The Scaled Composites Model 367 BiPod is an experimental
flying car
A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles which drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term "flying car" is also sometimes u ...
developed by
Scaled Composites. It was the final aircraft designed by
Burt Rutan prior to his retirement.
Development
The Bipod was originally designed to be an electric propulsion testbed, later evolving into the flying car concept. The vehicle was constructed for market evaluation and testing only. No
flight testing
Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. D ...
was planned, or done, on the single prototype built.
Design
The BiPod uses twin fuselages with tandem wheels joined by a wing surface. The wings, stabilizers and tail tips are removable for road operations. The left cockpit is configured for road operations (i.e. it is driven as a car from the left-hand station), the right cockpit is configured for air operations (i.e. it is flown from the right-hand station). The wingspan of nearly is reduced to when the wings are removed (they can be carried between the two fuselage sections during road operation). Thus the vehicle can be parked in a regular-sized garage stall when the wings and tail surfaces have been removed.
Propulsion
Each fuselage section has a 450cc gasoline engine, which drives an electric generator. The generators power 15 kW electric motors; two such motors drive the rear wheels for land use, and four such motors drive four propellers (two on the horizontal stabilizer and two on the wings). Although not installed to date as of July 2011, the testbed configuration will eventually incorporate rechargeable lithium batteries for additional power during takeoff or for extra climb performance.
[Pia Bergqvist, ''Rutan's Swan Song: A Flying Car'', ]Flying
Flying may refer to:
* Flight, the process of flying
* Aviation, the creation and operation of aircraft
Music
Albums
* ''Flying'' (Grammatrain album), 1997
* ''Flying'' (Jonathan Fagerlund album), 2008
* ''Flying'' (UFO album), 1971
* ''Fl ...
, September 2011, p. 20. In addition, as of the first flight the propellers and propeller drive motors had not been installed; the "flights" consisted of brief hops above a runway after the drive wheels had been used to accelerate the vehicle to .
Operational history
The prototype was built in four months. In July 2011, ''
Aviation Week and Space Technology
''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aerospace, defense and aviati ...
'' reported that "In anticipation of Rutan's retirement, Scaled Composite employees scrambled to get the new design flying in March of this year, only four months after its preliminary design phase."
Test hops have been performed with the prototype at
Mojave Air and Space Port
The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of . It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a sp ...
using propulsion from the wheels. The vehicle has been ground tested up to 80 mph. No flight testing is planned.
Specifications
References
External links
Scaled Composites BiPod page
{{Flying cars
Scaled Composites
Roadable aircraft
Hybrid vehicles
Twin-fuselage aircraft
Rutan aircraft
Twin-engined four-prop tractor aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 2011