If the Pinto can be made to fly, then obviously a Corvair was an even more likely candidate in man’s endlessly foolish quest to make cars fly.
Postscript: the ending to Mr. Stockwell’s pursuit was much happier than the Pinto’s. The Corvair never did fly; the Pinto did, but went down in a fatal crash.
Not quite the same as this, but there is a pretty large dedicated group of inviduals who fly Corvair-powered aircraft. Here is an example:
http://www.flycorvair.com/
Thanks; yes, the Corvair engine,like the VW and Subaru, are naturals for airplane use. Just leave the rest of it behind, though.
A very nice kit plane that can be Corvair powered:
http://zenithair.com/stolch750/index.html
Never heard of that one, good thing it never flew. Odd, I expected to see the prop on the rear of a flying Corvair, after all the engine’s right there. But this Corvair has its prop on the front of a whole other engine, very strange.
Even stranger, that front-engined flying Pinto had a second engine and a pusher prop at the rear. (It looks like the falling Pinto in the Blues Brothers.)
Something about weight distribution I suppose. Carrying two engines in an airplane doesn’t seem to be a good idea.
The initial flight tests of the flying Pinto went quite well, but the crash occurred when one of the latches that were used to attach the angled wing struts to the lower car body, vibrated loose and the wing pivoted upward, losing lift and the entire craft plummeted to the ground.
Yeah tjhe engine works in home built planes but the rest of its best on the ground or under it
A basic Cessna 150 weighed about 1500 pounds and had a 100 bhp engine. The Corvair weighs another 1000 pounds and has a horrible aerodynamics problem compared with a standard Cessna, so it would need an absolutely huge wing area plus gobs of power. I don’t think 200 hp would be enough, unless you built some kind of aero-shroud over the front and back parts of the car.
2011 and still no flying cars. However, don’t we have enough accidents with only 2 dimensions to worry about?
You nailed it right there. The requirements of the chasses of the different types of vehicles…pretty much preclude the use of a car as an aircraft cabin; or of an aircraft, stripped of wings, as a car.
Weight must be minimal on an aircraft. Collision strength is completely irrelevant. Yet the wings, fixed or removable, HAVE to have tremendous strength, while still allowing some flex for air turbulence.
Power needs…are at a completely different point; delivered differently and under different circumstances. A small car tends to be low-powered. But an underpowered aircraft is an accident just waiting for a takeoff in adverse weather.
These big thinkers…need to give it up. Rent a car at the airport, for chrissakes!
+1
Not to mention that the car’s wheels, tires, brakes and suspension are not in any way suitable for the forces of landing.
Flying cars in 2012!
http://goo.gl/zMtbK
http://www.terrafugia.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrafugia_Transition
Just one engine this time.
Twin-engine pilot joke:
“How far can you fly on one engine when the other fails?”
“All the way to the crash scene!”
ba-dum!
And here I always thought that was a Ron White joke.
While trying to build a flying Corvair is definitely carrying it a bit too far, there does seem to be some affinity between aviation people and Corvairs. I have a cousin who, as a teenager in the early 70’s, built an airplane from scratch and restored a ’64 Corvair, more or less simultaneously. The ’64 Monza coupe I bought a few months ago has an old Atlanta airport employee parking sticker on the bumper, and in the glove box I found a letter to a previous owner dated in 1983, from the head of maintenance for Piedmont Airlines, thanking him for 5 years of loyal service.
Yes, my neighbor who had the 1965 Corvair used it to tow his 21′ long ultralight airplane trailer. He made the ultralight in his basement (still remember the glue fumes, heh), and later died as a result of an accident in it. The next-door neighbor to this man died in a single-engine airplane only a few years later.
My take-away lesson as a teenager was: small planes (including experimental, ultralight, etc) = statistically higher probability of death. Flying Corvair? I guess that some people have too much free time!
What modern-day car would be the most likely candidate for the flying conversion? Gen 1 Honda Insight? Prius?
This idea makes a lot more sense with a glass of scotch in my hand…
However I would have sobered up long before the thing actually got built. I’m glad Erwin never actually flew it.
So is he I reckon
Surprised no one’s mentioned the flying Matador from “The Man with the Golden Gun”, which somewhat resembled the flying Pinto.