Our tax dollars are currently being used to develop something that's only familiar to us in movies. Usually bad ones. The Massachusetts-based Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is currently designing and engineering the Transformer/TX as a part of a new generation of military aircraft for the United States government. Armed with $65 million of funding, the firm is teaming up with AAI, a US Department of Defense contractor and builder of UAVs to design and build the TX.

This militarized version of the long fabled, but never quite making it to production (at least at a semi-affordable price), civilian multi-purpose aero car will have a proposed range of 280 miles on land and air, vertical take-off capability, and automated flight control. Not only will it have weapon capabilities, engineers are also designing the TX to serve as a medivac, remote supply and Special Forces insertion vehicle. If all goes according to plan, the developers will have a working prototype ready for sometime in early 2015.