Terrafugia redesigns Transition flying car

and passengers.

An emergency parachute landing on a blustery day would make the aircraft hit the ground while moving across the ground — and descending quite fast, too. Parachute landing has one big advantage over a rolling glide, however: it demands less skill from the pilot (and the owners of the flying car may not be very skilled pilots), and it still works even if the wings, tail, or controls have fallen off. Even if the parachute-aided descent is quite fast, the fact that the Transition, unlike any other light aircraft, will offer useful car-style protection designed for crashes: this protection may be useful even at the speed range of a parachute descent.

Terrafugia “expects the Transition will prove itself to be one of the safest [Light Sport Aircraft] in the world,” says the company. Yes, Page retorts, this is all well and good — but there is a fair bit in the story so far to make prospective Transition buyers think hard.

First, Terrafugia has not actually been able to accomplish the redesign within the FAA’s extra weight margin. The Transition was originally supposed to offer useful load (that is, allowance for fuel and payload) of 550lb. Even that was a bit tight, as a full tank of unleaded weighs more than 120lb: two hefty occupants would not be able to take much luggage on a fully-fuelled takeoff.

Following the redesign, despite the additional elbow room offered by the FAA, useful load has been cut to 460lb, leaving as little as 330lb for passenger, pilot, and bags. Terrafugia advertises that the “cargo area holds golf clubs,” but this could easily be a matter of 50lb or more: Page notes that even a moderately robust 180lb golfer wishing to take off fully fuelled would probably have to travel solo in order to take his clubs with him.

The Transition, then, is beginning to look more like a single-seat rather than a two-seat aircraft, and there may yet be more weight gains on the horizon as the new design is built. Page’s suggestion: “Terrafugia might be well advised to simply abandon the struggle to stay within light-sport certification limits and accept that its customers will need normal private pilot’s licenses: plenty of people have these, after all.”

Then there are the issues of time and money. The Transition was supposed to be delivered last year, a forecast that has now slipped to “late 2011” (“World’s first flying car debuts,” 18 March 2009 HSNW). If the past is an indication, it will take Terrafugia three years, not one, to bring the car to market — so actual deliveries could come as late as 2013.

Delay burns up money. Terrafugia says it has an order book of $18 million, but that may not be enough to recoup development costs incurred over as much as seven years and two designs—-“and more orders could be hard to win for a driveable plane that can in many cases only carry one person,” Page notes. “The Transition remains a very cool idea and we … wish it well, but we have to say that prospects look less rosy than they did a few years back,” he concludes.