' Soaring to New Heights: Flying Cars and the Law | MTTLR

Soaring to New Heights: Flying Cars and the Law

For decades, innovators and science fiction enthusiasts have predicted the advent of a flying car, but until recently, that vision has remained just that, a vision.  Flying cars, however, may not be as far away as once thought.  At least two companies, AeroMobile and Terrafugia, have developed cars that can take to the skies, are street-legal, and can fit inside a one-car garage. Although still being tested, these two companies hope to have their car-planes ready for sale within the next two to twelve years.

Car-planes currently in production require a pilot’s license to operate, but other models, such as the Terrafugia TF-X, would takeoff, fly, and land completely on autopilot. This news comes as a relief for those looking to find an extra hour or two in their day.  With the TF-X, the driver could read the paper, get some work done, or even sleep on the commute to and from work.  Furthermore, with a range of 500 miles and a cruise speed of 200 miles per hour, the TF-X could significantly ease population growth in urban and suburban environments by allowing people to live much farther away from their offices and still have a reasonable commute.

The legal issues surround these car-planes are myriad. Just a few such issues include: who is liable for damage caused by a malfunctioning flying system, who will inspect the car-planes before flight like pilots currently do for their aircraft, how will flight patterns be arranged, is this something for the federal government to regulate or is this an area of law reserved to the states, and do the laws governing cars or the laws governing planes take precedent and in certain situations? If car-planes are to become ubiquitous, then the law will have to catch up with the future of transportation.

Unfortunately, most of the law surrounding flying cars has yet to be created.  However, there has been some movement by government regulators in this area.  Terrafugia won approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) with respect to the classification of its current model (the Transition) as light-sport aircraft and the right to deviate from standard automobile materials. Although small victories in relation where the law will need to be for car-planes to become pervasive, these approvals indicate that the proper authorities are cognizant of this technology and are giving credence to the idea that the future of transportation may change drastically in the next few decades. As the technological world moves ever closer toward the commercial sale of car-planes, the FAA and the NHTSA must be ready to meet the challenge and keep the law current with today’s rapidly changing technology.

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Cory Smith is an editor on the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, and a member of the University  Michigan Law School class of 2016.

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