If auto shows are about dreams, then the Milner AirCar fits right in. Tucked away in the back basement of the Javits Convention Center with the trucks and SUVs at the New York International Auto Show is the latest iteration in a long line of dreams: the flying car.
This one is from Milner Motors. It's a narrow body car with a folding wing and a pair of 150-hp pusher fans in back. As co-founder James Milner describes it, "We believe that a truly clean-sheet approach to vehicle design can produce commercially viable vehicles that respond to today's environmental and energy needs in a way never before possible."
As envisioned, you'd drive from your house to the airport (using a 40-hp terrestrial engine) with the 28-foot wing folded over the top of the AirCar, making a package about 7 feet wide and 7 feet high - as wide as a Hummer and taller, so you better have a tall garage. At the airport, you lock the wings into, take off, fly to your destination airport, and drive the last few miles.
That's the dream of the company, which is based in Vancouver, Wash., and Bethesda, Md. Father Jim Milner is a former United Airlines pilot and entrepreneur; son Chris Milner is an engineer with background in information technologies and management consulting. The vehicle at the show might be described as halfway to reality: It can be driven, just not flown.
Milner Motors is also working on a hybrid-electric car based on the same vehicle chassis. Can they succeed? Many have dreamed of a flying car and it's been a staple of magazine covers since World War II; the Popular Mechanics cover here is from 1951. So far, the success of the flying car has been limited to the movies.
Original story published on TechnoRide.com.
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