Flying Cars

Developed by a Slovakian company, the hybrid car can clock 100mph speed in the air and 45mph on the road. It comes with a custom 2.0 l turbocharged 4-cylinder boxer internal combustion engine and a range of 62 miles. The foldable wings can be aligned neatly along the hull and opened up for air-bound rides. Tires are normal but lightweight, an absolute fit for a vehicle built for air travel.

For a race car like this, the fact that it has 8 electric motors and 8 electric propellers is beyond irony. This car has a composite fuselage and skid-type landing gear and can clock speeds up to 250 kmph or 500 mph. The safety features include in-built sensors to keep pilots from flying too high or too low and certain other features to protect crowds during the races.

Want to have your hands on a flying car right now, then this can be the one. Nirvana’s Autogyro Drive is the world’s first street-legal flying car. With helicopter-style rotor blades, and a speed of 110 mph in the air, can be considered more a copter than a car. Depending on the specifications its price starts from $63,500 and can go up to $1,80,000.

Built for personal use, it has a twin forward and real tilt propeller. The cruising speed varies from 241 kmph to 389 kmph, with a range of 193 km at full speed. The forward and rear propellers flying car developed for personal use can tilt forward and backward 360 degrees. While in the vertical mode it can achieve VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) in horizontal mode, it can get into cruising mode.

It is a sub-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing prototype vehicle. The aircraft has a cockpit with two forward and two aft VTOL propellers attached to the outer body. While it can gain a maximum speed of 100 kmph the average travel speed remains 60 kmph at 50 m altitude. The load-bearing capacity stands at 400kg with space for two people. With a drone-like design, can hover in the sky and easily ferry people on a busy skylane.

With a capacity to attain a maximum speed of 186 mph in the air, it comes with the best features of the helicopter, ditching the complex features like heavy pricing, need for space, or complicated piloting procedures. In fact, it requires only a 15 X 15 m surface to initiate launch, so that, it kind of becomes a pet vehicle easy enough to be launched from your backyard. It only weighs 600 Kg, has a range of around 500m, and can be charged plugging into a domestic socket.

A model released by Terrafugia in May 2013, it is a TF-X concept four-seated vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) plug-in hybrid-electric flying car. The aircraft is fitted with a 300 hp gas turbine engine to power a rear-mounted propeller during flight. The hybrid batteries can be either charged from its engine or by plugging into a charging port. The retractable landing gear system makes it possible to launch or land from the garage. It has a non-stop flight range of over 800 km and a top speed of 322 kmph.

An inverted U-shaped vehicle is more of a drone than a flying car. Made by the drone-making company, EHang, it was developed as a means of personal transportation for a single passenger weighing not more than 100 kilograms or 220 pounds. A hybrid car that carries a tagline, ‘one passenger, eight propellers, and four arms’, can attain a maximum speed of 62 kmph in the air and can reach a maximum altitude of 3500 km. The autonomous flying car can cover only short distances but can land in a safer area nearby in case of hitting an unwarranted snag.

A tricopter weighs 10kgs and can carry only one person. With a maximum speed of up to 62 mph in the air, its altitude can reach only a maximum of 30 meters. Capable of unmanned autonomous flights, it is comparable to a petite sports car.