Exploring the Potential of a Vertical Takeoff and Landing Flying Car

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Exploring the Potential of a Vertical Takeoff and Landing Flying Car

Zhang, Tingrui / Jiger, Aimen / Zhang, Yanlan / Zou, Jiazhi / Ning, Xiao / Tian, Fengnian

The characteristic of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft is that it combines the functions of a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft. As an important branch of the VTOL aircraft, flying cars have attracted more attention from capital and media. However, most products claiming to be “flying cars” are more like aircraft than cars because they do not have the ability to travel on the ground. Therefore, this paper proposes a new concept of flying car. It ingeniously retracts the wings and multi-rotors through a rotating folding method to achieve a mode conversion from aircraft to vehicle. This paper introduces the concept source, basic dimensions, key components, and preliminary calculation of the flying car. The paper also derives the relationship curve between the propeller size and power device and finally calculates the flying envelope of the flying car. The concept proposed in this paper has the capability of vertical takeoff and landing, long endurance, and ground driving. The conceptual design method proposed in this article can provide design references for similar types of aircraft.