Latest On Production Date: Q4 2016

[WilliamH]

We're just exploring different design options. Remember a few posts back (maybe on another thread, it's so hard to keep track...) where someone was talking about using the Elio engine as the motor for a lightweight aircraft. So what would it take to make the the Elio into a flying car? Maybe a gliding car?

A miracle?

 

[slinches]

Flubber might do it.

As for the actual topic of this thread, I doubt we'll get any more news on the production schedule until after the P5 unveil and the Reg A+ funds start rolling in at least. EM should have a better idea about funding at that point, but I wouldn't be surprised if they wait until they're through the bulk of the E series tests to announce the production line spool up.

 

[Sethodine]

We're just exploring different design options. Remember a few posts back (maybe on another thread, it's so hard to keep track...) where someone was talking about using the Elio engine as the motor for a lightweight aircraft. So what would it take to make the the Elio into a flying car? Maybe a gliding car?

(Personal opinion alert!) Realistically, with the engine it has, you could make the Elio fly if you cut out about 700lbs of weight and made it a gyroplane. However, the amount of cutting away that would require would probably make it no longer (legally) road worthy. You'd need to replace all the glass with plasic windows, replace the body panels with fabric (or maybe thin aluminum), and the wheels with light-duty aircraft wheels. Then we remove the transmission and drive axles, put in gear reduction between the shaft and the prop, and add on a tail and the free-wheeling rotor.

By the time you've gone through all that work, you might as well just put the Elio engine into a Little Wing gyroplane kit instead

 

[Muzhik]

Is the P5 unveil scheduled for the Los Angeles car show? I just checked the photo gallery on the web site ( http://laautoshow.com/debut-vehicles/ ) and there are a LOT of spaces set aside for some manufacturer called "TBA".

BTW, the photo for the Jaguar F-PACE makes it look like it lost a fight with some drugged out paintballers.

 

[Muzhik]

You'd need to replace all the glass with plastic windows, replace the body panels with fabric (or maybe thin aluminum), ...

By the time you've gone through all that work, you might as well just put the Elio engine into a Little Wing gyroplane kit instead

Mythbusters proved (or confirmed, anyway) that you can use duct tape to fix an airplane's body panels. Would that count as "fabric"? (Shades of Sopwith Camel!)

Also, do you need to have rotary-wing certification to fly that puppy?

 

[Sethodine]

Also, do you need to have rotary-wing certification to fly that puppy?

Yeah, a minimum of a Sport Pilot license (with gyroplane certification) would be required if you wanted to fly something like the Little Wing. A sport license only takes 20 hrs of flight time to get, so it's possible to get it in just 1 week (although most trainers would prefer 2, just so the ground-school training has time to sink in).

However, there are plans and kits to build ultralight ( <500 lbs GVW) gyros that require no license at all.

 

[Gizmo]

its good too see that the recent change in the title of this thread is so successful in helping get it back on track ....

Track(s)....ain't none!

 

[lnwlf40]

Right on Gizmo, until some sort of production data is released this thread is nothing more than a Cirque du Soleil.

 

[RUCRAYZE]

I don't see what's wrong with "general discu

ya nailed it,