Three Slots Open For $250,000 Personal Air Vehicle Challenge

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Think you have the airplane/flying car of the future ready to show its stuff? There could be $250,000 in prize money waiting for you in the first annual Personal Air Vehicle Challenge. The CAF Foundation, a group of homebuilders that evolved into an organization promoting the flying-car concept, is organizing the event and its funded by a $2 million injection from NASA in something called the Centennial (referring to the centennial of flight) Challenges. The first contest gets under way Aug. 4, and organizers say three slots have opened up by competitors withdrawing. Given the parameters of the competition, its perhaps easy to understand why these folks didnt think they would measure up. [more] According to the general guidelines of the competition, the CAF Foundation is looking for a combination of a Cessna 150 and a Ferrari that runs on peanut oil and is as affordable as travel by car or an airliner. The PAVs that do show up for the competition will be judged on flying qualities, efficiency, short-field capability, noise and speed, and the common thread in all the flight trials is ease of use and low pilot workload. The foundation claims that almost half of all future travel will be accomplished in “near all-weather STOL PAVs [that] will be able to transport people to within just a few miles of their doorstep destination at trip speeds three to four times faster than airlines or cars.”

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