Air-Van:  Its an airplane, its a flying car, its a flying van.  Its a ROADABLE AIRCRAFT with all flying components secured to or enclosed within the aircraft for land operation.

For the past 90 years, almost since the Wright Brothers first flight, men have dreamed of a vehicle that could be driven on land and also fly.  There have been many successful flights of such vehicles but none have proven practical as these vehicles had to shed their flying components (wings, tail structure and often the propeller) in order to function as a land vehicle.  In addition, the weight penalty of carrying an auto. even a light weight special auto, meant a very large flying structure and a much larger engine than required for regular aircraft with similar load carrying capacity and speed.  None of these "flying cars" had the important advantages of the Air-Van described below.

Drive the Air-Van from your home garage, to a local airfield or airstrip.  Take off a few minutes later for a destination airfield or landing strip and after landing and a few minutes to convert, drive to your final destination.  Weather not good at destination airport or airstrip?  Fly to the nearest open airfield or airstrip and complete your trip by driving to your destination in your two, four, or six passenger Air-Van.

  In the driving mode, a 2 passenger model is six feet wide by six feet tall by 17 feet long, smaller than a full size auto.  The four passenger model is one foot longer and the six passenger Air-Van would be 21 feet in length.  The two or four passenger Air-Van would easily fit with enough room to service in a single car garage.  In land operation, the Air-Van looks much like a van.  In flying mode, the Air-Van is not a too unconventional looking aircraft.

The preset conceptual designs are for homebuilt kit experimental aircraft of simple metal construction.  The cost is estimated to be approximately 15% higher than a comparative aircraft without the roadable capabilities, a small price to pay for the advantages of a second useful vehicle at home, a comfortable servicing facility and always having personal transportation available at destination airports.  It is well established that an aircraft as proposed will usually require less travel time, for distances of about 600 miles or less than commercial or private flying, autos, trains or busses.  The advantages are even greater in REMOTE areas which lack rail, commercial aircraft and bus service and where travel distance requirements make driving difficult.  A six passenger Air-Van providing DOOR to DOOR service can fill a void in our transportation system.

ESTIMATED SPECIFICATIONS AND PERFORMANCE  ***

***  Estimates based on performance of similar sized homebuilt experimental aircraft with allowances made for the differences between the aircraft.  The designs are for a first prototype.  Final designs should yield improved performance.

DATA ON SMALL AIRPORTS, SMALL PLANES AND PILOTS

This amounts to 151.61 square miles for each airport.  In other words, there is an airport serving light aircraft for approximately each 12 mile square (average).

ROADABLE AIRCRAFT WILL SAVE A LOT OF MONEY

(perhaps more than the cost of the aircraft)

The savings could be the deciding factor in whether to own a light aircraft

For a non-roadable version of the Air-Van utilizing hangar storage, the rent would be approximately one quarter of the above hangar costs, or $ 31,500.

A non-roadable aircraft with the roadable (Air-Van) features of a folding main wing, and a canard storage and trailerable or towable would have the same savings as above except for the destination transportation costs.

This non-roadable aircraft would not have the special feature of the roadable aircraft as a second useful vehicle.

Harry Einstein
einst-res@cox.net or datseris@egr.uri.edu
http://www.air-van.com
(401) 792-9139