For the first time in history, the world’s first flying car has literally been given its wings, receiving a certificate of airworthiness by the Slovakian Transport Authority.
Just last June, the car deployed its mechanical wings and took off from a runway located in the city of Nitra in Slovakia. Then 35 minutes later, it made its first landing in Bratislava, after which it folded up its wings and looking a lot like a unique sports car, it drove off the runway and onto the highway.
Named the AirCar, it underwent another 200 more flights over 700 hours of flying time before the aviation authorities actually decided to deem the flying car safe and reliable.
Founder and CEO of KleinVision, as well as AirCar creator, Professor Stefan Klein shared, “AirCar certification opens the door for mass production of very efficient flying cars. It is official and the final confirmation of our ability to change mid-distance travel forever.”
The car can reach up to 100 miles per hour while on the road, and gain 8,000 feet of altitude. Plus it only needs around 2 minutes and 15 seconds to either deploy or store its wings.
After earlier reports about the Klein Vision company spending 20 years on the car prototype and testing, it has finally turned Klein’s dream into reality. Moreover, it didn’t cost crazy amounts of money, just about 2 million euro for Klein to create and build the world’s first flying car, while getting it to travel from one airport to another.
A research fellow of avionics from the University of West England, Dr. Stephen Wrights, shared with BBCthat regardless of his reservations during the test flight, he “[couldn’t] wait to see the piece of paper that says this is safe to fly and safe to sell.”
He also told the publication that the car looked like “the lovechild of a Bugatti Veyron and a Cessna 172.”
Although Klein Vision has stated that they are looking into taking a share out of the aircraft market rather than the auto market with their creation, Morgan Stanley believes that the flying car market will be over a trillion dollars over the next two decades, which is quite similar to all the buzz around the recent rise in private spaceflight.
As shared in the BBC report, adviser and investor in Klein Vision, Anton Zajac, said that if the company could even possibly attract a small portion of global airline or taxi sales, it would already be considered highly successful. He said, “There are about 40,000 orders of aircraft in the United States alone. And if we convert 5% of those, to change the aircraft for the flying car – we have a huge market.”
See the AirCar in flight in the video below.
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