Tesla Truck Inspires Small-Plane Designers

The much-lampooned boxy truck design from Tesla has airplane types having fun, too.

The launch of the Tesla Truck took the motoring world by surprise. Elon Musk, while famous for doing things no one else dreams of doing (like creating rockets that land themselves for reuse after a successful launch), didn't have himself a hit with the truck, which got widely lampooned in social media. Which is really unfair. But, yes, we're piling on as well.

Mark Patey of Best Tugs fame, posted a rendition of his dream version of the Tesla-Truck inspired plane and goes on to say that as much fun as everyone has had with the boxy Truck design, he admires someone willing to try something really new! Hear hear!

Mark Patey's "CyberCub" based off the Tesla Truck.

RANS Aircraft founder and president Randy Schlitter, whose design vision beat the Tesla Truck's by a couple of decades, half-jokingly released his new design for the Rans S-22 Muskrat, a drawing of which Randy likely had sitting in a handy desk drawer awaiting just such an occasion. And when we say the design launch was half-joking, well, we really don't know still but totally want to fly it.

Randy Schlitter's new design of the Rans S-22 Muskrat in response to the Tesla Truck.

And numerous folks posted to make clear that the airplane version already exists in the form of the Facetmobile, an experimental aircraft that aeronautical experimenter Barnaby Wainfan came up with in the late '90s but which never went into production.

The Facetmobile is the airplane version of the Tesla Truck.

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