Photo: www.pal-v.com
Planes on the ground are just as common as planes in the sky. We’ve all seen planes taxiing on the runways or docking at airport gates to load/unload, passengers. But what the wo0rld has never seen is a car in the sky.
Now that we have pretty much wrapped up our gibberish about the cars on the floor of the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, it’s time to take a look at some of the crazy ideas that have made the show a bit more colorful. Among them, the flying car for the rich, the $400,000 PAL-V Liberty.
PAL-V is the gazillionth world’s first flying car. As such, it hopes what all the others before it hoped: the get into production, start flying/driving and make some dough for the people who made it.
And it will do so, should some crazy rich guy with nothing better to do finds a use for it. ‘Cause sure as hell we don’t. First off, owning one it’s not like one dreams to be. You won’t be able to take off from wherever you feel like it, because, you know, there’d be objects in the way. Plus, you need at least 330 meters of open tarmac to take off (1,082 feet).
So you’ll have to find an airport or some such. Meaning you’d have spent nearly half a million bucks on a very expensive cab to take and the single passenger you can carry to the airport, from where you could just as well have boarded an airliner.
Secondly, you would need a pilot’s license. Despite the manufacturer saying the gyrocopter is idiot-proof, authorities would not take your word for it. Gyroplane licenses require 35 hours of flight training, each worth at least $200.
Thirdly, provided you find a strip and manage to get the license, you would have to make sure the machine can be operated legally in your country. You know, road and flight regulations.
On the upside, the range of the PAL-V is impressive. On the road, the gyrocopter can cover over 1,300 km (800 miles) on its three wheels, at speeds of up to 160 km/h (100 mph). In the air, you could fly from one end to the other of medium-sized European countries - 500 km (310 miles).
The manufacturer of the PAL-V says the gyrocopter would enter production in 2019, with some people already making reservations. We’ll see.
PAL-V is the gazillionth world’s first flying car. As such, it hopes what all the others before it hoped: the get into production, start flying/driving and make some dough for the people who made it.
And it will do so, should some crazy rich guy with nothing better to do finds a use for it. ‘Cause sure as hell we don’t. First off, owning one it’s not like one dreams to be. You won’t be able to take off from wherever you feel like it, because, you know, there’d be objects in the way. Plus, you need at least 330 meters of open tarmac to take off (1,082 feet).
So you’ll have to find an airport or some such. Meaning you’d have spent nearly half a million bucks on a very expensive cab to take and the single passenger you can carry to the airport, from where you could just as well have boarded an airliner.
Secondly, you would need a pilot’s license. Despite the manufacturer saying the gyrocopter is idiot-proof, authorities would not take your word for it. Gyroplane licenses require 35 hours of flight training, each worth at least $200.
Thirdly, provided you find a strip and manage to get the license, you would have to make sure the machine can be operated legally in your country. You know, road and flight regulations.
On the upside, the range of the PAL-V is impressive. On the road, the gyrocopter can cover over 1,300 km (800 miles) on its three wheels, at speeds of up to 160 km/h (100 mph). In the air, you could fly from one end to the other of medium-sized European countries - 500 km (310 miles).
The manufacturer of the PAL-V says the gyrocopter would enter production in 2019, with some people already making reservations. We’ll see.
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