Rutan’s Last Project: What The…?

Today I read, with some head-scratching, about Burt Rutan’s latest creation, a “roadable aircraft” called Bipod. Flying cars have been built, flown, driven, and failed to sell since dinosaurs roamed the earth, yet here was the monumentally gifted designer and his company, Scaled Composites, introducing a particularly homely vehicle (twin fuselages simply make it twice as ugly).

But further reading revealed that the whole Bipod exercise is more of a shop-class project than an attempt to produce the ultimate roadable aircraft. According to AvWeb, “The four-month project was valued as a last chance for young engineers at the company to work with the legendary designer before his departure” (Rutan recently retired), and “Scaled is reportedly not interested in completing the prototype.”

Well, okay, then.