If you have a couple of hundred thousand dollars to spend and an extra garage, as ScienceAlert explains, you too may be able to own one of the world’s first plane-cum-cars by AeroMobil. The upcoming model, AeroMoble 3.0, to launch commercially in 2017, transforms from its major function as a personal jet-setter light-sport plane with side wing expansion into a snug, tucked-in limousine-sized two-seater road worthy vehicle.
Flying Car or Driving Plane?
The excited hype is that the world’s first flying car is about to be launched in two years time, but the design of the AeroMobil 3.0 is as a “light-sport plane” that allows trend-setter jet-setters to skip the annoying extra step of driving to the airport to get their plane to go on their trip (pesky step). As AeroMobil Chief Communications Officer Stefan Vadocz said to Victoria Turk of Motherboard at the 2014 introduction of the AeroMobil prototype:
You don’t need to change vehicles when you’re travelling somewhere. You can drive to airports or grass strips and take off, go to your destination, and then continue driving.
Super Bus of Commuter Plane-Cars
Shaped with a quite interesting and appealing design, reminding this writer of Holland’s super bus, but with 21 fewer seats, the plane-car car-plane drives like any car (but resembles a Jerusalem Cricket when seen from an aerial shot) on regular fuel and expands side wings when ready to take off from any grassy field (farmers will love that) or any runway.
How Far and How Fast?
Designed by the Slovakian company AeroMobil, the model 3.0 has a fuel range (before needing refueling) of 700 kilometers (435 miles) and reaches speeds of 130 kilometers per hour (81 miles per hour) as a car and 200km/h (124 miles per hour) as a plane. Not to be outdone by Tesla Motors, the AeroMobil 3.0, as Eric Mack writing for Forbes says, has autopilot.
With EU countries as a primary market target, model 3.0 requires a sport pilot license to fly-drive it or drive-fly it. Since the company is requiring a pilot license for all who plan to enjoy the introductory model 3.0, the expectation is that a pilot license will be required for Americans as well.
Not Following in the Silent Wake of Terrafugia
With sorrowful recollections of the silence from Terrafugia after its introduction, so full of hope, promise and visions of Back to the Future, skeptics are doubtful of AeroMobil’s successful 2017 launch. Nonetheless, co-founder and CEO Juraj Vaculik is steadfast, saying that the objective is not to demonstrate that marriage between a car and plane, creating a flying car or a driving plane, is possible, but to make a successful commercial introduction to a viable market of an operational fly-car drive-plane.
We are now scaling up quite fast, building the team, and the plan is that in 2017 we’ll be able to announce… the first flying roadster. The point is not only to showcase that it’s possible to marry together a plane and a car, but to really commercialise it.
