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This paper reviews the status of personal aviation and proposes that information technology has made possible a personal aviation industry on a scale last imagined in the nineteen forties. The market goal of the system is 100 thousand sales per year, 100 times more than the current sales of general aviation airplanes. Seven specifications are set forth to meet the goal. They concern price, liability, performance, control, convenience, safety, and environmental impact. Helicopters and lift fans are examined in light of the specifications, but a kind of flying car seems more plausible. Personal aviation emerges as a system of three levels, including the Global Positioning System for navigation, an infrastructure called Skyways, and modular conveyances called Starcars that function as automobiles and airplanes. The system is under study at The University of Arizona, where a base station and mobile platform have been built to explore means for navigation, communication, and control.

Starcar 3 is being designed at The University of Arizona as a platform to demonstrate technologies important to the future of personal aviation. Among them are the Global Positioning System for precision guidance and control, automobile engines for propulsion, structural methods compatible with comfort and safety, and vehicle transformation to combine the benefits of automobiles and airplanes. Starcar 3 is a system of three modules: road module, passenger module, and sky module. The passenger and road modules together form a good automobile, and the passenger and sky modules together are a good airplane. This paper describes the road module, passenger module structure, rear suspension, sky module propulsion, and sky module structure. The road module presently is based on a Honda 1.6 liter engine mounted transversely for front-wheel drive.