The flying car

A company called Terrafugia is developing a flying car, called the 'Transition', which, they promise, will be available for purchase by 2009. Sadly, the Transition doesn't appear to have vertical take-off and landing capabilities. The idea is that you drive it to your local airport, unfold the wings, and take-off. This rather detracts from one of the reasons for owning a flying car; namely, to avoid the road congestion around places such as airports. However, I guess that, once in the air, you would be travelling faster than the peasants still clinging to the surface of the planet below you.

The Terrafugia website invites interested parties to order now by putting down a $7,400 deposit www.terrafugia.com/deposit.html. The Terrafugia VP of Sales and Marketing appears to be one Alex B.Min. And he will, I'm sure, be found 'B min' like a cheshire cat if enough people fall for that one.

The man behind the Transition is an MIT prodigy called Carl Dietrich: www.boston.com/yourlife/articles/2006/02/15/baby_you_can_fly_my_car/

This article claims that Dietrich has a 'portfolio' of novel inventions, including a "desktop-sized fusion reactor". So not only has Carl solved the problem of controlled fusion, and thereby solved all the world's energy problems in one fell swoop, but he has done so without the use of huge lasers and superconducting magnets, in a handy desktop-sized package. And, not only that, but he's decided to concentrate on the flying car instead.