飞行汽车制造商Samson Sky刚刚打破记录，获得了Switchblade的第800个正式订单预订，这是一款高性能的空中和地面车辆，能够以2017年的Corvette的功率重量比达到190英里/小时。 据Samson Sky通过美通社报道，这些预订涉及24个国家，美国有46个州，加利福尼亚州，佛罗里达州和德克萨斯州领先国内排行榜。

Switchblade与乘用无人机行业目前的垂直起降（VTOL）标准不同，因为它是一种固定翼飞行器，需要简易机场着陆和起飞。 与此同时，Workhorse，Volocopter，EHang和Uber等公司正在推动VTOL方法，其原型的每个开发阶段目前都在生产中。对于拥挤的城市环境，消除对跑道的需求是一种完全合乎逻辑的策略，可以将额外的基础设施放在一边。 当然，这些公司将不得不建立以无人机为中心的乘客发射台并将其转移到各个城市的特定区域，但依靠预先建立的简易机场的不便不会影响体验。 您可能会争辩说，从一条跑道到另一条跑道的飞行车与传统的飞机体验并没有太大不同，此时您可能会问自己，您的新交通方式究竟有多么不同。

“即使假设技术有效，他们将在哪里降落？”南安普顿大学交通研究小组负责人约翰普雷斯顿说。对于Samson Sky首席执行官Sam Bousfield来说，VTOL运输对于大众来说是站不住脚的，并且不可避免地只会为一小部分富裕人士提供方便的空中通勤。 Bousfield相信，为飞行汽车创建一条空中走廊将证明是一项更有价值的努力，而且比Uber等人正在探索的VTOL计划更聪明。

“这是引入这一概念的一种聪明方式，”Bousfield在建立空中飞行汽车走廊时表示。 “我认为优步的马克摩尔看到了这个机会，但他意识到有一种渐变的方法可以让改变变得如此重要。 我们拥有的是未来和今天的成功设计，因此我们推进了开发和测试。“Samson Sky上个月在威斯康星州奥什科什的EAA AirVenture首次公布了最终形式的Switchblade。 虽然该公司声称其10年项目是在考虑现有基础设施的情况下开发的，但在讨论现有基础设施无法提供乘客无人机体验固有的便利性时，这与VTOL公司的观点完全相同。

优步，空中客车和EHang已经设计了他们的乘客无人机，具体考虑了建筑物和道路的基础设施限制，因为如果您降级到跑道起飞和着陆，城市内的交通似乎无法进行。 无论这些决定如何，Bousfield的项目似乎都在起飞，因为已有数百名客户提出正式预订。

“我们现在必须增加我们计划的初始生产设施的规模，以满足我们对Switchblade不断增长的需求，”他说。最终，关于飞行汽车的终身讨论仍在继续，只有原型，计划和实际实施的预计时间表可供我们使用。 Switchblade的交付日期不可用。

英文版

English version

Sales of flying cars hit a record high of 800 bookings

Samson Sky, the flying carmaker, has just broken the record and won the 800th official order for Switchblade, a high-performance air and ground vehicle capable of reaching 190 miles per hour at Corvette's power-to-weight ratio in 2017. According to Samson Sky through the Associated Press, the bookings cover 24 countries, with 46 states in the United States, California, Florida and Texas leading the domestic charts.

Switchblade differs from the current vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) standard in the passenger UAV industry because it is a fixed-wing aircraft that requires a simple airport to land and take-off. Meanwhile, companies like Workhorse, Volocopter, EHang and Uber are pushing the VTOL approach, and each stage of the prototype development is currently in production. For crowded urban environments, eliminating the need for runways is a perfectly logical strategy to put aside additional infrastructure. Of course, these companies will have to build UAV-centric passenger launchers and move them to specific areas of cities, but the inconvenience of relying on pre-built airstrips will not affect the experience. You might argue that flying cars from one runway to another aren't much different from the traditional airplane experience, and you might ask yourself how different your new mode of transportation is.

"Even if the technology is effective, where will they land?" John Preston, head of transportation research group at University of Southampton, said. For Samson Sky CEO Sam Bousfield, VTOL transportation is untenable to the public and will inevitably provide a handful of wealthy people with easy air travel. Bousfield believes that creating an air corridor for flying cars will prove to be a more valuable effort and smarter than the VTOL program Uber and others are exploring.

"It's a smart way to introduce this concept," Bousfield said as he set up a flying car corridor in the air. "I think Jupiter's Mark Moore saw the opportunity, but he realized there was a gradual way to make change so important. We have the future and today's successful design, so we have promoted the development and testing. "Samson Sky announced the final form of the Switchblade for the first time last month at EAA Air Venture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Although the company claims that its 10-year project was developed with existing infrastructure in mind, it shares VTOL's view when discussing the inability of existing infrastructure to provide the inherent convenience of a passenger UAV experience.

Youbo, Airbus and EHang have designed their passenger UAVs, taking into account infrastructure constraints on buildings and roads, because if you downgrade to runways for takeoff and landing, urban traffic seems impossible. Regardless of these decisions, Bousfield's project seems to be taking off because hundreds of customers have already made formal reservations.

"We must now scale up our planned initial production facilities to meet our growing demand for Switchblades," he said. Ultimately, the lifelong discussion of flying cars continues, with only prototypes, schedules and actual implementation schedules at our disposal. The delivery date of Switchblade is not available.

（文来源：飞行汽车feiauto）www.feiauto.com

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