• Pipistrel Taurus Electro

    By sway Posted on 10.28.2008 Comments

    The first two-seat battery-powered airplane, the Taurus Electro gives pilots the quiet-as-a-bird flight of a glider coupled with the practicality of a powered aircraft. Two lithium-polymer battery packs drive a top-mounted propeller, so the Electro can take off from a runway like a typical plane. Once airborne, the Electro switches into glider mode and rides thermal currents back to earth. A 31-pound electric motor makes it all possible by providing 30 kilowatts of power.

  • Technology

    The Flying Car Gets Real

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 10.8.2008 48 Comments

    The Transition is not a flying car. The vehicle, set to go on sale next year, will cruise smoothly on the road and through the sky. It will have four wheels, Formula One–style suspension, and a pair of 10-foot-wide wings that fold up when it switches from air to asphalt. And when the engineers at Terrafugia in Woburn, Massachusetts, let me sit inside their just-finished proof-of-concept vehicle and grab the steering wheel, it’s easy to imagine piloting this thing up and out of traffic, into the open skies.


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February 2012: The Future of Fun

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