Flying cars, hoverboards, teleportation, space and time travel – we’ve seen all this in movies in our childhood and we’ve been patiently waiting for it to become true in the year of our lord 2021. Hoverboards never happened for us. They’ve been working on skateboards that glide above a magnet, but that’s not quite the same is it? So we all got used to those self-balancing scooters every kid has these days. However, if you’ve seen the Fifth Element as a child you probably have been waiting for flying cars to be a thing your whole life. We’re right there with you, buddy. And it looks this time we’re getting the real thing this time. A flying car prototype recently completed a flight between two airports in Slovakia.
This dream invention has been created by Prof Stefan Klein. It has a BMW engine and runs on regular gas as a normal car would. But is it a car? Is it a plane? Is it freaking superman? It’s a car-aircraft that’s been called AirCar. It’s a thing of beauty and power, and we can’t wait for it to be mass-produced.
According to Stefan, the car can fly up to 600 miles and he’s already flown about 40 hours on this AirCar. The car transforms into a plane in just over 2 minutes and it takes the same to transform back. It all happened automatically with just a push of a button, the wings just fold and unfold. You don’t have to get out of the car, push or pull any parts. It’s quite a seamless transition. The AirCar looks stunning, which obviously adds to the coolness factor.
In the air, it reaches the speed of 170km/h, and it can fly 2 people as long as their combined weight doesn’t go over 200kg. Stefan Klein’s flight in the AirCar between the cities of Nitra and Bratislava took only 35 minutes and according to the driver/pilot was as smooth and pleasant as ever. The only thing that makes this flying car different from those in sci-fi movies is that it does need a runway to take off and land, just like a plane does. But once you land you can just drive off into the city, which is exactly what Stefan did.
The AirCar has already been called a stepping stone of the future and the creator is hoping there will be a huge market for this. This particular AirCar took 2 years to make and cost about $2,4 million. The company behind AirCar is hoping that soon their creation will be able to substitute at least a portion of private planes.
There’s still a lot of work to do in terms of certification and mass production of AirCars, but we can see them being able to take over a percentage of both the car and aircraft market, both of which are very profitable. And just think about the convenience of being able to both fly and drive. Some rich people are definitely going to want one of these AirCars for their quick getaways.