The flying car investors have announced that their invention could soon fly across the Atlantic and be available on the market as well.
A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle that can function as both a personal car and an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles that drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term “flying car” is also sometimes used to include hovercars.
Stefan Klein is the Founder and CEO of KleinVision. He devoted the last twenty years to converting his flying-car dream into reality. Currently, he completed the flying prototype of AirCar that has been tested successfully at Nitra airport in October 2019. His AirCar was officially certified to fly by Slovakia’s Transport Authority.
This car took its maiden flight in 2020, and in June last year, it became the 1st flying car to make an inter-city flight among its competitors. The flying car traveled between Nitra and Bratislava in just under half an hour, leading the company’s founders to also be the 1st to declare in a video saying “Science fiction is now a reality.”
For him, the flying car represents and might be the solution to the prison of 21st-century travel. AirCar is something that symbolizes the return of freedom because in this you can avoid those clogged freeways.
Klein said: “On the street, you have big limitations. In Europe, we have a 130km speed limit and despite cars having engines with 500hp, you don’t have any chance to use this performance. In the air, you are free.”
People’s fascination with cars that can fly has captivated human imaginations for centuries. Long before Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 1st took to the skies, inventors were wondering how to create a vehicle that could go from zooming along roads to soaring through the air in a matter of minutes.
Klein grew up in a family of aviators, he often acts as a test pilot for their inventions for being the youngest and smallest family member. He left the company to start his vision and worked with a much smaller team and far fewer resources. Then, in 2016 he met Zajac, who came on board as the project’s main investor.
Klein vision is a relative minnow among the stiff competition with mega-corporations working on their flying taxi prototype like Alphabet, Uber, and Boeing. Zajac compares the commitment of Klein to his vision to the Wright brothers, who have little resources and manpower buts still beat the US government to create the world’s 1st airplane in 1903.
Zajac said: “Whenever I work with somebody I’m not investing into ideas, I invest in people, I look at how dedicated they are, how skilled they are. This project would have never happened had it not been for Professor Klein’s attitude and his constant obsessed dream to create this flying car.”
AirCar’s milestone, an official declaration of airworthiness under EU Aviation Safety Authority Standards came in January following more than 70 hours of flight tests, including 200 take-off and landing procedures.
Zajac says he’s committed and looking forward to getting the car ready to be made available to buy as soon as possible to the public market. He sees the AirCar being useful in the future both as a commercial taxi service capable of intercity and even international travel and as an alternative personal small plane popular among hobby pilots.
The current model of the AirCar prototype runs on a petrol-powered BMW engine, with a range of about 1,000 km and a maximum speed of 186mph. That’s enough to travel from London to Paris, but Zajac and Klein say the new prototype they’re working on will be equipped with an engine that should double the speed and increase the range of its flight power that could soon fly across the Atlantic.
Zajac was asked why his car differs from the rest, and he answered it by saying: “This is not a concept on a computer screen or a simulation. There are many companies valued billions and what they have is a computer simulation. This is a real flying car.”
Aircraft designer Glenn Curtiss built his Autoplane in 1917. It had a pusher propeller for flight, with removable flight surfaces including a triplane wing, canard foreplane, and twin tails. It was able to hop, but not fly.
Many prototypes have been built since the early 20th century, using a variety of flight technologies. Most have been designed to take off and land conventionally using a runway, although VTOL projects are increasing. None has yet been built in more than a handful of numbers.