The “Magic Dragon” Aircar Development Project

The paper describes preliminary design of the Magic Dragon aircar, a fully integrated automobile and airplane with automated conversion, like magic. The design also features:

• an automobile-style lifting body with an automotive chassis and suspension;
• a front-mounted multi-bladed ducted fan propulsor to be operated in flight or at low power in the road mode with exhaust doors;
• a hybrid electric road drive with batteries charged by a generator on the engine;
• automatically folding swing-wings that may be stowed in the body while in the road mode and an automobile-style rear end and bumper that flips up to form a streamlined tail for flight.

The Magic Dragon is intended to be used on a daily basis as a productivity tool and recreational vehicle. For the former case, preliminary estimates indicate that the baseline trip may be accomplished via Magic Dragon in about the same time as would be required for travel via airliner or private auto and airplane. For the latter case, vacation travel or sport flying may be attractive from the view of scheduling. Designing the ‘Magic Dragon’ aircar is a “labor of love” work in progress by the author-inventor, whose background is in aerospace engineering.