You often see RVs rolling down the highway with a small motorcycle strapped to the back, after all, once you park the land yacht, you don't want to use it for every short trip at your destination but what if your RV is an airplane? If you land at some out of the way country airport, how do you get to town? MotoPOD is the answer. A specially constructed cargo pod strapped to the bottom of the airplane combined with a specially modified Yamaha XT lets you bring your ground transportation along with you.
EAA Airventure just wrapped up a few weeks ago in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The huge fly in is held there every summer for aviation enthusiasts from all over the world, and one of the new products shown was the MotoPOD. The company took the idea of a cargo pod, the kind you see on the bottom of various freight carrying aircraft and modified it to carry the bike. The Yamaha was modified with folding handlebars to decrease width to 12 inches along with some special plumbing to catch any errant liquids trying to escape. You land at your isolated country airstrip, open the pod and a few minutes later you're on the road.
The whole package, including the motorcycle will be priced around $10,000 and should go on sale later this year. Flight speed is decreased by about 9 knots and the airplane handles fine. The benefit is your actual trip time from destination to destination is decreased because now there's no need to find some sort of rental car, taxi or bus or someone at the airport to give you a ride. Some pilots carry folding bicycles but this seems much more functional. Very neat.
{ 14 comments… add yours below ... }
Wow! Awesome!
My grandpa used to have a 1967 Honda 50 cub that could fold in the center and could fit it in the cargo door of his beachcraft. that ended up being my first motorcycle / scooter . I am not sure if it came with the hinge in the center or he modified it but it looked like it came that way.
One of the problems in owning and operating a small aircraft is that you are very constrained by weight and the resulting penalties. Want to take a few friends along…then you take less luggage, etc. Add the weight of a motorcycle and your going to be packing very light. Seems like a very limited market.
RayD took the words right out of my mouth. This has to weigh at least as much as two passengers, which means in most four-place aircraft, you’re going solo to your destination with no luggage other than your motorcycle, and maybe planning a fuel stop on the way there. I notice they very conveniently don’t mention anything about what it weighs on the site.
A great idea but terribly impractical on aircraft with a useful load of less than 1500 pounds, which is pretty much every piston-engined aircraft still flying.
cl
What was that we were saying about lower cost carbon fiber and titanium?
OK so I need to buy a bigger plane anyway ….
Neat Idea … poor practicality.
I just bought a Yamaha xt250 last week but I am dissapoited as the Cesna option was not included or even listed in the documentation. ;o] OMMAG maybee you need smaller friends?
James Bowman….How do you like the XT?
That’s pretty badass, but I’m wondering exactly how the stowing and unstowing goes. This would probably work out pretty well if they could keep the pod/motorcycle/scooter assembly under 300 lbs, or around the weight of a single passenger. Maybe a modified Buell Blast.
Jeez if I could afford a plane I would just rent a car or bike when I arrived at my destination.
But it is a cool accessory, I wonder if I could bolt it to the roof of my Gremlin.
Chris I really like it a lot so far (200 miles), I got it as a commuter as I was wasting about 8 bucks a day just going to work and back. With out even factoring in the added value of a car with less miles and the value of the bike after four years if I can average two weeks using the bike a month I’m ahead. It is really fun to zip around town on and the 18 mile trip to work is good since I travel Rt 40 with very few semi-trucks and speeds under 60mph and which is perfect for this bike, with reported 80mpg from many users so far. I have ten acreas and have tooled around and its does surprisingly well there also. Ordered a wind screen and luggage rack to keep it practical. I sat on the other Japaneese bikes similar to this one and this fit better and looked nicer to me.
The Yamaha XT250 is listed as 279lbs and I couldn’t imagine the cargo container at more than 50lbs so just under 350lbs for the package + wind drag.
It looks very practical but I looked up the N # of the aircraft pictured and got this response:
ATTENTION!
This aircraft’s registration status may not be suitable for operation.
Please contact the Aircraft Registration Branch at 1-866-762-9434 for additional information.
There was a company out of the Santa Monica airport in the late ’60s to early 70’s that manufactured around 1000 folding motorcycles primarily for airplanes. They were called S & K “Suitcase Cycles” and did many CT90’s and Cubs, Yamahas, or Suzukis that fit into a purpose built bag. A number of them still exist.
-todd
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