto El scotto on Oct 27, 2013

    I want one with a tailhook so I can commute to the aircraft carrier

  • Wallstreet Wallstreet on Oct 27, 2013

    I love Bratislava. I have driven from Vienna to Bratislava once in my 335d. It is a very nice place to visit. Although Bratislava is less than an hour away by car from Vienna, it is less crowed & slower paced. Please be sure to stop immediately at border crossing to purchase Slovak vignette if you plan on visiting it, else cops will find excuse to fine you.

  • PCP PCP on Oct 28, 2013

    Flying cars are bad cars and bad airplanes. Always will be. Useless and ridiculous. But they would make 'normal' car accidents look quite boring, though.

  • Toshi Toshi on Oct 28, 2013

    1) That's not an ultralight, Jack. Ultralights have a strict definition, and one of those definitions is 255 lbs or less dry weight, iirc. The weight and speed seem tailored to fit in the Light Sport Aircraft category, on the other hand. 2) I have serious doubts that air cooled Rotax could meet Euro 5 or EPA Tier 2 emissions standards. 3) I have similar doubts about whether the NHTSA would allow that thing on our roads, either. Note lack of headlights, just as a starter. The Terrafugia is a bit of a mess, IMO, but they're trying to do it right. This effort, especially with only flying in ground effect as mentioned in prior posts, looks like a hack job based off the minute of video provided.

    • AlternateReality AlternateReality on Oct 28, 2013

      Close to 1,000 lbs. dry makes it too heavy for LSA, which caps total gross weight at 1,320 lbs for non-amphib aircraft. (I fly an LSA that weighs just over 500 lbs. empty, without fuel.) This is a hurdle that Terrafugia will have to surmount, too, if it wants the Transition to stay in light-sport. The weight limitation is a big deal. In short, higher weights = higher stall speeds, which under LSA rules must be lower than 45 knots in landing configuration. The FAA has recently shown some bureaucratic flexibility here in granting ICON an exemption up to almost 1,600 lbs gross, but only because the company proved its A5 amphib is highly-resistent to spins. The AeroMobil and Transition are far too "dirty" to make that a realistic option for those airframes. As for the other issues, AeroMobil would likely qualify for some kind of emissions waiver for low production, or it could buy carbon credits under EU-ETS. The Rotax 912 is also a surprisingly clean engine, and can burn high-octane unleaded autogas. Terrafugia kept its first flight tests within ground effect, too, so that's not necessarily an indication of poor performance (though that company did wind up substantially revising its design afterwards.) I find the apparent lack of control stability in the AeroMobil video to be of most concern.

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