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We’ve all dreamed of having a flying car, but two companies are working to make this dream a reality. The latest in flying car designs is the Personal Air and Land Vehicle (PAL-V) One, which is advertised as going from high performance sports car to flying car in just minutes. Based in the Netherlands, the PAL-V company says this is “the ultimate vehicle to go wherever and whenever you want to, easily overcoming all sorts of barriers. Now you can leave home and fly-drive to almost any destination! Avoid traffic jams and cross lakes, fjords, rivers or mountain ranges like an eagle.”
Sign me up!
See a video of the PAL-V in flight, below.
While the PAL-V is designed more like a helicopter, another flying car prototype we reported on, the Terrafugia Transition, operates more like a airplane. Terrafugia recently completed its first test flight, and sells for about $250,000. The PAL-V One does not yet have listed price, but likely would be in a similar price range. Both companies hope to bring their products to market soon, with Terrafugia targeting a late 2012 release date, and PAL-V aiming for 2014.
PAL-V uses gyroplane technology for flying, with rotors that fold up when you want to drive the vehicle on land. It can fly to an altitude of 4,000 feet (considerably lower than the 30,000 to 50,000 feet where commercial jets fly), and owners would need to have a Sport Pilot’s certificate in order to fly the PAL-V One.
For more info, see the PAL-V website.
would be fun to see in NY. If i still had a grandma, no doubt she’ld loved to have one and go chase those signlanguage drivers.
Please note that just after I wrote this, a dutch news article reported an elderly lady giving a deaf teenager a concussion thinking the teenager was signlanguaging about the elderly lady.
Take the joke as it is, please don’t execute it as it shouldn’t.
instead buying a quarter million planelikecar anyone can get a helicopter kit at a small fraction cost and assemble it in the backyard.
There are too many idiots that can’t even handle driving in a sane manner, you give them wings and they will take alot of innocent lives. At least as it is right now, you can feel reasonably safe in your home, soon those same lunatics causing havoc on the streets will be directly over head. No place will be safe, not your home, not at work, not even your child’s school!!! Just the thought of flying cars (although seriously awsome) chills me to the bone.
I agree. I would love to see flying car technology “take off,” but I think it’s way ahead of its time. On top of the fact that most people cannot drive safely on the road, I can’t imagine having these things flying around at various heights and directions without some sort of guidelines (kind of like all the road signs and painted-on lines). And what about taking off and landing procedures and guidelines? Would there be a sort of air-traffic controller for the common person flying one of these?
In any case, hopefully we won’t have to worry about such problems for a long time… It would probably make for a pretty sweet police vehicle though! 😛
Having flying cars would mean extra vehicles meaning extra pollution, they would have to be designed self-sustainable and clean energy. Since there is almost not profit to be made it won’t happen, simple. As long as the monetary system exists, we will never “really” advance technologically.
designed more like a helicopter? a gyrocopter is actually closer to a plane than to a helicopter I’d say, since it needs forward speed to generate lift.
Well first, INSURANCE rates would “sky rocket”. I would hate to see what “safety protocols” and ‘air bags’ would be needed to make this ‘safe’ in the air. What happens if you run out of gas? This does not have wings to allow you to glide to a landing. You would just F A L L straight down. Now I COULD see this in a James Bond film .. oh wait, we had Nellie and the Golden Gun, huh? Oh well. Q Branch could ‘modify’ it to fit a James Bond movie anyways.
What is the noise level? I hope it is only allowed to land on airfields.
I want one!