The Osprey looks so stupid that I have been looking at all of the flying car stuff on the net. Years ago Moller had a picture of the Moller 440E in Vanity Fair and there is now a Moller Skycar site that sells toys.
Aerocoupe was probably the most successful of the flying cars since it really wasn’t a car at all but a slow and cheap airplane that operated like a car.
This guy Paul Moller of the Skycar has been around for a good long time.
His stuff at least looks more sensible than the Osprey, though I wonder if his things really fly. It would be a good thing if he flew one around from place to place like Orville flew up the Hudson River.
I myself imagine a flying car, or VTOL machine with the jet turbofan engines mounted at the very tips of the wings, on wings that changed shape as needed for takeoff, landing, and cruise flight.
What I would direct my designers to do would be first to find the most efficient turbofan engine available.
Second I would direct them to mate that to a wing that would change shape through hydraulic and pnuematics as if to replicate the wings of a seagull.
Really what I would instruct my designers to do would be to build a seagulls wings out of fabric and tubing and joints and put jet turbofan engines on the tips to lift and carry the body of the craft.
The pivot for my thinking in this area is that the propulsion for a seagull comes from their wingtips and how they move.
A small ball gimbal servo motor geared round tip mounted set of engines on changable shape wings would replicate the flight ablities of seagulls who I have witnessed stopping in midair and doing a 360 degree roll in one spot without losing altitude.
I was standing on top of a 5000 gallon fuel truck at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International and a seagull flew up to me and put out its wings, stopped, looked at me, put one wing up and one wing down and rolled over, put its wings out, looked at me again, and then flew off.
Studies of the seagulls wing have revealed that it is the tips of their jointed wing that provide thrust and this is why I would want to recreate their wings for my aircraft.
Computer control of the hydraulic and pneumatic internal structure is now possible and ought to undertaken for military purposes since I expect the Osprey to be a general failure all around because of the size of the rotors at the wingtips.
To fix the Osprey I would put Turbofan engines of appropriate thrust where those idiot rotors are, and see if it flew.
Love, Russell