Fighting to take off
Plans for drivable plane move ahead, despite small customer base and dearth of investors
Like many motorists, Dick Gersh found it a bit of a hassle to get a license plate from the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Gersh's company, Terrafugia Inc., is apparently the only company making automobiles in the state of Massachusetts, and so there wasn't an established "auto manufacturer" category when he went to request a plate.
Oh, and the vehicle Terrafugia is building will also be capable of flying at 115 miles per hour.
"It takes regulators quite a while to get comfortable with who we are and what we're doing," says Gersh, vice president of business development at the start-up. "At the Registry or the Department of Transportation or the Federal Aviation Administration, none of the regulations really contemplated a flying car." (The plate finally showed up in June, after nearly six months of discussions.)
Want a big entrepreneurial challenge? Try to design an aircraft and bring it to market. (As of 2007, there were just under 600,000 licensed pilots in the United States who might buy one.) Want an enormous entrepreneurial challenge? Design an aircraft that can also fold up its wings, drive off the runway, and travel safely at highway speeds. Success is so ab surdly improbable it is like asking the clerk at the local pet store to sell you a parakeet that can also bench-press 400 pounds and play the trombone.
The last serious attempt to bring a car-airplane hybrid to market was the Aerocar, in 1949. According to Carl Dietrich, chief executive of Terrafugia, that company built six prototypes. It needed 500 orders in order to gear up for mass production, but it never got there.
But Dietrich, who, along with his wife and cofounder Anna, is a graduate of MIT's aeronautical engineering program, is not deterred. In a small workshop in Woburn, they're building a single-engine aircraft with a carbon-fiber body that will be able to carry two people through rush-hour traffic - or the wild blue yonder. It's sleek, white, angular, and very futuristic looking, with a black propeller in the rear. If you plucked off the wings, the body would look like a cross between a Mini Cooper and a
They hope to fly the thing before 2008 is out, and last week they were at the Lawrence Municipal Airport, doing some high-speed driving tests on the ground.
Carl Dietrich doesn't like the term flying car. "People hear that term, and immediately it's associated with 'The Jetsons,' 'Back to the Future,' and 'Blade Runner'," he says. "They think it will be in everybody's garage."
Instead, Terrafugia uses the term "roadable aircraft." Dietrich explains, "This is an aircraft you can also drive - a more useful airplane."
It still requires a pilot license, but the company hopes the plane will fit into a relatively new category the FAA calls "light-sport aircraft." It takes only about half the time and money to obtain a pilot's license to fly light-sport aircraft, compared to a traditional pilot's license (a traditional pilot's license takes 60 to 80 hours of flight time), but the speed of the planes in this category is limited to about 120 miles per hour, they can only carry two people, and pilots can only fly them in clear weather.
Still, the population of so-called sport pilots is growing. In 2005, there were just 135 in the United States, and by the end of this year there will be about 4,200, according to Chris Dancy, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Dietrich says the design of the Terrafugia vehicle, known as the Transition, will address some of the problems that pilots encounter when they try to use their aircraft for actual travel, as opposed to weekend sightseeing. When they encounter bad weather in the Transition, they can simply land at the nearest airport and continue their journey on the road. (The company's goal is a top speed of 70 to 80 miles per hour in car mode.)
Additionally, the engine uses premium unleaded gasoline, instead of pricier aviation fuel. Pilots don't have to rent hangar space, which can cost $1,000 or more a month, since they will be able to drive the Transition home and keep it in a standard garage. And when pilots land at most of the country's 5,000 small airports in a traditional aircraft, they need to call a taxi to get into town, since car rental counters are a rarity.
"It can be hard to explain the value of this to nonpilots," Dietrich says, "but when you're a pilot, the problems of high costs, limited mobility on the ground, and weather sensitivity are in your face, all the time."
The company says more than 50 of the vehicles have been preordered. The target price is $198,000.
Dietrich says the company has raised a bit more than $2 million so far. To get to low levels of production - say 20 vehicles a year - he'll need another $7 million.
But even some investors and well-off entrepreneurs who also have pilot's licenses are a bit hesitant about putting money in the company. Paul Maeder, managing general partner at Highland Capital Partners in Lexington, passed on the deal, Dietrich says, because he wanted to see the Transition fly first. When I asked Maeder about that, he alluded to problems that aircraft manufacturers can encounter even after they've taken to the skies and been approved by the FAA.
"I admire their persistence and optimism," he wrote via e-mail, adding, "A lot of people passed on the Wright Brothers, too."
Philip Greenspun, a software entrepreneur, blogger, and flight instructor, wrote in an e-mail, "The idea of financing a new airplane company is ridiculous, from an investment point of view . . . the best case is maybe to get one's money back."
And raising money from individual investors won't be a breeze in the current environment, when many once-wealthy individuals are feeling substantially less so.
Another challenge, observes Ed Crawley, is keeping the weight of the aircraft down; to be considered a light-sport aircraft, it needs to have a weight at takeoff of no more than 1,320 pounds.
"They're trying to do a lot more than other manufacturers in that category," says Crawley, a professor of aeronautical engineering at MIT. "They need bumpers and an automotive suspension."
Like many pilots, Crawley says he's enchanted by the concept. "How cool would it be to be the first guy to fly into an airport, fold up the wings, and drive out of the gate?" But he adds that while "the coolness factor" will attract some buyers, "the ultimate commercial success will hinge on the thing's utility."
The Terrafugia team understands the headwinds they're facing, but they're energized by trying to accomplish the nearly impossible.
"For me, this was an opportunity to assist a talented group of engineers in getting something literally into the air," says Gersh. He previously worked in the insurance industry, so he has a good understanding of risk. "If this were easy, somebody would've done it before."
Scott Kirsner can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com. 