Roadable Aircraft Market Potential

Skyblazer is a new class of vehicle and so there are no specific historical data available on its market potential. Unlike any other aircraft, however, Skyblazer’s potential is not confined to the existing aviation market but, like an automobile, extends to the general public. Comparative figures from the automobile and airplane industry show vast difference in sales potential. In the USA in 2001 there were over 12 million new cars and trucks sold, compared to only 2510 personal aircraft – giving aviation a minuscule 0.021% share of the ‘personal vehicle’ market. Even capturing just one half of one percent of this potential market would give Skyblazer annual sales of 6500 units – about 200 times the average for general aviation. In this respect, although transportation in general is considered a ‘mature’ technology, the potential for Skyblazer is entirely untapped.

The initial cost of a production Skyblazer …

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Roadable Aircraft History

In the last 100 years there have been more than 70 attempts to develop a successful Flying Car ‘ clearly the concept has been enduringly attractive. Very few attempts have met with any technical success, however, and those that actually worked to any extent had poor performance as a car or a plane ‘ or both.

The difficulties of designing a successful Flying Car are enormous. The design requirements of a ground vehicle are so different to those of an airplane, that the task of trying to marry the two sets of requirements together into one craft presents many challenges.

An analysis of the history shows that most designs compromise the road vehicle mode in order to provide a flyable aircraft. These vehicles generally have an impractical shape and size, making them unable to fit in with other road traffic. Many have unsafe design concepts like exposed …

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Automobiles and airplanes were both inventions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Both of these personal transportation alternatives cost about the same when they first came out but the public never embraced the airplane like they did the automobile. The growth in auto sales was meteoric, while airplanes (excuse the pun) just never got off the ground. Today the average production volume of a private airplane is less than 40 units in a year, with one airplane produced for every 4,500 cars – that’s more cars made every hour than airplanes made in two years!

The great gift of automobiles is that they give us the power to travel wherever we want, door to door, whenever we choose. Even though they are comparatively slow and subject to our increasing traffic congestion, they still offer personal freedom and convenience – they are relevant to our lives – they get …

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