![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/SamsonSky-team-edit.jpg\")
First Flight was achieved under cloudy skies but calm winds.\nThe Samson Sky team, positioned along the runway, watched in anticipation as\nthe Switchblade smoothly lifted off and flew to an altitude of 500 feet. Flying\nhigh above the expansive airport and surrounding foothills, the Switchblade\nremained airborne for nearly six minutes, then lightly touched down completing\nits maiden flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Switchblade handled great,\u201d stated test pilot,\nRobert Moehle. \u201cI’m excited to be the first to fly it away from the ground.\u201d\nMoehle, who trained in flight testing with The Boeing Company, served as Test\nDirector for the 787. He has flown 2400 hours in 56 aircraft types, including\ncommercial and experimental aircraft. His input over the last many months\nhelped the Samson R&D team perfect the Switchblade flying prototype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World-wide demand for the vehicle is clear, with over 2300\nReservations from 57 countries and all 50 States in the U.S., creating what\nBousfield believes is a \u201cBlue Ocean opportunity.\u201d Having future owners from\naround the world, the Switchblade dashboard was designed to allow for either\nright-hand or left-hand drive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“After 14 years of design and rigorous testing, our\nfirst flight is a huge milestone,\u201d stated Sam Bousfield, Samson Sky CEO, and\ndesigner of the Switchblade. The Samson Team will use flight test data to\nfinalize production engineering and build several production prototypes. \u201cThis\nputs us on the path towards producing thousands of Switchblades to meet the\nlarge and enthusiastic demand we\u2019re receiving, \u201cBousfield added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2021, Deloitte explored the U.S. opportunity to be a\nglobal leader in the AAM (Advanced Air Mobility) market. Their report projects\nthe US AAM market to reach 115 billion by 2035. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/Switchblade-edit-1.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nState lawmakers see the benefits of flying cars in improving\nservices such as public safety, infrastructure inspection and humanitarian\nrelief. Samson joined two other flying car manufacturers in providing New\nHampshire legislators with technical and safety aspects of such vehicles and in\n2020 they passed the \u201cJetson Bill\u201d, which allows for road registration of\n\u201croadable aircraft\u201d after aircraft registration with the FAA. Numerous other\nstates say they want to be part of this emerging industry, including CA, NC,\nFL, MA, MI, OH, OK, and TX. These states and others are working to create\npartnerships and incentives to attract flying car manufacturers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Switchblade has a maximum driving speed of 125+ mph (201\nkm\/h), and an estimated maximum flight speed of 190 mph (305 km\/h). The vehicle\nhas a unique hybrid electric system, which uses unleaded auto gas rather than\nleaded aviation fuel. Owners will be able to fuel up at any auto gas station.\nOver nine patents have been issued or applied for, both in the U.S. and\ninternationally for the Switchblade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parked safely in their home garage, owners will be able to\ndrive their street-legal Switchblade to a nearby airport. Once there, they\ntransform the vehicle to flying mode in under three minutes and fly their\nregistered aircraft to their destination up to 500 miles before refueling,\ncruising at 160 mph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Switchblade seats two, side-by-side, with room to store\nsmaller travel bags. Its wings and tail fold in, protecting them while in\ndriving mode. The engine powers the wheels on the ground and the propeller in\nthe air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Estimated pricing starts at $170,000. Included in the price\nis the Samson Builder Assist Program where owners will spend a week assembling\ntheir portion of the vehicle at the Build Center. Samson professionals guide\nand oversee every step of this process and no special skills are needed. Samson\nthen completes building the rest of the vehicle. While a Private Pilot\u2019s\nlicense is required to fly the Switchblade, Samson Sky is seeing more and more\nreservations coming in from non-pilots, who plan to learn to fly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Today is the culmination of many years of hard work\nand persistence to make the vision of a flying sports car a reality,” said\nBousfield. “Someone asked me how it felt to see the Switchblade fly. I\nthought about it, and realized this is what it feels like when your dreams come\ntrue.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The world\u2019s most sought-after flying car, the Switchblade, recently completed its maiden flight in Washington State. The first flight was flown out of the Moses Lake Airport\/Grant County Airport, which is often used by Boeing and other major aircraft makers for flight testing. Veteran test pilot, Robert Moehle, conducted the successful flight, concluding years of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Switchblade-landing-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27175,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27171\/revisions\/27175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}