Flying deals that'll give wings to your flying dreams

The Transition by Terrafugia, a start-up in Woburn Massachusetts, is a lightweight sport, roadable aircraft. With a unique foldable wing design, the Terrafugia Transition makes integration of personal land and air travel possible with inputs in design and formation by the engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The rodable plane with 20 gallons fuel capacity manages 120 mile per hour cruising speed at 75% power for about for about 450 miles on a single fuel charge. The Transition does 30 miles per gallon in the air or city with 40 miles to the gallon on the highway. It has a maximum wingspan of 325in (27ft), length is 225in (18.75ft), Height is 80in (6.75ft) and width when folded up 80in (6.75ft). Terrafugia Transition’s first successful flight was conducted on March 5, 2009 in Pittsburgh.

Pricing & Availability:

Work is underway on Stage 2, the Beta Prototype. First delivery is expected in 2011 for a very heavy price tag of $194,000.

Jetpacks aren’t a new thing for us, but this is for the first time that a company has geared up to produce jetpacks commercially, which gives each one of us a chance to fly like a bird. The Martin jetpack was on action on eBay sometime last year, then it was selling for $30,000. Now, the company is getting this 200 horsepower dual-propeller jetpack to us, which promises a flight of 7,800ft at 60mph a gallon. There’s no place here for the environmentally conscious fellows, but the adventure freaks have nowhere to hide from this 5×5ft, 250lbs gas engine powered voyage machine. .

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At $77,000 Martin Aircraft is readying the jetpack for a trilling adventure in the sky.

Adorning a real sporty design with a lightweight chassis, the Parajet SkyCar stuffs within it a 140bhp engine. Capable of doing 0 to 62mph in 4.2 seconds, the SkyCar has a top speed of 140mph. For the flying mode the car takes to the skies from the field in under 200m at a required speed of 37mph. The SkyCar can stay airborne for about 200 miles and in the flight mode can reach speeds of up to 100mph. Parajet has offered its road legal flying car, the SkyCar, for pre-orders for a refundable £10,000 (about $16,381), after its inaugural flight, an incredible journey from London to Tombouctou turned out a real success.

Pricing & Availability:

Expected to start selling toward the end of 2010 for an estimated price of £50,000 (approx $81,700).

The dream flying machine – M400, by Moller International is one of its kind personal vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicle that can cruise at a maximum speed of 375 MPH at 13,200 ft. M400 Skycar that is currently in development runs on ethanol and achieves up to 20 miles per gallon carrying four passengers at the maximum. The 2,400 lbs vehicle equips a 1,200 HP engine and emergency parachutes.

Pricing & Availability:

A prototype version of the M400 is available. In October 2006, Moller attempted to auction the only prototype of its M400 model on eBay. It failed to sell. Moller has priced the M400 for about $500,000.

New Zealand inventor Rudy Heeman’s flying machine built using scooter parts and a barbecue gas bottle was on up for auction. Built over a period of eleven years the flying hovercraft by Heeman starts as a normal hovercraft - but once it hits 70kmh, it takes off on its (detachable) wings. It can reach 100kmh, and has a 1.8 liter engine and 225km range. New Zealand authorities have classified it as a marine craft therefore the buyer wouldn’t even need a flying license get on board here.

Pricing & Availability:

The flying hovercraft is available amid us for a price of about $27,000.

Mexico based Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana has built a prototype rocket belt that is custom-made to pilot’s size and weight. This is the kind of flying machine that we’ve seen in James Bond movies It runs on a hydrogen peroxide fuel and is thus quite heavy (124 to 139 pounds.) The catch, a single ride lasts only 30 seconds. That won’t get you too far, I believe.

Pricing & Availability:

The total price is about $250,000.

The PAL-V One is a hybrid of a car, a motorbike and a gyroplane: a personal air and land vehicle. On the ground, the slim line, aerodynamic 3-wheel vehicle has the comfort of a car, but the agility of a motorbike, thanks to its patented cutting-edge ‘tilting’ system. Airborne, the PAL-V One flies usually below 4,000 feet. The PAL-V One is highly fuel-efficient and powered by a state of the art aircraft certified engine. It runs on petrol like a conventional car and can reach speeds of up to 185 km/h (125 mph) both on land and in the air.

Pricing & Availability:

Customer cars will be ready by 2011 with a price tag of €100,000 (approx. $135,000).

Developed by Raymond Li, the Jetlev-Flyer or the water powered jetpack has a hose attached to his pack, with engine and water pump placed in separate vessel, dragging behind the pack. Li did this to reduce his weight, and also the amount of thrust needed to stay aloft more stably, just like the fuel powered jetpacks. Controlled with a throttle on the handgrip, Raymond Li’s Jetlev-Flyer can provide up to two hours of continuous flight. Generating 430 pounds of thrust the jetpack letting the user fly forward at 22 mph up to three stories high.

Pricing & Availability:

Jetlev-Flyer is almost ready for production and would demand about 130,000.

The X-Hawk - the revolutionary, modular, VTOL flying car is being developed by an Urban Areonautics and an team Israeli engineers, lead by Rafi Yoeli, to save people from burning high-rises or the military rescuing soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. Yoeli and has team have built a rudimentary vehicle that can hover about 3 feet off the ground. The X-Hawk’s rotorless design permits secure access to almost any location. It has been made with FAA approved engines and rotors, and all necessary safety requirements for powered lift vehicles; this to minimize fuss in the certification process. The completed version is expected to be able to take off vertically, fly up to 155 miles an hour and as high as 12,000 feet and remain aloft about two hours.

Pricing & Availability:

Marketable version of the X-Hawk flying car this year, for an estimated price of $1.5 million.

Jetpack International’s Jet Pack H202 manages to fly for about 33 seconds. There is a different version on the website -Jet Pack H202-Z, which manages a flight time of 43 seconds. All thanks to its increased capacity that stands at a neat 8 gallons of H202. Jetpack International is currently working on a turbine-engine based version which will blow our minds away. The company claims that the product, will be able to fly over a distance of 27 miles. The T73 Turbine will run on jet fuel and will be far better than what is available currently.

Pricing & Availability:

Jet packs are commercially available but sold only to qualified individuals that have undergone extensive training. Price starts at about $155,000.

This Flying car prototype built by the father-son duo of Chris and Jame Milner, thrilled visitors at the at the New York International Auto Show. The retractable and foldable wings conceal some of the airplane hardware making this one compact machine. The Milners’ have made the Car-plane roadworthy while they are working away furiously to make it lift and it should be good until sometime later this year. On the road the flyer can mile munch at 85mph, while in the air, a good cruising speed of 200 miles at an almost mile high 25000 feet is possible.

Pricing & Availability:

The flyer is expected to go into production sometime later this year, for a demanding price of about $500,000.