I receive any number of email newsletters, touting the next futuristic thing. This one caught my attention: The Transition. Its designers tout the Transition as not being not a flying car. Rather it is a “roadable aircraft.” With a pair of 10-foot-wide foldable wings, it is a single-engine, pusher-prop airplane which can drive on the road when it lands. As such, The Transition must meet Federal Aviation Administration standards when it is an airplane and National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and Environmental Protection Agency regulations when on the road.
What makes the Transition so interesting to me is not the flying car concept. This idea has been around for decades. What is so interesting is its regulatory origins. According to Popular Science, the Transition’s inventor, Carl Dietrich, got the idea from a 2004 Federal Aviation Administration rule change. The FAA created a new class of planes, called light-sport aircraft. To fly one, pilots would need only 20 hours of training, half that required for the most common license (haven’t gotten mine, yet).
I have made the point in a previous Cool Stuff, that there is some optimal level of regulation, which while guarding against the “morals of the marketplace”, would still enable new firms to enter. These new firms bring with them, new forms of welfare-enhancing competition and new business models not contemplated by the regulator at the time when it promulgates its rule changes.
Insight: I simply must have one. I think I will clean out my garage so I have space for it to park next to my sQuba.
