A flying Tercel? New military flying car project

[Petros]

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is always soliciting new ideas under their Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program for both possible military and commercial applications. Recently they requested proposals for a flying car as follows:

"A personal air vehicle that could transport 2 to 4 personnel either by driving on the ground or by flying would be suitable for many military scouting and personnel transport missions. This personal air vehicle should also have a vertical take-off capability that is not restricted to prepared surfaces for the most military utility. Desired personal air vehicle characteristics would be the ability to fly for 2 hours carrying a 2 to 4-person payload on one tank of fuel and can also safely travel of roads. The vehicle must be no wider than 8.5 feet and no longer than 24 feet, and no higher than 7 feet when in the road configuration."

The full description is at (scroll down to the bottom): http://www.dodsbir.net/solicitation/sbi ... rpa091.htm

This got me day dreaming about a small Hummer-like AWD off road vehicle, made of light weight aluminum and just big enough to seat 4, with a really powerful engine (I figure it would take 250 to 300hp), with a fixed overhead central rotor mast and removable tail rotor boom driven by a power take-off from the trans. Knowing the military they would want it four seat (not two) and to use either diesel or jet fuel so they would not have to carry around a different fuel for it. They would also want to use US made components and parts as much as possible. Then I was thinking about what existing engines, jeep or truck like vehicles or other useful parts are available to make this work, and then it struck me....

How about a flying Tercel? Get a junk one somewhere, strip out all the interior, bumpers, and other excess weight. Install a turbo-charge 4AGE (or even 7AGE) that can be tweaked up to 500 hp according to some (but I think keeping it in the 250 hp range would be adequate for reliability), no emissions controls are necessary. Then making a power take-off from the blanking plate on the back of the the tranny bell housing to drive a differential, mounted vertical right between the driver/passenger front seats. This would drive a power mast and collective control just above the roof (it has to rotate at about 450 rpm). The power mast would have removable 20 ft rotor blades, and there would be a removable tail boom with a drive shaft that drives the tail rotor. Rudder peddles that operate the tail rotor could fold down from under the dash, the collective control would be stowed on the ceiling and fold down for flight. The center panel could be converted to flight interments. Add some big mudder tires with high lift springs, gas shocks, light weight skid plates of overland use.

And presto, you have a flying car that meets all of the DARPA requirements! All made from junk yard parts, salvaged aircraft stuff, with a lot of welding, and some custom machining of the adapters, mounts and a few other parts.

Normally DARPA first accepts written proposals for evaluation (always with a lot of fancy analysis), and if they like it will fund your small business up to $750,000 to build a working prototype. This program has yielded a lot of new "toys" the military uses in the field (like a flying model airplane with a remote camera that solders launch and fly over buildings or hills to look for enemy). In concept the program is good, in reality for any small business to work with the military could lead to a lot financial trouble because of paperwork, legal requirements, delays and bureaucracy.

I have done a few smaller government contracts with my current business, and there is a tiresome amount of paperwork to do, and it takes forever to get payment (8 to 10 months or more). I have also worked on large government projects with former employers, and none of it was pleasant. But the flying Tercel Idea got me thinking again.

It would be more fun and probably take less time to actually build one of these from a combination of junkyard car parts and salvaged aircraft stuff and actually get it flying than it takes to fill out all the forms and wait for DARPA to review, evaluate and decide to fund your project.

It would be a real kick in the rear to actually build one with a few thousand dollars worth of junk, and then just send them a video of a camo Tercel climbing sand dunes, going in and out of bomb craters, bouncing over creeks, it comes to a stop and then the crew attaches the rotor and tail boom and it takes off vertically. I even know a professional helicopter pilot (self employed, does his own work on his helicopter), and several machine/welding shop owners who might make them for us.

I would love to do this, and just tell them "if you want it, you can buy them from us at $100,000 each, and we are not filling out any paperwork. If you do not want any, we we will sell them to someone else"

So, who's in?

Any comments? (I was going to splice a picture of a Tercel4wd with a helicopter rotor and tail boom but found I did not have the right kind of photo editing software, anyone want to do that for us?)

[ARCHINSTL]

Petros - BRAVO........(as usual ! ).
Maybe shoot for a proposal submission of 1 April 2009?

Couldn't you just see it -
Robert Duvall in front of a command SR5 saying "I just love the smell of napalm in the morning,"
with squadrons of cammie HueyTercels swooping over the horizon with the distinctive and menacing
ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa * of their engines droning and echoing over the land ....
Tom M.

P.S. Reminds me of a couple of flying cars from the late '40s - which did work.
* For those unfamiliar with his work - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/6821/thurber.html.
........Haven't we all had these moments, as our T4WD roared across the finish line in Ensenada, having set a new
........record in the Baja, and the trophy girls approach dusty and dirty Tom and Goldie with the magnums of
........Dom Perignon - only to have the alarm ring...?

[terceldude]

pictures?????