CAN MUGGLES MAKE A MOTORCAR THAT FLIES?

You’re sitting with a friend by the Post Office Tower in London, having a relaxing day in town. It’s a lovely day, the sky is blue, then a glint catches your eye. You think it’s a low flying plane, but hang on. That's no plane. It looks more like an old car!

Shocked, you turn to your buddy, exclaiming, “Dude! There’s a car flying through the air!”

But when they look up, it has mysteriously disappeared. They don’t believe you at all and suggest you have a word with the Department of Intoxicating Substances. But you’re certain of what you saw and are determined to delve deeper. So, in the absence of a magical explanation, you take out your phone to see what the World Wide Web has to say on the matter.

Cars That Fly

The first real automobiles were heavy, steam-powered vehicles. This changed in 1807 when the first internal combustion engines appeared. Today, these engines are still the most widely used power source for cars. In 1903, almost a century after the first combustion engine, the Wright brothers famously took to the air to successfully demonstrate powered flight.

Within fifteen years of the Wright brothers’ achievement, a man named Glen Curtiss developed the Curtiss Autoplane. It was essentially the wings of a triplane attached to the body of a motorcar along with a tail and rear-mounted propeller. This would have been the world’s first known flying car—if it actually flew, that is. Apparently, it only managed a few short hops before World War I took precedence.

Since then, there have been many successful vehicles of this type; referred to as roadable aircrafts. Some of these were modeled on planes that upon landing could detach the wings, propeller, and tail to become a road vehicle. Others were basically cars that could have flight components added to make them into aircrafts. If you saw one of these flying in the air, the only words you could justifiably use to describe it would be, “Look, it’s a flying car!” If you have any doubt on this matter, check out the ConvAirCar which flew in the mid-1940s, or the AVE Mizar, whose inventor unfortunately died after crashing it in 1973.

There have been quite a few flight-related accidents on the road to roadable aircrafts. Twenty years earlier, Leyland Bryan, the designer of the Bryan Autoplane, died after one of his vehicle’s wing sections hadn’t secured properly for flight. This particular roadable aircraft was different in that its wings could be folded up around the plane for ground travel, saving space and eliminating the dependence on a hangar to store the flight components. Fortunately for Harry Potter and the Weasleys, the Ford Anglia did not have any wing sections that could fail, as it flew by other means, although Harry falling out of an unlocked door could have potentially been just as perilous.

On a Wing and a Prayer

Despite the possible dangers, muggle inventors haven’t been put off. Nowadays, the most promising flying car candidates are pretty much just more sophisticated versions of the mid-20th century attempts. For example, the Terrafugia has wings that fold up on its sides, similar to the Bryan Autoplane, while the new Aeromobil uses wings that fold back along its length but tuck in like the wings of a wasp.

What the above vehicles have in common is their use of wings to achieve lift for flight. This was and still is the most common way to get a motor vehicle to fly. However, a problem with wings is that they need a certain length of runway for takeoff and landing and they also need a roadway wide enough to accommodate the wingspan.

For takeoff, the flying vehicle must attain a particular speed, known as the takeoff speed. It takes the vehicle a certain amount of takeoff distance to accelerate from a standstill up to the takeoff speed. At this takeoff speed, the air moving over the wings can provide a sufficient lifting force to overcome the weight of the vehicle, causing the craft to be lifted skyward.

However, once airborne, a winged roadable aircraft can no longer use its wheels to maintain its forward motion, so the vehicle must switch to an alternative source of forward thrust. This is why they nearly always feature propellers. If the vehicle slows down, its wings will produce less lift, but if it slows down too much, the lift produced will no longer be able to support the vehicle’s weight. Simply put, the vehicle will return to the Earth either in a glide or a crash.

If the Weasley brothers had opted for a less magical approach and obtained a winged flying Ford Anglia, the rescue of Harry from the Dursleys would have gone down quite differently. Firstly, they certainly couldn’t have hovered outside Harry’s bedroom window like that. Although, I’m pretty sure there are laws against that sort of thing. Secondly, they would have had to land on the road at the front of the house, presuming the road was wide enough to accommodate the wings without damaging parked cars, street lights, or the neighbor’s tremendous topiary.

So, although wings work, they still have their drawbacks. What we want is a flying car that can hover, and the best candidates for that are vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircrafts.

VTOL

Helicopters are the most recognized VTOL aircrafts, but they aren’t so good for traveling along roads or hovering outside a row of terraced houses, especially with their hazardous open blades. As such, more attention has been focused on vehicles with contained blades, either in the form of ducted fans or propellers.

Ducted fans are basically fans that are housed in a cylindrical section or duct. These can provide both lift and propulsion by altering their angles directly or else using flap-like blades to redirect the direction of the air exiting the fan. They can also be quieter, safer, and more efficient than non-ducted fans at lower speeds, while having a higher thrust-to-weight ratio. This is handy for aircraft design in which a key goal is the reduction of weight without limiting performance.

An example of an aircraft that uses this technology is the futuristic-looking Moller M400 Skycar. The M400 has only ever flown while tethered to a crane for safety reasons, and even then, it did not have an onboard pilot but was instead operated via remote control. A major issue was the stability of the aircraft, but the company is currently focusing on its other flying vehicles. It’s designer, Paul Moller, hopes that in the future, vehicles like the M400 could be used in rescue situations. For example, they could pull up next to a building to allow a person in peril (or imprisoned in a bedroom) to climb on board and be ferried away to safety.

So, personal VTOL flying cars do exist—in prototype form, at least. But, to become commercial vehicles, they first have to obtain the necessary certification, which is obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), whose stated mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world.

Ron the Rebel

Across the globe, muggles have developed strict transport regulations that must be adhered to by vehicle manufacturers. In regard to flight, these regulations are moderated by national aviation authorities such as the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in the UK or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US. The presence of these organizations helps to ensure consistent levels of safety and consumer protection.

A hope for flying cars is that they might one day become as common a form of transportation as cars or buses are today. These modes of transport are relatively easy to get licenses for, considering that in 2014 there were 45.5 million active driving records in Great Britain. However, to use a flying car you would need a pilot’s license, which requires a larger investment of time and money.

While Ron thinks it’s a good idea to effectively take his father’s Ford Anglia 105E for a joyride, he’s breaking muggle laws by driving under age and without the proper license. Not to mention putting his and Harry’s lives in jeopardy before (ahem) emergency parking in the Whomping Willow. But a license doesn’t guarantee total safety, anyway. Even though licenses are needed to fly and drive, accidents are still inevitable whether due to human error, technological error, or an act of God (if not an act of wizardry).

To overcome the potential for human error and the need for flying car owners to have a private pilot certificate, autonomous vehicles are a desirable option. Google, Uber, and Tesla are some of the companies pushing this technology, which once established would no doubt become a necessary feature of any future flying car network. This would also leave space for a flying car to travel around without an on-board pilot, similar to the 105E after it ejects Harry and Ron, or when it rescues them. So, here, technology is reproducing something that would normally only make sense in a magical world.

Conclusion

Quick study finished. You can put your phone away and assess the options from what you have just seen. There were no visible wings or propellers, and if it used ducted fans, it must have been operating an unheard of silent type. At this point, the tentative conclusion of an unidentified flying object (UFO) would have worked, except your online search for similar looking cars has already identified it as a possible 1960’s Ford Anglia 105E.

Remembering recent reports and rumors of strange goings-on locally, you conclude that there must be something happening that is as yet unknown to mainstream muggle science, or maybe your friend was right about the intoxicating substances and you need to ease off the butterbeer.

In either case, flying cars really do exist, but there are many obstacles to achieve before flying cars can launch from our front yards. The main problems include finding one that complies to legislation and is considered both road and airworthy, as well as having a nationwide infrastructure to support the needs of flying motorcars such as takeoff, parking, and air traffic control. There is also the possibility that you were looking in the wrong place. Maybe the forbidden forest would have been a better place to look.