Terrafugia Transition: Flying into the Future?

If all of the promises of science fiction had come to fruition this year, we would all be wearing Mylar jumpsuits, getting our daily dose of nutrients from soylent green (spoiler alert: it’s made of people!) and, of course, zooming around in flying cars.

Thankfully, soylent green had—shall we say—highly questionable marketability, but the idea of a flying car is way too fascinating a concept to purge from our collective conscience.

Like the personal jetpack, the idea of flying cars for the masses is a very liberating concept. Much as car ownership has afforded a great amount of personal freedom for drivers, a flying car offers an extra dimension of potential freedom, in terms of altitude.

Yet here we are in 2016, and the skies are largely clear, except for birds and civil aircraft (and, more recently, drones). So, once again, we wonder: Where are our flying cars?

Massachusetts-based aerospace/automobile company Terrafugia may have an answer to that question with their roadable aircraft solution: The Terrafugia Transition.

The Transition is touted as a hybrid car/aircraft that can be stored in the garage at home, driven on the street like a regular car and, after a small mechanical transition (to deploy the wings), take off from an airfield.

The Transition transforms from car to aircraft. (Image courtesy of Terrafugia.)

Source: Terrafugia Transition: Flying into the Future? – Engineers Rule