The company said it "shares the same desire" as Cartivator to ignite the Olympic flame in 2020 using the flying car.īut the company's entry into the space also renews the debate over whether flying cars are feasible at all. Toyota's entry into the flying car space could take the race to a new stratosphere.
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Its vehicle, the Terrafugia Transition, earned an FAA light-sport airworthiness certification earlier this year.Start-ups taking a crack at flying cars include Netherlands-based PAL-V and Slovakia-based AeroMobil, which are accepting orders for flying cars that would require a runway and a pilot's license. Massachusetts-based Terrafugia and Germany's Lilium Aviation are developing cars that take off and land vertically. At least one startup, Terrafugia in Boston, however, has also spent years pursing the air-car twofer. The eVTOL approach being taken by the major players eliminates the challenges of being an automobile, or of being limited to runways. Although it is kind of cute how the rear wheels keep spinning when it's up there.Īlso, like any small plane, the AirCar needs a runway to take off and land. Compare it to the chase planes alongside it. In the video, the AirCar prototype certainly looks like a car - a heavy car even - when it's airborne. The challenge there, as always in achieving the "flying car" dream, is to balance the needs of an aircraft, not the least of which is lightness, with what it takes to be certified as roadworthy, particularly safety equipment and crashworthiness that can add a weight penalty.
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He says it will be capable of cruising at 160 knots to a range of over 600 miles, will achieve full commuter certification from European aviation regulators and will also be street-legal. Klein says next up is a 300-horsepower model with a variable-pitch propeller. Like many small aircraft these days, it also has a ballistic parachute, just in case. It's powered by a 160-horsepower BMW engine and a simple fixed-pitch propeller. Klein said it has flown to 8,200 feet and has made 45-degree banking turns during testing, though it did nothing flashy on this outing. During its time in the air, the craft cruised at around 90 knots (105 mph). This was the craft's 142nd landing, but its first inter-city flight.
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Klein is said to have been working on a series of prototypes for 30 years, and has racked up 40 air hours. Which actually drove off, to the applause of a throng of well-wishers.
Then, the eponymous inventor and pilot Stefan Klein folded the aircraft's wings and tucked its tail, a transition that takes about three minutes. The AirCar prototype is built by a Slovakian company, Klein Vision, which launched the vehicle from Nitra and landed 35 minutes later in Bratislava. It's best just to show you, in this video above that was posted yesterday. But recently, a machine called AirCar actually performed both tasks implied by that name - flying between two airports in Slovakia, then transmogrifying into a road car and driving off. Instead, they are pursuing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL) that could taxi paying passengers from point A to point B, after which those folks would need to catch an Uber or something. The derby by a dozen or more companies - Hyundai and GM, and Stellantis, Mercedes, Audi, you name it - to launch a "flying car" has not really involved anything you'd call a "car" that could fly.
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