Philippe Erhel

Thesis project - the idea for this final year thesis project was to mix my dual background of aeronautics engineer and transportation designer in a "futuristic" icone of the flying car. Based on serious researches and with the help of François Lemainque from Dassault aviation, I thought about a world where even the airport (the landing pads) would fly. Thoses would be gigantic lenticular airships. The car by itself combines a flying platform and a detachable cockpit. On the ground, the user transfers his cockpit from the flying platform to the rolling one. A bit like the GM autonomy presented in Jan 02 at the Detroit Auto Show... The model represents about 400 hours of work. I used high density polyurethane foam I could sculpt quiet easily to have smooth aerodynamic looking surfaces.