I wanted to do a flying car post for one of my first articles, because it seems like the quintessential future technology people have been dreaming about.

How we’ve imagined the flying car

When we think of the future we often think of the flying car. We’ve seen this technology imagined time and time again in illustrations and movies.

Maybe you remember the flying car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

and Blade Runner

and of course Back to the Future (Part II)

Blade Runner was set in 2019 and Back to the Future Part II took us to 2015, so clearly we thought we’d have flying cars by now.

In researching this article, I was surprised by how many flying cars weren’t actually cars. They could fly and were meant to be simple or intuitive for the average person, as opposed to the complexity of airplanes. However, few of them seemed to be actually useful for driving on the road for any significant distance. Then I came across Switchblade, a car designed to fly.

Switchblade is a car designed to fly

The Switchblade, available from Samson Sky, is billed as the world’s first practical flying sports car. Not only does it fly, but it also can be driven. The car has two seats and operates on three wheels. The plane has wings that rotate out from the underside of the plane, hence the name Switchblade. The recently updated design includes a tail portion that also tucks away in the back of the car.

Introducing the Switchblade

Enhanced Design of Tail Storage

The car runs and flies on the typical gas you buy (premium perhaps). One drawback is that in order to use the flying functionality, you do have to takeoff at an airport. But I suppose you can just drive yourself there.

Switchblade’s wing design

I was able to find three granted patents for the Switchblade.

Telescoping wing and airfoil control mechanism US7866610

Folding beam for swinging wing US11691714

Flying vehicle retractable wing hinge and truss US10293935

What I found basically had to do with the retractable wings. It looks like the creator and CEO, Samuel Bousfield, initially may have thought of using a telescoping wing. I do wonder about the practicality and the deformation the telescoping portions would encounter when flying.

Ultimately the wing they went with is solid, folds and swings out from vehicle’s body. It is likely closely related to the ‘714 and ‘935 patents.

The wings rotating out kinda remind me of the mechanism imagined in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. CCBB (I can’t write that movie name much more) instead had a fabric or flexible wing reminiscent of an umbrella or a glider. I guess that was useful for catching the wind as the car didn’t have to take off and only caught the wind once it was already airborne. Maybe the production designers were worried about that, maybe not.

At any rate, I do wonder if there is a patent for the tail portion, as that seems rather innovative as well.

I was not able to find where you could just purchase it, but the website does have a form for reserving one. If you do want to buy, the estimated cost of an entry level model is $170,000. Interestingly, you can get financing for this specific vehicle from a bank not too far from Samson Sky’s headquarters.