A plane you can drive Anna Mracek Dietrich

what is it about flying cars we’ve

wanted to do this for about a hundred

years and there are historic attempts

that have had some level of technical

success but we haven’t yet gotten to the

point where on your way here this

morning you see something that really

truly seeing lessly integrates the

two-dimensional world that were

comfortable in with the

three-dimensional sky above us that I

don’t know about you but I really enjoy

spending time in we looked at the

historical attempts that had been out

there and realized that despite the fact

that we have a lot of modern innovations

to draw on today that weren’t available

previously we have modern composite

materials we have aircraft engines that

get good fuel economy and have better

power-to-weight ratios that have ever

been available we have glass cockpit

avionics that bring the information you

need to fly directly to you in the

cockpit but without fundamentally

addressing the problem from a different

perspective we realized that we were

going to be getting the same result that

people had been getting for the last

hundred years which isn’t where we want

to be right now so instead of trying to

make a car that can fly we decided to

try to make a plane that could drive and

the result is the Terrafugia transition

it’s a two-seat single-engine airplane

that works just like any other smaller

plane you take off and land at a local

airport then once you’re on the ground

you fold up the wings drive it home park

it in your garage and it works after two

years of an iterative design and

construction process the

proof-of-concept made its public debut

in 2008 now like with anything that’s

really different from the status quo it

didn’t always go so well testing that

aircraft and we discovered that it’s a

very good thing that when you go home

with something that’s been broken you’ve

actually learned a lot more than when

you managed to tick off all of your test

objectives the first time through so we

very much wanted to see the aircraft

that we’d all helped build in the air

off the ground like it was supposed to

be and on our third high-speed testing

deployment on a bitter cold morning in

upstate New York we got to do that for

the

first time the picture behind me was

stopped by the copilot in our chase

aircraft just moments after the wheels

got off the ground for the first time

and we were all very flattered to see

that image become a symbol of

accomplishing something that people had

thought was impossible really the world

over the flight testing that followed

that was as basic and low-risk as we

could make it but it still accomplished

what we needed to to take the program to

the next step and to gain the

credibility that we needed within our

eventual market the general aviation

community and with the regulator’s that

govern the use and design of aircraft is

particularly in the States

the FAA about a year ago gave us an

exemption for the transition till allow

us to have an additional 110 pounds

within the light sport aircraft category

now that doesn’t sound like a lot but

it’s very important because being able

to deliver the transition as a

light-sport aircraft makes it simpler

for us to certify it but it also makes

it much easier for you to learn how to

fly it

a sport pilot can be certificated in as

little as 20 hours of flight time and at

110 pounds that’s very important for

solving the other side of the equation

driving it turns out that driving with

its associated design implementation and

regulatory hurdles is actually a harder

problem to solve than flying for those

of us that spend most of our lives on

the ground this may be counterintuitive

but driving has potholes cobblestones

pedestrians other drivers and a rather

long and detailed list of federal motor

vehicle safety standards to contend with

fortunately necessity remains the mother

of invention and a lot of the design

work that were the most proud of with

the aircraft came out of solving the

unique problems of operating it on the

ground everything from a continuously

variable transmission and liquid based

cooling system that allows us to use an

aircraft engine and stop and go traffic

to a custom-designed gearbox that power

is either the propeller when you’re

flying or the wheels on the ground to

the automated wing folding mechanism

that we’ll see in a moment - crash

safety features we have a carbon fiber

safety cage that protects the occupants

for less than 10 percent of the weight

of a traditional steel chassis in a car

now this also as good as it is wasn’t

quite enough the regulations for

vehicles on the road were

written with an airplane in mind so we

did need a little bit of support from

the National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration you may have seen in the

news recently they came through with us

at the end of last month with a few

special exemptions that will allow the

transition to be sold in the same

category as SUVs and light trucks as a

multi-purpose passenger vehicle it is

now officially quote designed for

occasional off-road use now let’s see it

in action you can see there the wings

folded up just along the side of the

plane

you’re not powering the propeller you’re

powering the wheels

and it is under 7 feet tall so it will

fit in a standard construction garage

and that’s the automated wing folding

mechanism that’s real time you just push

a few buttons in the cockpit and the

wings come out once they’re fully

deployed there’s a mechanical lock that

goes into place

again from inside the cockpit and

they’re now fully capable of handling

any of the loads that you would see in a

flight just like putting on your

convertible top and you’re all thinking

what your neighbors would think of

seeing that right until the vehicle

flies you know 75% of your risk is that

first one

we were all exceedingly excited about

that little bunny hop and our test pilot

gave us the best feedback that you can

get from a test pilot after a first

flight which was that it was remarkably

unremarkable he would go on to tell us

that the transition had been the easiest

airplane to land that he’d flown in his

entire 30-year career as a test pilot

so despite making something that is

seemingly revolutionary we really focus

on doing as little knew as possible we

leverage a lot of Technology from the

state of the art in general aviation and

from automotive racing when we do have

to do something truly out-of-the-box we

use an incremental design build test

redesign cycle that lets us reduce risk

and baby steps now since we started

Terrafugia about six years ago we’ve had

a lot of those baby steps we’ve gone

from being three of us working in the

basement at MIT while we were still in

graduate school to about two dozen of us

working in an initial production

facility outside of Boston we’ve had to

overcome challenges like keeping the

weight below the lights for at limits

that I talked about figuring out how to

politely respond when a regulator tells

you but that won’t fit through a

tollbooth with the wings extended to all

of the other associated durability and

engineering issues that we talked about

on the ground still if everything goes

to our satisfaction with the testing and

construction of the the to production

prototypes that we’re working on right

now those first deliveries to are about

a hundred people that have reserved an

airplane at this point should begin at

the end of next year the transition will

cost in line with other small airplanes

and I’m certainly not out to replace

your Chevy but I do think that the

transition should be your next airplane

here’s why while nearly all of the

commercial air travel in the world goes

through a relatively small number of

large hub airports there is a huge

underutilized resource out there there

are thousands of local air strips that

don’t seem nearly as many aircraft

operations a day as they could on

average there’s one Duke within 20 to 30

miles of wherever you are in the United

States the transition gives you a safer

more convenient and more fun way of

using this resource for those of you who

aren’t yet pilots there’s four main

reasons why those of us who are don’t

fly as much as we’d like to there

whether primarily cost long door-to-door

travel time eye mobility your

destination

now bad weather comes in just land fold

up the wings drive home it doesn’t

matter if it rains a little you have a

windshield wiper instead of paying to

keep your airplane and a hangar parking

in your garage and the unleaded

automotive fuel that

we use is both cheaper and better for

the environment than traditional lab gas

door-to-door travel time is reduced

because now instead of lugging bags

finding a parking space taking off your

shoes or pulling your plane out of the

hangar you’re now just spending that

time getting to where you want to go and

mobility at your destination is clearly

solved just fold up the wings and keep

going the transition simultaneously

expands our horizons while making the

world a smaller more accessible place it

also continues to be a fabulous

adventure I hope that you’ll need to

take a moment to think about how you

could use something like this to give

yourself more access to your own world

and to make your own travel more

convenient and more fun thank you for

giving me the opportunity to share it

with you