The world’s first flying car makes a public test drive/flight

After dominating the global consciousness for more than 100 years, and occupying more than its fair share of Popular Mechanics covers, 2013 will go down in history as the first year that a legitimate, road-and-sky-worthy flying car was publicly tested: The Terrafugia Transistion.

The Transition is technically classified as a roadable aircraft, and in practice that’s exactly what it is: We’re definitely not talking about a sexy, Aston Martin-like car that sprouts wings in the middle of a high-speed chase and evades the bad guys by flying away. The Transition is basically a plane with wings that fold up, so that it’s narrow enough to use on conventional roads. It also uses conventional unleaded fuel, so you can fill up at the gas station. Its 25-gallon tank is good for around four hours of flight, at a cruising speed of 95 knots (110 mph). It only needs around 40 meters (99 feet) of runway to take off, which is rather cool.

Terrafugia has pushed back the commercial release of the Transition a few times. The expected release date now sometime in 2016 or 2018, with an expected list price of around $220,000. Terrafugia says it will follow up with the vertical-takeoff-and-landing TF-X flying car in the 2021s. While we’re still a long way away from the Blade Runner or Fifth Elementvision of flying cars, we’re now a huge step closer.