User:RichStrong/StrongMobile

The project is the brain-child of retired Air Force Command Pilot-Aero Engineer Rich Strong, that he developed as a part-time "labor of love" over a 50-year period, beginning with a stint of several years with Cadillac Motors and the Naval Air Reserve in his hometown of Detroit. The project has evolved from being Rich's personal "dream car" to a vehicle for anyone to make and use. Currently, Rich is operating from the home office nearby the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he served for over twenty years flying transport planes and doing systems engineering, aircraft equipment modification and flight testing, and research, after tours in *FAC airplanes and jeeps.

You may see here an in-depth preliminary study that shows you: 1) an ingenious design; 2) a convenient operational plan, and 3) a sustainable business model plan, like "diamonds in the rough".

Patents are expired, so StrongMobile designs are offered gratis for development, production, sales, and service. More than thirty thousands of *Website Visitors have surfed for "flying car, aircar, flyable automobile" and viewed this study, so you can watch for some entrepreneurs. investors, and manufacturers to cut and polish the rough diamonds and make shining gems for you to drive and fly within a few years!

The problem is that most business people are located in hundreds of city-markets, with many that are 200 to 400 miles apart, and even farther by fuel-wasting, time-wasting, congested, under construction and repair, grid-locked, zig-zaggy road routes, or on islands surrounded by water without any road routes. If they wish to visit other businesses in a one-day trip, then the question is, "How far away can you travel by car in a day?" The answer is - "about 200 miles." You may wish to drive the 200 to 400 miles and back in one day, but, the highway system is too slow to allow you to fulfill your wish, and is forecast to be even more congested, more worn-out, and slower in the future. So, if you need to go 200-400 miles, then you need to plan for a two-day trip, with an overnight in a motel or hotel. Business travellers and urgent cargo movers could increase their productivity and profitability, while decreasing hassles by flying quickly between cities AND driving easily within them in one day. If you want to avoid wasting time, then you think of flying in an airplane as a faster way to go. There are thousands of nearly-empty small airports you could use to fly in nearly-empty skies; however, most airports are located out of towns, so you will need some form of road transportation, such as rental cars or taxis, to get to and from your destinations in towns and suburbs, along with the hassle of transferring from car to plane and vice versa.

Airplane owners and renters still waste precious time, hassling from car to plane and vice versa, such as parking, transferring baggage, renting and returning cars, and readying and securing their airplanes. If their airplanes are really fast, doing over 200 knots, they may be able to travel out and back about 400 miles, if they don't object to doing four conversions from car to plane and renting car and vice versa - quite a busy workday.

Airline travellers must deal with even more problems of scheduling, ticket cost, reservations, hub-and-spoke routing, seatmates, overbooking, lost baggage, rental car costs, and security queues and baggage restrictions. Long-distance flights at hubs require linking trips from locations away from the hubs.

WHAT IF your car had wings and could fly, so you could travel twice as fast and twice as far - 400 miles? An optimum solution to the problem may be automatically transformable aircars that combine the speed of airplanes and the convenience of cars, avoiding the conversion hassles, with aircars such as those described here, StrongMobiles.

The main features of the Strongmobile are: 1. The automobile style body provides easy entering and egressing and comfortable seating. 2. The body-fuselage will make a substantial contribution to lift in flight. 3. The engine is to be muffled to automobile standards; 4. The ducted fan system provides space for the front wheels so the system blends into the body. 5. The size of the wing is decreased via Warp Action Spoiler Plate, "WASP", ailerons that allow the use of full-span flaps. 6. The fan exhaust blows onto the wing to boost lift. 7. The ducted fan reduces noise substantially compared to open propeller blades.

During transform to road operation, 1. the wingtips are folded in under the main wings, 2. the main wings are swung back, 3. with the flaps overlapping, and stowed in the rear of the body. During flight, the wing stowage bays will be covered by folding cover panels. This stowage arrangement provides for low side-wind effects and a low center of mass for stability. 4. The front safety grill is made of a low-drag thin wire grill. 5. The front bumper is swivel-mounted. 6. The rear bumper and fairing is swung up to streamline the afterbody for flight. 7. The "pi-tail", named from its resemblance to the Greek letter pi when viewed from front or rear, extends the automobile styling trend for rear-end spoilers for improving braking.

The StrongMobile will use Commercial Off-The-Shelf automobile suspension, including wheels, brakes, and steering, instead of aviation technology, to withstand the rigors of driving; and The Dragon design may use an off-the-shelf transaxle with engine adapter. A key design problem is the Power Take-Off, PTO, from the engine, for the mechanical road drive. A center keel was designed in to carry fore-and-aft loads, with conventional side rails. The design uses off-the-shelf coil springs and dampeners for the wheel suspension. Similarly, COTS steering and braking are to be used. The use of standard automobile steering for taxiing, take-off, and landing is expected to provide a much easier and safer operation and eliminate the annoyance of trying to learn how to steer with foot pedals. The inventor notes that the airplanes he flew for thousands of hours for the USAF, Convair twin-engine trainers, had separate nosewheel steering wheels.

The designs are continually being reviewed and revised and refined.