Mitzar Update Page. Flying Pinto, Page 3 of 3

Here is what we all have been waiting for, an update to the Mitzar (Flying Pinto) Thanks Mark for letting us know about this one!

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The complete story: The owner and mechanic at SantaPaula flight center told me the story of the flying pinto in some detail during our BS sessions on a couple occasions. It was quite a novelty and a really big story in the newspapers. The reason I believe we're talking about the very same car is because it was known in the aviation world as the 'flying pinto', and not one of the 'flying pintos'. People didn't think it was neat because of the flying car aspect, there is a dedicated 'aircar' after all, I think there was novelty that it was a PINTO that was flying. Like if a VW or something.

Although the Pintos are quite light, the aircraft with no load and no gas was already a couple lbs. over gross weight. So if I'm right about it only being 1 Pinto, the car was actually built in Oxnard by a kinda nutty airplane shop owner and he flew it a few times for kicks before it broke up in flight, late 70's maybe. I think the guy told me he has the original newspaper article.

I looked at the brochure on the page and you can kind of see it's 'vaporware' marketing, or not really marketing, advertising the car, etc. There is nothing there that indicates serious engineering or marketing, etc. so leads me to believe just some guy's fantasy. Then the comments about flight testing at Pt Mugu (basically Oxnard) so I'm pretty sure we're talking the same Pinto here.

I think he has photos of the Pinto in his photo album and if your really serious I can arrange to somehow get them reproduced. The guy was obviously looking at the car up close the way he described features like the screws I mentioned, although there is a chance he just described all of this second-hand. But he and his brothers are airline pilots and pretty credible.