SWITCHBLADE
Image: © SAMSON MOTORWORKS
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It is safe to bet that a flying motorcycle will never be a practical transportation option, but that has not stopped Samson Motorworks, a small engineering firm in northern California's Sierra Nevada foothills, from playing the long odds.
The company is building a prototype of its Switchblade Multi Mode Vehicle, or flying motorcycle, and hopes to sell a $60,000 do-it-yourself kit as early as 2011 (engine and avionics are sold separately, for about $25,000 total).
Occupants would sit in the aerodynamic Switchblade side by side in leather seats and climate-controlled luxury, behind an aggressively angled nose and canard. Samson is working with a third-party avionics-maker to create an instrument display that switches from air to ground readings on landing.
Samson president, Sam Bousfield, has applied for a patent for the way a Switchblade's stubby wings would open like scissors on pivots underneath and behind the cockpit as a box kite–like stabilizer extends from the rear. On solid ground, the wings would swing into clamshell compartments, protected by a steel keel.
Bousfield chose a three-wheel design because this meets the definition of a motorcycle, which is not as highly regulated as are cars. For example, the former are not required to have bumpers, which would add weight and expense to a flying vehicle.
But even as a flying motorcycle, the Switchblade has rules to follow. For instance, the Switchblade will have two rearview mirrors (as all motorcycles must) that will fold away in flight to avoid adding drag. And as a home-built or experimental aircraft, no more than 49 percent of a craft can be preassembled by the manufacturer.
A Switchblade would require a 120- to 150-horsepower engine (candidates already on the market include Lycoming's O-320 aircraft engine, Suzuki's Hayabusa motorcycle engine and Kawasaki's Jet Ski personal watercraft engine) that could spin a propeller or power a transmission. Bousfield says he is also watching the development by entrepreneurs of small rotary engines that run cleaner than conventional piston motors.
Sexy design and the promise of air–ground transport have kept alive dreams of a flying vehicle in every garage. Ultimately, the Switchblade will succeed where others have failed, Bousfield believes, because it will morph so easily between transportation mediums. If pilots encountered bad weather, they could put down at a small airstrip—about 610 meters in length (minimum)—fold in the wings, and finish the trip on the ground with no manual disassembly. The reality is a bit more complicated, given that aircraft are prohibited from operating on roads and closely regulated as to how close they can fly to homes, culturally and environmentally significant areas, and military installations. Compared with its chief flying competitors, however—the helicopterlike Butterfly Super Sky Cycle, the half-car, half-plane Terrafugia Transition, and the still-unproved M400 Skycar—it appears to be the most practical air–ground hybrid.
The Switchblade might even have "green" appeal. The engines suitable for the craft all use ordinary unleaded gas and meet California emissions standards, which are stricter than those issued by the U.S. That in itself would be environmentally notable because private-aircraft engines are subject to vanishingly few emissions controls. Private planes make up a small percentage of all combustion-engine polluters, which makes them a less-obvious target for environmental regulation. As well, part of the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) mandate is to promote civil aviation, which might be stunted by environmental design compromises.
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25 Comments
Add CommentYou seem to have forgotten Urban Aero VTOL projects and products. see: www.urbanaero.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's another one: http://terrafugia.com/ .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLot's of flying car companies. No flying cars.
Humm, is it time for me to trade in my VTX?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHeh and there will not be any flying cars any time soon . . with a still over stressed air control and the "threat" of flying bombs and accident dropping them on people. I can't see these ever becoming common till they are totally computer controlled and navigated. . and even then . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHeh and there will not be any flying cars any time soon . . with a still over stressed air control and the "threat" of flying bombs and accident dropping them on people. I can't see these ever becoming common till they are totally computer controlled and navigated. . and even then . .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlright Sam, I hope the best of Luck to your project
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlright Sam, I hope the best of Luck to your project
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswith such tiny wings, if it lost power it would fall like a rock...you'd need some glide capability built in, no?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt $65,000.00 for just the hull and you have to put it together yourself, I don't think he will sell too many - if any. He should've made it to look like the one on Star Wars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNope, I saw terrafugia and urbanaero. They're supposed to be flying cars. This is supposed to be a flying motorcycle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNope. I saw terrafugia and urbanaero. They're cars, though. I was writing about flying motorcycles. Scientifically speaking, flying motorcycles are confirmed signs that the Mayan calendar is write and we're doomed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat steps forward in aviation. We need Next Gen Air Traffic control systems ASAP if these vehicles will have any chance of taking to the airways in 2012. At $65K to avoid traffic jams! If this works then this is a winner.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting concept. This kind of vehicle is perfectly suited for a Wankel rotary engine, that has less weight, smaller size, reduced vibrations and tend to have less breakdowns, and these almost never catastrophic,there are several in the market with the power needed for this byke-plane. The issue in the concept is the airfield and airways saturation, you may find these personal aircrafts disturbing airports the way gooses do, and having trouble when entering, for example, the swirl induced by a big airplane. I would really like flying one, if I knew how to fly anything
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf this makes it beyond the drawing board into full-scale production, the manufacturer will clean up!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven that the product is not just 'hot air' it is more likely that they will be 'absorbed' by a larger outfit who will have the capital to produce and market the machine globally.
But don't you just love these guys doing what others just dream about. It's what made the US the last bastion of capitalism.
Orville and Wilbur live on!
If this makes it beyond the drawing board into full-scale production, the manufacturer will clean up!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven that the product is not just 'hot air' it is more likely that they will be 'absorbed' by a larger outfit who will have the capital to produce and market the machine globally.
But don't you just love these guys doing what others just dream about. It's what made the US the last bastion of capitalism.
Orville and Wilbur live on!
Yup! Any day now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--charles kuralt 1964
In vintage scifi, 2010 was often featured, and one of the most common features was flying cars of some sort. It was the future, and now we say "happy 2010" and I have to ask "dude, where's my jetpack?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this Popular Science or Sci Am?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHells Angels with wings? Gimme shelter!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a pilot, aircraft mechanic, and Experimental Aircraft Assoc. member, I sincerely hope the flying ground vehicle never comes to pass and I have no reason to believe it will. First, how many of you drivers are willing to take six hours of testing to get a license, not to mention several hundred hours of study and practice?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond, how many of you have the good sense to know when NOT to fly? As the article states, if you have a problem you don't just get to pull off the road. We're over 100 years into the air age and the three biggest killers of pilots are still, continued flight into deteriorating weather, failure to manage the fuel supply, and failure to fly the aircraft in an emergency. If pilots, who do take all the testing, instruction, and practice still have trouble with these three basic things, how do you think the average driver is going to do?
Third, how many Lexus owners would be willing to shell out $65K plus another $25K for engine and avionics if what they got to take home from the dealership was a moving van full of boxes of parts, a binder full of drawings and instructions, and the hope that in several hundred to several thousand hours of building they'd be able to drive to the coffee stand for a latte?
I think with one of these things, assuming it CAN fly, a parachute capable of deploying in less than five seconds will be a must-have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI saw a science news items some years ago showing just such a parachute deploying from the top of a Cessna in flight. It worked but you would really want your seatbelt fastened!
rickofudall, you are right of course - for the moment. Considering that most human individual transportation can be safely and effectively accomplished with buses and bicycles [I have commuted by bike for three decades now] it begs the question: " Who needs to travel that fast anyway?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut that said, I think it is only a matter of time before improvements in material strength per unit mass, and in computerisation of flight controls, will enable this all to happen. The trick will be to forget about "cars that can fly" because cars are stupid anyway. Making small flying machines more bird-like and bat-like [not to mention pterodactyl-like] and giving them a capability of folding down into an enclosed motor bike format will do the trick. They will of course need "trainer wheels" for going slowly but control of those, and control of just about everything else except choice of destination, way points, and start time, will need to be performed by the intelligent systems of the "bird brain".
It's gonna happen!
The perfect power supply for a vehicle like this would be a small fusion reactor as both technologies have been just a decade or two away for over 50 years now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://wolffaerocycle.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisadam@wolffaerocycle.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://wolffaerocycle.com/