IBTimes.com

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is in talks with Lockheed Martin and AAI Corp., a unit of Textron Systems for its flying army jeep (Humvee) version called Transformer, or TX which can move on the land like any vehicle and also fly like an aircraft to avoid especially landmines, said unconfirmed reports.

The DARPA's $40 million Transformer project has selected AAI's concept of a flying car that does not have a shrouded rotor, but it is based on "the slowed-rotor/compound concept, a technology that uses rotor blades heavily weighted in the tips, or high inertia. The rotor provides lift on takeoff, and then as it gains speed, the rotor slows down and the wings provide lift," says a report in Popular Mechanics.

Lockheed Martin's concept was reportedly based on its Phantom Works project that combines aspects its Joint Tactical Light Vehicle, a follow-on to the Humvee, with a ducted fan propulsion system to fly.

There are nearly 80 patents on record at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for several types of flying cars. Some of them were successfully flown and some remained mere concepts.

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