Flying car company Terrafugia, whose website conveniently includes a pronunciation guide (say it with me: “Terra-FOO-gee-ah”), has announced that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has granted the company specific exceptions regarding their Transition vehicle. The Transition aims to fulfill the dream that we’ve been promised since the earliest days of prognostication: The flying car.
Unlike other projects like the Skycar, the Transition is meant to function as both a street-legal car and a light aircraft. The idea is that you could drive it from your home, right onto the airfield, and take off. But to balance the requirements of the stresses of flight, the Transition needed heavy duty tires and a heavy-duty polycarbonate windscreen. Both of these required special exemptions from the NHTSA, which Terrafugia has now secured.
For Terrafugia, receiving these exceptions is a great accomplishment but it is by no means the last hurdle for the Transition. The company still has some rounds of torturous safety testing ahead of it, and then the task of marketing and selling what is sure to be a pricey piece of luxury machinery. But who cares about that? Soon, we’ll live in a world where you buy a flying car, and that’s what’s most important here.
(Terrafugia via Geeks are Sexy)
