Toyota patent points to potential flying car

A practical, affordable, mass-produced flying car is like the Holy Grail and the lost city of El Dorado all rolled into one. The potential of such a vehicle would be huge, but every effort to bring one to market thus far has been met with failure. New patent renderings indicate one of the auto industry's biggest could be ready to take a stab at the affordable, personal, airborne vehicle.

According to Bloomberg, Toyota filed patent application 20150246720, which covers the design for a "stackable wing for an aerocar." The four wings would be stacked on the roof while in "roadable" mode and could be flipped out individually for flight. Interestingly, the patent doesn't seem to show any ailerons or elevators for roll and pitch control, although the profile view used in the drawings might not need to show any control surfaces. We can see, though, a vertical tailfin on the actual car, which includes what looks like a cut line for the rudder (for yaw).

As The Daily Mail notes, this is a fairly basic patent drawing covering the wings, and doesn't include anything on how the car would develop thrust for takeoff and flight. The only two inventors listed on the patent, which was originally filed back in March 2014, are in New Jersey and Michigan, Bloomberg reports.

Check out the drawings and the filing here, and then head into Comments and let us know what you think Toyota is up to.
Source