I'm convinced that what's eventually going to turn the tide for these kinds of vehicles is if we can make a tiltrotor ducted fan thing with adjustable fan geome

I'm convinced that what's eventually going to turn the tide for these kinds of vehicles is if we can make a tiltrotor ducted fan thing with adjustable fan geometry _and_ wings. Something like the V-22 Osprey, except with adjustable ducts around the fans. This way, you can get both the high thrust required for takeoff and the low drag required for cruise. Wings are a requirement if you want to keep the fuel consumption low. A vehicle like this wouldn't have comparable cruising speeds to airplanes (something like 80mph cruise), but could take off and land anywhere, and would have higher fuel efficiency than one of today's cars. There are actually canarded airplames today which cruise at 160 knots and use less fuel per mile than a car. I'm actually surprised there isn't more research into these kinds of vehicles, but I guess the Osprey fiasco has everyone running scared.