I just found a great new idea for some Father’s Day fun. My wife showed me a Fox News article entitled “Flying car with 620-mile range scheduled for upcoming launch”, by Kurt Knutsson, Cyberguy, Fox News. This is an actual flying car, by Klein Vision, that is in production and about to go on sale. I have always been a car guy, read about them, test drove them, bored my wife to death talking about them. But this is a whole new ball game. Father’s Day Fun
First, I feel the need to share some of my experience with conventional cars. When I was a kid, I couldn’t afford anything but a bicycle for a long time. I could pedal really fast, which, believe it or not, did not particularly impress the young ladies. I learned to drive in a panel truck, four-speed manual, two gear ranges, hi and low. My father kept telling me to let out on the clutch slowly, so I kept letting it out ALL THE WAY slowly. He never mentioned there was a ‘friction point’ involved. I must have killed that engine a hundred times before I figured it out. But for some reason I grew to love a standard transmission, the old ‘four on the floor’. Father’s Day Fun
When I got my license, I was allowed to drive my mother’s 1969 Ford Mustang, 250 cubic inch 6-cylinder with 155 HP; you had to pedal it up hills. I had an old Pontiac Lemans (circa 1968) for a brief time, with a defective valve that kept breaking. One of the few times it was actually running, I totaled it when someone sideswiped me passing on a narrow country road. Then I drove an old Ford Fairlane for a while, until it mysteriously totaled itself on yet another country road. It seemed like those Midwestern country roads really hated cars driven by teenage boys. It must have been the cars. Mine always seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, often the junkyard. To be fair, that’s where those cars belonged anyhow. I didn’t have a lot of money back then. I bought each of them for a few hundred dollars. Not a lot of quality there, but they were cheap. Father’s Day Fun
In my twenties I drove old VW Beetles (see previous blogs), a Toyota Tercel, and a VW Golf at one point. The Beetles eventually gave way to rust, and the Tercel to a patch of black ice. I got up one frosty winter morning, headed down the hill in front of our house on the way to work, and notices several cars piled up together at the bottom of the hill. I thought that was odd, until I hit the brakes and just kept sliding…into that pile of cars. Bye-bye Tercel. Father’s Day Fun
I got married, with children, and then came the minivans, and one Ford Expedition after I became deathly allergic to minivans. Once the children were almost grown, I discovered the Jeep Wrangler, and my wife and I enjoyed a number of those over the years. I had three of them in all, one of which ran away to college with one of my daughters. Father’s Day Fun
I loved the Jeep Wrangler, although there were a few flaws. My index finger still hurts from repeatedly popping those strong plastic clips that attach the convertible top to the frame above the front doors. The top was not easy to put up and down, and if you got caught in the rain you needed an umbrella to hold over your head until you got the top up. Father’s Day Fun
I bought a 2006 Jeep and discovered the so-called ‘death wobble’. I bought it used, and it came with huge mud tires, with badly worn tread and front tires out of alignment. The first time my wife and I headed off on a country road, I hit a bump going around a curve and the front end developed a mind of its own, heading straight for the ditch. Fortunately, no one got hurt, we replaced the tires, and all was fun after that. It’s good to learn lessons like that, without dying. Father’s Day Fun
Then our overweight cat discovered that the convertible top of our Jeep, when parked in the carport, made a particularly comfortable hammock. No matter what I did, I couldn’t keep her off that top, and eventually it developed a sagging middle. It was time to look for something else for fun. (My wife and daughter wouldn’t let me get rid of the cat). Father’s Day Fun
The children grew up and left, and I finally had enough money to look for a serious sports car. However, I am 6’7″ tall, couldn’t fit into Porsche’s, almost broke my neck getting out of an MG Midget, and am not even comfortable in a Corvette, not enough head room. I did drive a BMW 3 Series with a six-speed manual and AWD drive for a while. It was okay, but it really didn’t feel like a fun toy. It was a little too expensive for me to be comfortable running it hard on curvy dirt or gravel roads. And I just wanted to play. Father’s Day Fun
Then I discovered the Subaru WRX, a reasonably priced sports/rally car with a six-speed-manual, plenty of power, and all-wheel-drive. I’ve had one since 2018, and I love the car. It corners like a dream, and I spent many a day playing ‘dodge the deer’ on twisty southern Virginia country roads. I’m still amazed today that I survived that venture into insanity. Father’s Day Fun
The WRX started out as a rally racing car and is at home on curvy dirt or gravel country roads, or blacktop, or the track for that matter. I had found my bliss. Then we moved to Florida, with nary a curvy road in sight. I still love to drive the car, and it’s still fun even when driving straight, but I do miss those curvy country roads. Best I can do in Florida is drive on some of the straight dirt roads in the swamp, sort of taking the WRX back to its rally roots. And it is fun to dodge the occasional alligator. Father’s Day Fun
Sorry, I wandered off into the land of cars, one of my happy places. I did have a Honda 250cc motorcycle at one point that I used to drive on the Washington, DC Beltway. But that’s another venture into the realm of lunacy. Suffice it to say that it’s not good to drive something on a busy superhighway that gets blown completely off the road by a passing tractor trailer. However, this does segway nicely into the topic of this blog, which is what I want for Father’s Day. The segway involves danger and imminent death, and what I want for Father’s Day?…a flying car. From what I saw in the aforementioned article, every father should have one. Father’s Day Fun
This article happened to be about the Klein Vision Flying Car, which will probably be the first in production. However, there are apparently several other companies also in the race. This thing is awesome; it drives like a sports car, parks like a sports car. At the push of a button in 80 seconds it grows wings and a tail, the steering wheel turns into an airplane controller, and airplane pedals magically appear. All you need is an airport runway, and off you go, into the wild blue yonder. Father’s Day Fun
It reportedly has three different size engines, the largest providing 340 HP, and a range of 620 miles. I told my wife we should get one, take a couple of months off, and fly around the world. My wife, ever the practical one, pointed out that it is 4,000 miles to the UK and 6,000 miles to Africa. She said, “Good luck finding a gas station in the middle of the Atlantic.” According to the article the company is working on an amphibious model of the flying car that will land on water. But instead of pointing this out, I took the easy way out and admitted that she has always been smarter than me, but I try. Father’s Day Fun
My wife asked me how much this flying car costs. I told her the article estimated between $800,000 and $1.2 million. Of course, she said we couldn’t afford it. I’m really sold on the idea of a flying car at this point. So, I suggested that we could sell our house, take out a loan, and she could go back to work for a while. She pointed out that if I am so excited about cars, perhaps I’d like to sleep in our car tonight. Or maybe I should go check the crack in the left rear taillight of our SUV, while she backs out of the garage on her way to the grocery store. Why are women so violent, when the husband comes up with great new ideas to have fun? Isn’t that our job, to provide family entertainment? Father’s Day Fun
I pointed out that Father’s Day is only a couple of weeks away. We could get into my new flying car and visit our daughters in Kentucky and NYC. That alone is worth the price. Again, being the cautious one, my wife asked if I could drive the thing. And what type of license would I need. I’m just over seventy years old and have been driving for a very long time. I don’t think this flying car thing would be much of a challenge. Father’s Day Fun
After a little online research, I discovered that I would need both a driver’s license and a private pilot’s license. But I’ve been driving for fifty years. And I’ve logged hours and hours playing online video games involving racing cars and fighter jets. That ought to suffice. How difficult could it be? Push the wheel forward to go down, pull it back to go up. Flap your arms really fast if you start to fall out of the sky. She pointed out that owning a flying car is not the same as being in a Road Runner cartoon. She’s probably right. A pilot’s license might help. Father’s Day Fun
The article indicated that one would require access to an airport runway to take off and land the flying car. I like to think out of the box. We live in Florida, where there’s about a million miles of I-95 just sitting there looking for all intents and purposes like an airport runway…a very busy one…but a runway, nevertheless. What a kick it would be to get stuck behind one of those damn tractor trailers that wander illegally into the far-left lane, fall back a little, push the ‘grow wings and a tail button’, come speeding up behind said tractor trailer and take off and fly over his head. What a rush! I can just see my wife clutching the ‘Oh-my-God bar’ for dear life. Hey, this flying car thing is sounding better and better all the time.” Father’s Day
My daughter in NYC lives in a very large apartment complex with a huge garden and walking/jogging path on top of the building. I have little doubt that I could land my flying car on that path and take off again after our visit. I have lots of training at dodging living things from my days of playing ‘dodge the deer’ in the countryside of southern Virginia. I’m sure I could easily dodge the joggers and walkers on the roof and land safely. Father’s Day Fun
Here in Florida, most of the condo complexes, including ours, have Olympic sized swimming pools. According to the article, this company is also developing an amphibious version of the flying car that can land and take off on water. I’m sure an Olympic sized pool should suffice. Again, my skills at ‘dodge the deer’ would come in handy for avoiding the elderly folks during their water aerobics class. Who needs a pilot license when you’ve played ‘dodge the deer’ for real in addition to all the racing and military aircraft games that I’ve played online over the years. I’ve got this.” Father’s Day Fun
Now all I’ve got to do is sell our house, convince my wife to go back to work, and take out a large loan. And what a Father’s Day it will be. I’m sure my wife and adult daughters will be behind this great idea 100%. How could they not be? We could visit the children more often and travel the world, at least 620 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. And it would be much more exciting than buying or renting an RV. Father’s Day Fun
Who knows, maybe some company will invent a flying RV in the near future. That would really be something. It would totally freak out that trucker on I-95 to see an RV come zooming up behind him and go airborne over his head. Only problem, RVs are much larger and take a longer distance to stop than a car. I guess in the future they’ll have to make those running tracks on the tops of buildings in NYC and the swimming pools in the Florida condos a little bit longer. Otherwise, this whole thing might become too dangerous. Father’s Day Fun
I do have a couple of concerns regarding a flying car. First, I need to fit in the thing. As I already said, I don’t fit into most sports cars. Hey, maybe I should contact Subaru and ask them if they could convert my WRX to a flying car. I know I fit into it. How cool would that be? My other concern is that they don’t move to electric flying cars before I can get my house sold and my wife back to work. I’m thinking an electric flying car might be a little too dangerous, since regular electric cars apparently tend to catch fire. I also wouldn’t want to land it on water and don’t have any place to charge it. I’m guessing my wife wouldn’t let me bring it into the living room. Father’s Day Fun
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! For those of you who don’t think your father would be interested in a flying car, perhaps he would like to add some laughter to his life. If so, you could buy him one of my comedy murder mysteries on Amazon; the links are available at johnjjessop.com. Both THE REALTOR’S CURSE and A FISHY TALE won 1st place Firebird Book Awards for Humor. Then there my brand-new book, HOLY CRAP. You won’t believe why it has that name. I’ve always believed that it’s much healthier if you don’t take life too seriously.