2 ms·

Sky Driving - Terrafugia Transition, a viable "roadable aircraft"

5 points by frisco 18y ago

marvin 18y ago
One accident and this company will be history. It isn't technology and business that holds aviation back, it's bureaucracy, law, regulations and existing systems. There are way too many actors that have big stakes in the status quo, on all fronts: existing infrastructure and regulations, money to be made on lawsuits and people's fear of flight, the huge personal freedom that comes with flight (leaving the country becomes pretty trivial if there are small planes everywhere), the tens of thousands of people employed in traditional aviation, ensuring the continued safe operation of the current system etc, etc, etc. The technological problems come on top of this, so no "investor in his right mind" would bet the required amount of money to make an attempt. You would have to be crazy. Someday we will look back at this period as the dark age of flight. I'm annoyed out of my mind; there are hundreds of cool things to work with in this area.
ShabbyDoo 18y ago
I don't understand how the market for this will be large enough to justify the investment. Let's determine our market size by the process of elimination: - Executives who value their time can't justify this. You have to fly it yourself, so you can't use the trip to get work done. And, you have to become a pilot, another time drain. Furthermore, the range is an issue compared to even the least costly business jets -- more time drain. And, even though Eclipse is shutting down, there's a new class of cheaper biz jets available for rental/frac ownership. - A guy who likes to fly on weekends for fun. Why pay more for a more complex system that you don't need? Just buy a used single-engine Cessna for $40K. At least the maintenance cost structure is known. Another article I read (can't remember where) cited the benefit of being able to land at a regional airport and drive to your meeting. Never mind that the FBOs all have rental car agencies. [And, they'll drive your car out to the plane to meet you!] Great, you bought an expensive contraption to save $30 in rental costs. Oh yeah, you can also drive your plane home if the weather is bad! So, your market is now the intersection of people who can afford $200K aircraft and those who don't value their time (biz jets can fly in much more extreme weather conditions than this thing). So, what's left? The niche markets described in the article. A vineyard owner who wants to visit his land. Early adopters. I don't see how the overall market can exceed a few thousand units. Would this be interesting to people outside the US? Rich people in under-developed countries? In these cases, one would think that the ability to drive the plane would be of little interest -- no good roads, therefore no need to drive. You'd probably want to buy designed for short, dirt runways,
- cameldrv 18y ago
  You're probably right about the market being fairly small, particularly with the (very) limited performance of the plane. However, there are a lot of smaller airports that do not have rental cars available. Many small towns also don't have taxi service available. This literally is probably 3/4 of paved, public runways that have no rental cars or taxis. I can see it being useful for say, a small town doctor that serves a different town each day. That said, if they sold a thousand, I'd say they were doing pretty well.

5 points by frisco 18y ago

One accident and this company will be history. It isn't technology and business that holds aviation back, it's bureaucracy, law, regulations and existing systems. There are way too many actors that have big stakes in the status quo, on all fronts: existing infrastructure and regulations, money to be made on lawsuits and people's fear of flight, the huge personal freedom that comes with flight (leaving the country becomes pretty trivial if there are small planes everywhere), the tens of thousands of people employed in traditional aviation, ensuring the continued safe operation of the current system etc, etc, etc. The technological problems come on top of this, so no "investor in his right mind" would bet the required amount of money to make an attempt. You would have to be crazy. Someday we will look back at this period as the dark age of flight. I'm annoyed out of my mind; there are hundreds of cool things to work with in this area.

ShabbyDoo 18y ago

I don't understand how the market for this will be large enough to justify the investment. Let's determine our market size by the process of elimination: - Executives who value their time can't justify this. You have to fly it yourself, so you can't use the trip to get work done. And, you have to become a pilot, another time drain. Furthermore, the range is an issue compared to even the least costly business jets -- more time drain. And, even though Eclipse is shutting down, there's a new class of cheaper biz jets available for rental/frac ownership. - A guy who likes to fly on weekends for fun. Why pay more for a more complex system that you don't need? Just buy a used single-engine Cessna for $40K. At least the maintenance cost structure is known. Another article I read (can't remember where) cited the benefit of being able to land at a regional airport and drive to your meeting. Never mind that the FBOs all have rental car agencies. [And, they'll drive your car out to the plane to meet you!] Great, you bought an expensive contraption to save $30 in rental costs. Oh yeah, you can also drive your plane home if the weather is bad! So, your market is now the intersection of people who can afford $200K aircraft and those who don't value their time (biz jets can fly in much more extreme weather conditions than this thing). So, what's left? The niche markets described in the article. A vineyard owner who wants to visit his land. Early adopters. I don't see how the overall market can exceed a few thousand units. Would this be interesting to people outside the US? Rich people in under-developed countries? In these cases, one would think that the ability to drive the plane would be of little interest -- no good roads, therefore no need to drive. You'd probably want to buy designed for short, dirt runways,

cameldrv 18y ago
You're probably right about the market being fairly small, particularly with the (very) limited performance of the plane. However, there are a lot of smaller airports that do not have rental cars available. Many small towns also don't have taxi service available. This literally is probably 3/4 of paved, public runways that have no rental cars or taxis. I can see it being useful for say, a small town doctor that serves a different town each day. That said, if they sold a thousand, I'd say they were doing pretty well.