The difference, this one can actually DRIVE! Not quite Bladerunner, but getting closer:
It’s not a flying car to me, sorry…it’s a dune buggy with a parasail and a swamp fan on it’s ass. 
It’s an interesting design criteria. The I-TEC folks making it have Africa in mind. 35,000km of roads are becoming impassable each year on the continent because of lack of funding for maintenance + weather.
So it’s an off-road vehicle that can get to places other ATVs can’t. Looks like a Dune Buggy? Surprise, that’s because it’s designed to carry doctors into villages off the beaten path, not yuppies to work. 
This is why I think it’s so dang cool, it’s not ALL about us, flying cars have a real practical aspect that’s often overlooked in our highly-infrastructured society.
Yep, exactly. That’s not to say it’s not an interesting vehicle, or even to say it’s not cool. It’s just not a “flying car” – in the same way that my Honda isn’t a “flying car” if I were to, say, parachute it out of a C-5.
Is that a goal of yours?
“It’s important that we not accept anything less than perfect as a flying car. Progress is for suckers, it’s all or nothing for us. A company must go straight to Back to the Future 2 style hovercars with no in-between steps.”
I’m being glib, but the above seems to be a pretty common attitude among the flying car community. Anytime someone makes something that’s a step or two closer, the immediate response is not “Cool, can’t wait to see what comes next”, but instead seems to be a general “That sucks. The Jetsons flying cars were way cooler.” Ok, but that’s not how progress works.
Le sigh… Perhaps I’m just more excited about this because of my R&D background. Anyhow, wanted to share in case anyone else found it interesting, and perhaps someone did. Somewhere!
The problem is that this as a “flying car” isn’t even a step or two closer. Para-sails with wheels have been around for quite awhile. There are a lot of concepts for flying cars out there…this just doesn’t fit that profile for me. Your mileage may vary!
That buggy would be fun for off-roading while on vacation though!
Were many of them street-legal cars?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck
Yep, exactly. That’s not to say it’s not an interesting vehicle, or even to say it’s not cool. It’s just not a “flying car” – in the same way that my Honda isn’t a “flying car” if I were to, say, parachute it out of a C-5.
Is that a goal of yours?
I think if you are male, then the answer is yes.
I think that thing is pretty cool, it kind of reminds me of the snow vehicles in The World is Not Enough.
Nope, and neither is the one in the video you posted, at least not here in Illinois. No headlamps, tail lamps, turn signals, etc.
I didn’t mean to turn this into a debate, just gave my opinion that it doesn’t fall into my definition of a “flying car.” 
http://light-sport-hangar-flyin.blogspot.com/2010/07/flying-missionary-car-now-street-legal.html
It’s street legal in a few places (including Florida)! This is not true for any of the previous PPC chutes as far as I know, or they’re massively impractical for whatever reasons.
No need for debate, just sharing something I thought was cool.
Insert Florida drivers joke here.
Hey! A flying car!
I’ll take two.
Hmmm, now where is that lottery check?
Semi-related, I am hoping to get MY flying car back in the air within the next week or so. Bills have struck repeatedly recently, but I anticipate being able to send off an insurance check shortly! Haven’t flown since 9/11/10, so I’ll have to probably re-acquaint myself with the controls. I have a little guide I printed out to tape to the yoke: “Push forward to make the houses bigger, pull back to make them smaller”.
It’s been a while since I visited here, but when I saw this I immediately thought of Sean & Chuck:
[video=youtube_share;bp2TWNpTA7s]http://youtu.be/bp2TWNpTA7s[/video]
Cool! Are those wings large enough for when the car goes from being a helicopter to being an airplane ? They seem kind of small.
The best part of having this car is that you get to go to the TRON game grid.