Art Bell interview (1 hour) and phone questions (1.5 hour?) of Dr. Paul Moller, July 13, 1999.

Some notes of the interview by Henry Lahore

Dr. Moller has 43 patents.

Less airflow from a landing skycar than from a landing helicopter.

Art Bell’s rotary Wankel engine auto became magnetized, and affected compass in auto.

Skycar’s rotary engine has so little vibration that a penny can be balanced on edge.

Should be able to fly as high as 30,000’, but will stay lower to keep away from the jet lanes.

Skycar should be low cost because the engines should be lost cost and they are the major cost of an auto [but skycar also has expensive electronics, pressurization, communication, etc.]

Very high production volumes might lower sales prices to $25,000. More expensive models would have such features as pressurization and noise cancellation.

Only auto companies are probably able to make small vehicles in high volumes. Auto companies have not been looking into the skycar – they tend to play catch-up.

Skycar has two parachutes to bring BOTH the skycar and passengers safely to the ground.

One parachute deploys at high speed and the second at slow speed.

Small airplane parachutes greatly increase the safety of flying certain small aircraft. This has resulted in a backlog of those aircraft since wives can now let their husbands buy small "macho" aircraft.

Should be able to hover at altitudes up to 7,500 feet.

Flying in skycar feels like flying on a magic carpet, whereas flying in a helicopter feels like flying under a crane ( lift from above)

Louvers to deflect the air downward act something like a roll-top desk.

Very reliable electronics, with 4 way voting redundancy.

Can slowly taxi on the ground with the small wheels which have disk brakes.

Skycar should share some features of top home-built aircraft: 300 miles per hour and 20 miles per gallon

Hovering, take-off, and landing all require lots of fuel.

Can use a wide range of fuels: automobile fuel (even as low as 80 octane), kerosene, diesel, etc.

Previous model has flown 200 times since first flight in1965. Interview by Walter Conkite back then.

2 stroke engines may become banned in US. [there may be some innovations to reduce the 2-cycle pollution] The Skycar engine, which can put out 2 horsepower per pound of engine and which has low pollution is also being developed as a replacement for many other engines.

Skycar lanes could be made every 200 foot of altitude. Lanes could be made for every 15 degree of the compass. There could be a low set (short distance) and a high set (long distance)of lanes

Skycar lift surfaces are similar to those on a fighter aircraft in that the surfaces are optimized for high speed flight and are not very susceptible to atmospheric turbulence.

PC simulations of skycar should be available "soon". Six companies have approached Moller International wanting to make Flight Simulator type simulations.

400 (private) stockholders.

While there are possible skycar opponents, they have not appeared: automobile manufactures, aircraft manufactures, airlines, governments with large investments in highways.

Less total pollution from skycar than from automobile for same trip (probably > 40 miles)

NASA has made skycar-type research a top priority for the 21^st century.

Dr. Moller is comfortable with the skycar airframe efficiencies but feels that the engine can be made a bit more efficient.

When skycars become very prevalent, most skycars will fly along very prescribed flight paths. There will probably be an opportunity for pleasure/thrill flights away from the urban areas.

Fastest rate of climb should be at 45 degrees. 1 mile per minute?

Automated flights will allow skycar trips by the blind, children, elderly, drunks, etc.