What has been mentioned many times at this web site regarding purchasing aircraft, applies to flying cars, too. To buy one, you have to define your mission profile first.
If you define it smartly, you can get a vehicle that is legal in the air, legal on the roads, and commercially available today.
MedEwok wrote:
The C172N which I mainly rent nowadays is terrible to steer on the ground, with pedals, as the pedals seem to require a completely arbitrary amount of pressure to create the desired change of direction.
Ask for your money back. Probably a knackered steering bungee and shoddy maintenance.
huv wrote:
I am sure all instructors have noted the tendency for many student pilots to turn the wheel in the direction of the turn when turning on the ground. Actually, some certified pilots do it too.
Once I did not fly for ages and went flying solo, first thing happened after it started moving for taxi is I used the yoke to turn, I would have been very ashamed with someone around 
Airborne_Again wrote:
One the instructors in our club told a story about a very low-time student who, during the takeoff roll, decided to shift into higher gear and so pushed the left pedal to the floor to disengage the clutch. The instructor did manage to save the situation…
Haha, FI briefing: right/left rudder can be used as accelerator/break in automatic car for power induced yaw (if prop is turning +) but he forgot to mention something about the manual clutch/gear (reminds me of an instructor who asked a student if they can release the Aerotow rope on their first trial glider flight at 2000ft, he pulled at 200ft )
huv wrote:
I am sure all instructors have noted the tendency for many student pilots to turn the wheel in the direction of the turn when turning on the ground. Actually, some certified pilots do it too.
It’s OK if you’re flying an Ercoupe No rudder pedals, brake pedal on the floor, steer on the ground with the yoke, and really tremendously easy to fly. They made a lot of them too, it’s not a flying car but a plane that’s almost as easy to ‘drive’ as an automatic transmission car.
huv wrote:
I am sure all instructors have noted the tendency for many student pilots to turn the wheel in the direction of the turn when turning on the ground. Actually, some certified pilots do it too.
I guess most anybody who learned to fly did this at some point.
In fact, I’m slightly annoyed that it doesn’t work this way, would make steering on the ground much easier. The C172N which I mainly rent nowadays is terrible to steer on the ground, with pedals, as the pedals seem to require a completely arbitrary amount of pressure to create the desired change of direction.
This was much better in the Aquila on which I learned to fly.
reconfigure your brain between flying and driving mode
I am sure all instructors have noted the tendency for many student pilots to turn the wheel in the direction of the turn when turning on the ground. Actually, some certified pilots do it too.
Clipperstorch wrote:
But I really wonder how you reconfigure your brain between flying and driving mode when you can do both in the same vehicle. Will you start driving in the middle of the road? Or lift off and wonder why your wheels start spinning and your engine is red-lining?
One the instructors in our club told a story about a very low-time student who, during the takeoff roll, decided to shift into higher gear and so pushed the left pedal to the floor to disengage the clutch. The instructor did manage to save the situation…
Will you start driving in the middle of the road?
Real pilots drive in the middle of the road anyway
Funny how people want to make a flying car, but never a roadable airplane. Still, in the end they all become (hardly at all) roadable airplanes
It was a bad idea then and it still is. But it doesn’t stop people from trying.
