2008 2007 2006 2005 and prior

2005 & Prior Progress Highlights

1970's through 1990's

The Milner's first thinking and talking and sketching of a flying car occurred in the 1970's and 1980's. There were multiple times when the family was driving somewhere and someone would say "This would be a perfect trip for a flying car." Another bit of evidence is an advertising story board created as a classroom project by daughter Audrey made in 1980 when she was in sixth grade, advertising the Smoothrider. 

     

In the late 80's and 1990 the Milner AirCar V1.0 was built. It was a 50% scale radio-controlled model built as a demonstration-of-concept, and was a two-door four-passenger canard-style airplane with folding wings and a pusher propeller. When airborne, the wheels retracted inside the fuselage. Full size, the vehicle would have a 30 ft wingspan, 16 ft length and 48" cabin width. Although the airplane was never flown, wind tunnel testing of the airplane was performed by mounting it on a rack above a car and driving the car at different speeds. The wings provided lift and the airplane was controllable as designed.

January-March 2005

The Milners sold their business in August of 2004 and decided to start work on the AirCar. Since they had never done a project of this magnitude or difficulty they started by talking to people in the industry to see what advice they could get, and to find people who could help with the technical aspects of the project. During the next six months they talked to about a hundred people asking advice. Several people were identified who had also worked on a flying car project. They also obtained dimensions of various aircraft and automobiles to get a sense of typical interior and exterior dimensions. The net result of the people search was zero. People who had some awareness seemed unwilling to take the project seriously and as a result were unwilling to get involved. The impression received was that this project has a serious credibility problem.

April-June 2005

The second quarter of the year was spent continuing to search for people, traveling around  visiting people who might know how to do a project like this or suggest people who could help. Companies visited included several light airplane manufacturing plants, several companies that build race cars and several companies that could play a part in the fabrication of the AirCar. Sun-N-Fun, EAA's spring experimental aircraft convention was also attended. By now about a half dozen potential individuals or companies had been identified. but none seemed that they had the right combination of people who "can" do and "will" do the job. In May a local CAD/CAM company was hired to help build a 1/20th scale model of existing drawings. Internet searches found The Rocky Mountain Institute’s literature on Hypercars. Their intriguing 400 page strategic study Hypercars: Materials, Manufacturing and Policy Implications provided a vast amount of information relating to building automobiles that get 100 MPG or higher. The initial web site,  www.milneraircar.com was created and was later changed to www.milnermotors.com to better reflect the company's several projects. QUOTE: "Don't lose your head to save a minute. You need your head, your brains are in it." Burma Shave 1950's.

 

 

July-September 2005

 Attended EAA's experimental aircraft convention in Oshkosh Wisconsin during July and met Jan Roskam and William Anemaat of Darcorp, an aeronautical design firm. It was agreed that Milner AirCar would write up a document describing our ideas and specifications and Darcorp would create a preliminary design proposal. The proposal divided the work into about a dozen steps, starting with specification determination, then proceeding with weight, performance & CG specification, power requirements, airfoil selection, drag estimation and a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) study. DarCorp also refined and modified the shape of the vehicle, and most importantly, started to add some engineering credibility to the project. Initial CAD files were received from Darcorp. During this time the corporate structure, Milner AirCar, LLC was also created.

October-December 2005

It was decided that in addition to building the AirCar an electric car would be built, which was later named the Milner ElectriCar. Much of the work involved in the AirCar would be useable in the ElectriCar. The two vehicles would have an identical fuselage since both vehicles have the same requirement for size and comfort, and would provide a common vehicle for crashworthiness testing. The market size for the ElectriCar could be huge compared with market size for the AirCar, and taking advantage of the large market share for the ElectriCar could help offset some of the expenses required to build the AirCar. A 1970 Volkswagen Beetle was purchased to use for electric motor trials. The engine was removed and two Etek 48 volt motors were installed, running 1:1 to the transmission input shaft. RULE: Hire three people to do a job, then select among the best results.