A Flying Car - My Design

About a year ago, I read a magazine article about inventors trying to come up with a workable flying car that could sell for about the price of a luxury SUV. In other words, a small plane that can take off from a driveway or very short road, and be safe, maneuverable, and seat 4 people plus a little luggage, and still be under $50K to buy.

There were a number of designs, but they all had flaws. Too heavy. Too expensive. Not enough lift. Not small enough. Not big enough. Too complicated – whatever. I looked at the problems they were having and I had a solution. I had a creative idea for a design for one that would in fact work. It is simple, and comparatively inexpensive, and I actually took the time to draw out the design of it, which you see here.

This design has a way of creating the lift from a standing position, and then convert into forward motion at speed, while keeping costs down.

What this shows is a wide-fuselage, short-body propeller plane (jets are expensive) which essentially acts like a helicopter for take-offs and landings, and a plane for linear flight. There are vertical propellers in the wings, and a propeller at the front and the rear which swivel vertically to provide a 4-point helicopter style lift. You’ve seen military helicopters taking large cargos with two propellers. One front and one aft. Well, this has that and two more – one on each side. Once airborne, the front and rear props swivel back into horizontal position and now act as a pull and push mechanism with counter-rotating blades, to fly at higher speeds than a helicopter can.
There are four main motors. One fore, one aft, and two in the rear fuselage which run the two wing rotors by belt/chain drive (to keep a low wing profile for aerodynamic purposes)

There is even a camera shutter-like closure for the tops of the wings and a solid closure on the underside of the wings to close off the wing rotors during higher-speed horizontal flight and provide smoother, quieter flight, and more lift. Landing gear is integrated into the swivel front propeller so that when the motor is front-facing, the wheel is tucked up and away, but when the motor is up and lifting, the wheel is down. Similarly, when the wing rotors are being used, the covers are open and down, and the wing wheels are mounted on them. When in flight, those covers are closed and so the wheels are tucked up out of sight. Seating is 4 people + luggage behind the second row of seats.

This allows a person to take-off and land from a driveway, and commute long distances into a city – or other cities. Wherever they need to be. Live in a rural setting, on less expensive land, and still have a big city job with the associated income. The best of both worlds.

I realize that I don’t have the funds and facilities to be able to make this up myself, and I have had an extremely busy year for various reasons, so I was not able to create the working model prototype yet. I need someone to help me: a partner with the means to help make this vision a reality. The design will work, and I have included the core of it here, however, I will say that I have deliberately made two fundamental flaws in this design so that it is not stolen and used by someone else. There is enough of the idea shown here to show essentially how it works. Enough to garner interest, however not enough to have a working model. Two pieces are missing (at least). These will not be immediately discovered, but are crucial and integral to the design. It will be un-flyable without them, and if left out, they cannot be added later without a complete rebuild and redesign.

If you are interested in pursuing this in partnership with me, please send me an email.