The Dream of Flying Cars

James Bond’s jetpack in Thunderball…

The hoverboard from Back to the Future…

Elliot’s bicycle in E.T. the Extra Terrestrial…

It’s no surprise independent flight is a theme that comes up a lot in Hollywood. The power to fly is one of the most enduring aspirations of humankind, and it has been the subject of fantasy since ancient times.

Just as Icarus dreamed of flight, so have many engineers. As a result, there have been countless failed attempts at taking our daily commute skyward.

But a long and fruitless history of flying car attempts is not daunting one Slovakian firm. It says its design is ready to fly right now.

In an age where we’re just starting to see widespread adoption of the electric car, is the flying car still a pipe dream? Let’s look at this fantasy come to life.

AeroMobil

Štefan Klein has been chasing the dream of a flying car for more than 20 years.

After doing transport and design research for Audi, Volkswagen, and BMW, he assumed the role of lead designer at AeroMobil, a company he co-founded with former political revolutionary Juraj Vaculík.

Together with a team of aviation engineers and materials specialists, the two have created a number of functional designs for aircraft since 1990.

The AeroMobil 2.5, shown above, evolved out of their previous work and is their first “production-ready” design. A prototype first shown in 2013 will make its way across the skies at the Pioneers Festival on October 29 in Vienna, Austria.

It’s part of the company’s continuing design evolution. It debuted previous iterations as early as 2007, but this model is the first one that the company says is ready for the market.

Its engine is a Rotax 912, which is built by a subsidiary of Austrian company BRP-Powertrain GmbH (TSX: DOO), and it’s capable of a top ground speed of around 100 mph and a top in-air speed of around 125 mph. The speed required to get the vehicle off the ground is approximately 90 mph, which is significantly higher than most small, single-engine planes, even though it is very lightweight.

In the United States, an “ultralight” aircraft has to weigh less than 254 pounds to receive that classification. With such a light weight, these vehicles have a takeoff speed that’s about half of the AeroMobil 2.5. Unsurprisingly, the prototype weighs 992 lbs, making it a light sport aircraft (LSA) but not an ultralight.

Its range is approximately 310 miles on land and 430 miles in the air.

Everybody’s Dream

Like I said earlier, the dream to fly is so universal that many people chase it.

U.S. firm Terrafugia debuted its own road-legal flying car in the last year, too.

Headed by young aerospace engineer Carl Dietrich, Terrafugia has been showing off and flying its Transition flying car since 2013. It’s been called the “first practical flying car.”

It’s got a cruise speed of 100 mph and a range of 410 miles in the air.

Terrafugia has a leg up on AeroMobil because the Transition is already “available” on the market. That is to say, you can put a $10,000 deposit down on your own… but it has to be built, and the total bill is $279,000.

But Why?

The dream of individual-scale air travel is romantic, exciting, and free. The reality would be a logistical nightmare.

For one thing, all flights would have to be cleared and controlled. The skies, as free as they look, are very closely monitored and governed.

Air traffic control is frequently ranked as one of the most stressful jobs in the entire workforce. It requires constant concentration under difficult and ever-changing conditions, and with 24-hour air travel, the shifts are sometimes assaultively long.

With about 100,000 flights going on across the world per day, there are approximately 15,000 full-time air traffic controllers in the U.S., according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NACTA).

If there were a surge in individual aircraft, there would have to be a central authority dedicated solely to clearing the air and keeping flying cars from crashing into each other all over the place. It would be an incredibly huge undertaking to establish this.

Fuel cost and consumption is another issue.

Terrafugia prides its flying car on using standard unleaded gasoline. While that’s great for cost-effective fill-ups and simplifying the flying car fueling infrastructure, it’s terrible for fuel economy. Aviation gas, or “avgas,” is actually much more refined than standard automobile petroleum.

This is because the reduced atmospheric pressure when the plane is up in the air places different demands on the engine than when it’s on the ground. Some airplanes can use standard automotive gasoline, but it often causes accelerated engine wear.

There’s also the sticky subject of repairs. Sure, you might be able to pull your flying car into the gas station to fill it up, but will you be able to pull it into Jiffy Lube for an oil change?

Not likely.

The flying car is what I like to call a “permanent future.” In other words, it’s something that will forever be on the verge of reality. It is something that science fiction and fantasy lovers dream about, but it is unlikely to ever become a reality until huge changes are made to the very foundations of the idea.

An intelligent backbone for routing and protecting flights (a la self-driving cars) would be required to prevent accidents, and an improved power system would be required to optimize a vehicle for the conditions of both land and air.

Both of these things hinge upon major technological advances, neither of which are a reality yet.

Good Investing,

Tim Conneally

 @TimConneally on Twitter

For the last seven years, Tim Conneally has covered the world of mobile and wireless technology, enterprise software, network hardware, and next generation consumer technology. Tim has previously written for long-running software news outlet Betanews and for financial media powerhouse Forbes.