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" On September 28, 2010, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a Light Sport Aircraft certificate for the Maverick Sport, the latest version of the flying dune buggy developed by Steve Saint and his crew at the Indigenous Peoples Technology and Education Center (ITEC). Last June, the vehicle received a license plate from the Florida Department of Transportation. That makes the Maverick Sport only the second vehicle ever to be declared both street legal and air legal. The first was Moulton Taylor&amp;#039;s Aerocar, approved in 1956 by the Civil Aeronautics Authority (which became the FAA), but never commercialized. I first reported on the Maverick in 2009 from ITEC&amp;#039;s hanger in Dunnellon, Florida. I took a ride in an early, 4-seat version of the jackrabbit-fast Maverick on the sandy shoulder of an abandoned airstrip and then watched as Saint successfully flew the experimental vehicle. My editors and I were so impressed with this scrappy team&amp;#039;s practical approach and its mission of bringing supplies and healthcare access to remote indigenous groups around the world that we gave their innovation a 2009 Breakthrough Award. We were even more pleased to learn about the pragmatic decisions that have put ITEC even closer to making their flying car commercially available. Rather than seek Federal Highway Administration certification for their vehicle\u2014a process that requires boatloads of money for crash tests, among other things\u2014they&amp;#039;ve designed it as a kit car. These can be licensed in most states. And as far as the FAA is concerned, the Maverick Sport is officially a powered parachute. The Sport Pilot license required to fly it is much easier to obtain than a standard pilot&amp;#039;s license. Among other things, you must pass a written test and have 12 hours of powered-parachute flight training. To side-step stricter FAA licensing guidelines, ITEC shrunk its 4-seater Maverick. The Maverick Sport seats three in the air and two on the ground (when stowed, the parachute takes up one seat). While there are currently two-seater powered parachutes, there are none that can travel on roads, much less off road and on snow. One day, Saint hopes a floating version will motor across lakes and rivers.  What the Maverick Sport loses in size and weight, it gains in speed. Different versions of the vehicle have featured 130 to 250 horsepower Subaru engines on a 76-pound frame. The Sport weighs 900 pounds total, 200 pounds less than the 4-seater Maverick. On the ground, &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s crazy-fast,&amp;quot; says ITEC Design Manager and test pilot Troy Townsend. &amp;quot;It will do zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds.&amp;quot;  Like the earlier version, the Maverick Sport has a top air-speed of about 40 mph. That doesn&amp;#039;t sound fast, but when the road ends it can mean the difference between reaching a destination and turning back. &amp;quot;Our whole goal was to flip the historical concept of the roadable airplane,&amp;quot; Townsend says. &amp;quot;We wanted something that was a car first and would fly second.&amp;quot; Other improvements include a canvas exterior shell and a telescoping mast that makes hoisting the chute easier.   Last July, team members drove their street-legal Maverick Sport from Florida to Wisconsin for AirVenture Oshkosh. The goal for AirVenture 2011, Townsend says, is to make it available for purchase. So far, at least 120 people have joined a waiting list to buy the Sport. The first 20 people will pay $79,000, and the rest $84,000. The people at ITEC expect the prices to fall if the production numbers increase.   ITEC developed the Maverick as an all-in-one transportation vehicle for people in frontier areas of the world. The group hopes to appeal to extreme sport enthusiasts, search-and-rescue teams, fire-spotters, farmers and others in order to lower the cost for its primary non-commercial market\u2014missionaries and those they serve in the world beyond roads. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a6125/maverick-flying-car-now-legal/>