The Air Force Wants to see Your Flying Cars

The U.S. Air Force has a way for flying cars to bypass at least one layer of red tape – test them out on military ranges.

You can’t help but admire their chutzpah – the poster child for lumbering, bureaucratic beasts wants to help you skirt the rules. Anything off a military base faces the draconian scrutiny of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which slows innovation to a crawl.

And given the current state of flying cars, a little innovation is welcome.

Your average flying car looks like a plane that folds up like an accordion to roll down highways. And that’s being generous. No one would ever mistake the Terrafugia Transition for a flying Delorean or the PAL-V Liberty for anything short of an eyesore.

Meanwhile, the Air Force has issued an Agility Prime Innovative Capabilities Opening (ICO) Transformative Vertical Flight request (just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?), seeking prototype vehicles from nontraditional and traditional defense contractors. In particular, they’re looking at electric VTOL (eVTOL) and urban/advanced air mobility (UAM/AAM) aircraft, with non-traditional electric or hybrid propulsion, though all types are welcome.

“This effort seeks to establish a collaborative strategy with industry and investors that accelerates fielding of the most promising technologies for savings and utility to the government, as well as potential commercial market success,” the Air Force states. “As these systems mature toward certified commercial operations, the government will identify opportunities for early adoption….”

Of course, the government isn’t trying to directly commercialize any specific design. They’re simply allowing industry to test out prototypes in an environment free of red tape. That said, the Air Force definitely has its eyes open for any possible military utility.

You can read more about this here: https://www.sourcetoday.com/industries/article/21125698/flying-car-prototypes