October 25, 2003: Skycars & Vampires - Paul Moller
Podcast: The Art Bell ArchivePublished On: Mon Jun 23 2025
Description: Art Bell speaks with Dr. Paul Moller, inventor of the M400 Skycar, a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle designed to combine the capabilities of helicopters and airplanes at automobile-level costs. Moller describes a four-passenger craft that fits in a single-car garage, flies at 325 miles per hour, reaches altitudes of 25,000 feet, and achieves a range of 750 miles on alcohol fuel. The vehicle relies on 25 onboard microprocessors running 30,000 lines of redundant code to maintain stability and enable fully automated flight.Moller explains that upcoming test flights over a purpose-built lake will demonstrate untethered vertical takeoff with a pilot aboard. He envisions a future where virtual highways in the sky, supported by GPS and satellite augmentation systems, allow ordinary people to travel point-to-point without pilot training. The Skycar uses Wankel rotary engines chosen for their power density and low cost, and Moller notes that engine orders alone total nearly a billion dollars in letters of intent.Art also addresses the catastrophic Southern California wildfires burning across multiple counties, with callers from Fontana, Vista, San Diego, and Claremont describing evacuations, closed airports, and walls of flame stretching to the horizon. Several callers and a police commissioner speculate that many of the fires may have been deliberately set near major freeway access points.
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