Daily Archives: July 26, 2006

Another Flying Car Post?

Since we haven’t met our usual quota of “Flying Car” posts in, oh, at least a month, I thought it would be appropriate to point out the latest on the subject detailed in this article over on Gizmag (“The Terrafugia Transition – is this the first viable flying car?” July 26th, 2006).

Terrafugia Transition nine views.jpg

Throwing their hat into the ring alongside the teams profiled in this Popular Science article (“The Daring Visionaries of Fringe Aviation” January 2005*), comes a team of aviation engineers from MIT proposing a 100 hp, $138K, folding-wing, pusher-prop design for delivery somtime in or around 2009.

(* True afficionados of all things Speculist should seek out this issue**, since it features not only personal aviation, but an interview with SENS-guru Aubrey de Grey)

(** Ironically, I ran across a dead-tree copy of this issue in the waiting area of a local car dealership [strictly earthbound models, alas] some 18 months after the cover date.)

Virtual VR

The technology isn’t quite there yet to provide true virtual vacations, but that’s not stopping a Russian company from offering what is arguably the next best thing:

Russians Enjoy ‘Total Recall’-Style Fake Vacations

Persey Tours, a travel agency in Moscow, was a failure at offering real tours. It has achieved success in recent months, however, by offering fake vacations instead.

For just 13,460 rubles (about $500 in American currency), Persey Tours will sell you all of the stuff you would expect to have after your exotic vacation: faked ticket stubs, hotel receipts and even photos with your picture professionally superimposed on exotic landmarks.

Just give Dmitry a call; he even faked a trip to the moon for $2,000 – the fake trip of a lifetime for a Siberian gas station owner who wanted to fly to the moon on Russian space craft.

I wonder what your $2000 gest you? I would think that a pretty convincing fake trip to the moon could be had for a lot less than that. Looks to me like the fake vacation business is wide open to some serious competition.