Day 97: A Decent Flying Car

Kit has had an odd old day. She has been in a funny mood all day – not really wanting to play, but wanting to play, not really interested in food, but wanting to be interested in food… those kind of things. Haven’t been able to keep her happy at all. Hopefully, she’ll be ok in the morning.

I did a bit of work – I have a bit of a problem that I needed to make a decision about before going much further. I won’t bore you with the details of it, but that choice has been sorted for now so I can carry on.

Mrs Pitts’ sister is over from Morecambe tomorrow for the week, so plans are being made for the week ahead. Looking forward to it.

Band was good. Quite a few people who are making return appearances after quite a hiatus. Not sure how long they will be around but the sound of the group was very pleasant tonight. This was particularly obvious to me on percussion as most of the pieces we played tonight didn’t involve any form of bashing and so I had the absolute pleasure of listening to some wonderful playing.

After band, a cache (GC46HE5), and a quick pizza as we were hungry, QI XL Series 9, Episode 6, “Inventive”, was on Dave. Nothing massively odd or interesting about that, but this snippet of information intrigued me. It was about the AVE Mizar, a road based flying machine.

The prototypes of the Mizar were made by mating the rear portion of a Cessna Skymaster to a Ford Pinto. The pod-and-twin-boom configuration of the Skymaster was a convenient starting point for a hybrid automobile/airplane. The passenger space and front engine of the Skymaster were removed, leaving an

airframe ready to attach to a small car. AVE planned to have their own airframe purpose-built by a subcontractor for production models, rather than depending on Cessna for airframes.According to Peterson’s Complete Ford Book, by mid-1973, two prototypes had been built and three more were under construction. One prototype was slated for static display at Galpin Ford, owned by AVE partner Bert Boeckmann of Sepulveda, California. The other prototype, fitted with a Teledyne Continental Motors 210 horsepower (160 kW) engine, was unveiled to the press on May 8, 1973. It then began a series of taxi tests at Van Nuys, California. AVE made special arrangements to do flight testing at the U.S. Navy’s test facilities at Point Mugu, California. AVE stated that FAA certification flights were underway in mid-1973.The Mizar was intended to use both the aircraft engine and the car engine for takeoff. This would considerably shorten the takeoff roll. Once in the air, the car engine would be turned off. Upon landing, the four-wheel braking would stop the craft in 525 feet (160 m) or less. On the ground, telescoping wing supports would be extended and the airframe would be tied down like any other aircraft. The Pinto could be quickly unbolted from the airframe and driven away.Production was scheduled to begin in 1974. AVE had stated that prices would range from US$18,300 to US$29,000.

Here is a short video about it:

Hello Tania – I hope the feeds are going well.