Lifelong risk - taker Neil Laughtonplans to travelfrom London to Timbuktu in a dune buggy , a tripper that will take him an estimated 42 days . Oh , and that dune buggy ? It can fly .
Laughton ’s journey will get from primal London on Wednesday morning — on the reason , I presume — and will take him through some of Western Europe , then a tumid belt of Northern Africa . He ’ll take to flight when pass through the Pyrenees , then again to cross the Straits of Gibraltar and over the Moroccan Atlas Mountains .
His trajectory wo n’t be limited though , and Laughton enunciate he ’ll take off whenever he needs to , or feels like it .
The car was designed by the same team that put together the powered glider that ( closely ) fly Bear Grylls over the top of Mount Everest for a TV stunt in 2007 , but this machine is on the whole more ambitious . Based on a ruggedized dune buggy , the Skycar carries a nylon “ ParaWing ” which can be correspond and deploy in about three arcminute . By utilizing a elephantine propeller buff , the car is able to take off at about 45 miles per hour , after which it an make a cruising pep pill of 70 miles per hour and an altitude of 3000 foot , with the ceiling at a terrifying 15,000 foot .
On the dry land , the car is no slouch . It ’ll go 0 - 60 miles per hour in under five seconds , and top out at a bit above 100 . Thought the elevator car will drop most of its time on the background , it can fly unendingly for about 180 miles before needing to refuel .
The most interesting bit of this whole story is n’t the gee - golly junket , it ’s that the team , pending the success of the adventure , plan to sell the Skycar to the world . Though the project has so far cost them $ 380,000 — much of which was dedicated to R&D — the boys think they could deal the whole kit , which would be street effectual in the UK , for about $ 75,000 . It ’s not precisely aTerrafugia , but it ’ll do . [ SkycarviaBBC ]
https://gizmodo.com/terrafugia-transition-flying-car-unbelievably-close-to-5060812
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