If you enroll in pilot lessons now, and have ten grand for a deposit, it looks like you can be among the first to own, fly, and drive the innovative Transition® Roadable Aircraft. Terrafugia, Inc., a venture started by five MIT aeronautical engineers/inventors, may represent a 21st century version of the ingenuity of the Wright Brothers. The company’s owners and investors report that the “flying car” will be produced sometime in 2011. Terrafugia is based in Woburn, MA, not very far from Cambridge-based MIT, where these inventors first collaborated.
The Transition® is designed to be a vehicle that you can drive to the airport, straighten its wings from an upright, folded position, and fly to another city. Upon arrival at the distant airport, you will be able to convert your Transition® Roadable Aircraft back to highway mode and simply drive past the rows of rental cars reserved for the more mundane, pedestrian business travelers. Transition® owners, it is hoped, will be able to save money on airport fees by parking their vehicles at home. Moreover, they should be able to avoid numerous other costs and inconveniences during business and pleasure travel.
Terrafugia---Latin for “escape from land”---recently simplified the process for placing an order for the first Transition® vehicles off the production line, holding, in escrow, customer deposits of $10,000 on an anticipated sales price of approximately $194,000.
The successful test flight and landing of the Transition® on March 18, 2009, attracted the attention and curiosity of many in the media. If Terrifugia can display the same innovation in marketing that it has exhibited in aeronautical engineering, well, the Transition® Roadable Aircraft could be on track to be the star of the greatest Super Bowl ad ever.
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