Flying Car Crashes Near School, Now Everybody Wants A Cool Hang-Glidin’ Car
A flying car crash in Canada has sparked widespread new interest in the Maverick experimental aircraft — and that’s not too weird, since the pilot and passenger walked away with just minor cuts and bruises. As The Inquisitr reported yesterday, pilot Ray Siebring and his passenger ended up in a tree near an elementary school in Vernon, Canada as a result of a spiral during their landing approach.
Curtis Allen, a reporter on the scene for CTV, tweeted a photo of the crash, which you can see below. And our own Melissa Stusinski provided more details in her report.
The children at the nearby school were getting ready for a track and field day when the flying car crash occurred at around 9 AM local time.
However, the Maverick hit only a fence, which may have helped cut the speed of the final impact. Then they ended up in tree.
But Siebring noted that he never really lost complete control, and the kids weren’t ever in danger. As he told Canada’s Globe and Mail: “We were able to stop the rotation, but our altitude was critically low. I gave full power to dampen the forced landing and directed the aircraft…away from the school and into some woods.”
Is it the first ever flying car crash? Heck, not even close.
If you want a dangerous-sounding experimental aircraft, you have to open the automotive history books to check out Henry Smolinski’s AVE Mizar — an early 1970s era mashup of the Cessna Skymaster and a Ford Pinto.
The Ford Pinto is the car still remembered today for its famously fiery crashes.
Yeah, the AVE Mizar crashed. And its pilot and passenger were killed in what is probably the world’s first flying car wreck. But it wasn’t because a flying car is a bad idea. A National Transportation Safety Board suggested that whoever welded it together didn’t know how to make a decent weld. Ouch.
The Maverick seems to be considerably more safety conscious. It’s sort of a hang-glider meets dune buggy, and the purpose is to develop a prototype device for a flying car for missionaries in third (and fourth) world conditions.
When the road runs out, you can take to the air.
I’m not sure about the missionaries but, as a birder, there have been times when I could have used one of those myself.
The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) will of course investigate, as they do with all crashes. But there’s no reason to suspect wrong-doing and a lot of reason to be impressed that pilot and passenger walked away.
An experimental flying car cashes in #Vernon, meters from an elementary school field. @ctvbc twitter.com/CTV_Curtis/sta…
— Curtis Allen (@CTV_Curtis) May 10, 2013
I don’t know if I’m ready to spend almost $100K for what would be, for me, a toy. But I can see where it would be the right gift for the person who has everything.
Would you ever try a flying car?
[Maverick flying car photo by Tory Townsend via Wikimedia Commons]
