Airbus to Manufacture Driverless Flying Taxis in 4 Years

Civilization has dreamed of flying cars since the 1920s and tech companies from Google to Uber have recently said they want to make quick, accessible air transport available to commuters.

Airbus has joined the chorus of tech titans calling for flying cars with Project Vahana, an autonomous Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicle. Since they don't need a runway to take-off, VTOLs are more like helicopters than flying cars — but they can work as taxis all the same.

Project Vahana director Zach Lovering says the Airbus VTOL will be a single passenger all-electric aircraft that'll be ready for production a short four years away in 2020.

"There's a much bigger focus here on actual productization and getting this thing out there," Lovering said, according to Business Insider, "rather than focusing on developing really cool technology."

Lovering also says the VTOL will be equipped with the staples of self-driving cars — lidar, radar, and cameras — so it can self-pilot.

The Project Vahana VTOL concept. Image Credit: Airbus

Project Vahana wants to provide a service similar to Uber with their flying taxis. Uber, though, has their own ambitions and has authored a 98-page white paper detailing their plans to have customers in cities flying about.

But the companies racing to bring flying taxis to the world face a massive amount of regulations and needed approvals from the FAA. They'll need to work together to make the business a reality.

"There are just huge regulatory hurdles, air traffic management hurdles, structural hurdles," Lovering said, according to Business Insider. "That certainly will require not just Airbus and one other company, but probably half a dozen to a dozen companies working together to solve this problem."

Image Credit: Airbus

Airbus envisions a future where personal flight is commonplace in mega-cities around the year 2030, according to an Airbus Group report. Silicon Valley is one metropolis where flying would appeal to commuters, the report says.

"A taxi ride through a new city is a nice experience as it is, but flying over that city would be much more thrilling," said Marius Bebesel, head of helicopter demonstrators, in the report.

Source: Airbus to Manufacture Driverless Flying Taxis in 4 Years

The flying car nightmare

© Matt Midori

The personal flying car is a marvel of the 21st century. It enables the masses to travel far above terra firma and seemingly solves all of their earthly dilemmas. The problem is, that it doesn't exist...and likely never will. Unfortunately, for mere mortals, this level of technological advancement has been quite evasive. To date, it's only been possible via sci-if fantasy and pseudoscience. It's not that flight is impossible...or the automobile. It's that the combination contradicts the constructs created by enabling both technologies to exist...simply by default. Yet, automotive enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike continue to dream of a reality above the clouds of rationality.

It's naive to dream of a future that ignores both the present and the past. On one side, there's the sky of the future rife with stamped metal dream machines soaring through the spring air. While on the other, there's a vision of a swarming mechanical grid that blots out the sun. Is there a middle ground or is it best to keep ones feet (or wheels wheels) on the ground? To answer that, it's necessary to analyze some hard truths.

Technological capability:

Any goal is possible in the imagination without the tangible means to accomplish it. However, in regard to the automobile, after one-hundred years there's plenty to consider already. Mankind harnessed the power of stamped metal, rubber, electricity, plastics and combustible fluids to their fullest practical potential by the introduction of the 12volt automotive electrical systems in the fifties. Arguably, with few exceptions, the technology hasn't advanced much since then. By 1960 there had already been fuel injection, direct injection, fairly widespread use of composites (fiberglass) and much of the technology used to make a functional vehicle today. Beyond that, it's mostly been refinements. Yet, in the past fifty-six years there's been far too little investment in making these machines flight-worthy. This is fact. Beyond the superficial, there's little to suggest that it would be any easier for a vehicle from 1960 to take flight than a vehicle from 2016. Truth be told, due to m anufacturers inexperience with aerodynamics at the time...cars from the earlier era are actually at an advantage in regards to lifting off the ground. This could potentially be viewed as a step in the wrong direction.

© Provided by AOL Inc.

[The second-generation Dodge Charger is the most advanced flying car to date]

Moreover, the progress of the motorcar has already necessitated the development of an infrastructure and culture that inherently limits sky-bound ambitions. Everything from to the congested skyline of the average industrialized metropolis to the notable lack of established methods of safe, reliable transportation...there's seemingly a bounty of unaddressed issues. Would it be reasonable to expect concrete solutions to road travel before endeavoring to those that are skyward bound?

While the terrestrial problems of today aren't insurmountable, they are formidable. It's impossible to mention the future of mass automotive transit without considering safety. The safety issues of today are magnified once projected to "the flying car". This is highlighted by the fact that manufacturers and safety institutions (I.E.: the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, etc) have sanctioned specific tests to determine the crash-worthiness of contemporary vehicles. A ground vehicle is designed to manage impacts much differently than impacts encountered by an aircraft. Would it be possible to create structures with the capability to manage flight stresses and the average street collision? Possibly, but certainly not without compromise. Of course, it would necessitate new crash test methods. Would the new criteria demand drop tests...from five-thousand feet? Ten thousand? Would the mortality rates be on par with those of plane crashes? Not to mention, the current automotive lan dscape is littered with minor imperfections like grand theft auto and manufacturer recalls. How society has chosen to deal with theses occurrences also hinders automotive flights of fancy.

Recalls, unfortunately, are rarely issued before there is a widespread safety concern. The average recall that would render a conventional car immobile on the streets could spell disaster if a similar gremlin happened mid-flight. Surely, the result would be masses of encased electronics and powertrains (likely accompanied by a combustible and/or explosive energy source) falling from the sky. The problem is, that in spite of advances, there's still a safety risk associated with the world's current vehicles traveling the roads. In fact, the NHTSA's (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) recently released data from 2015 indicates the trend of traffic related deaths actually increasing 7.2% from the prior year. The death toll was 35,092 people. If even a quarter of those deaths were single-occupant, "single-flying vehicle" related...that's a grim 8,773 vehicles (with their operators) hurtling from the sky. Remember, the statistics are understood to be based on human error, n ot vehicle defects.

Obviously, no matter the car, theft remains a constant variable that has yet to be solved or consistently prevented. The unsavory implications of that needs no further explanation. However, it's widely accepted that stolen cars are often "repurposed" for parts or utilized in high-speed pursuits to evade authorities. Transfer that to the skies, and it's a recipe for chaos. Too much chaos to control effectively using known methods. Needless to say, in regards to theft, cannibalized componentry installed by a novice would surely result in matters much worse than property damage.

Today, most consumers and accident victims rely on the legal system for justice. Even by ignoring detractors, it's easy to view the process as costly and inefficient. With flying cars, the number of citizens suing each other, citizens suing manufacturers and the endless cycle of scandal and discord would render every party legally impotent. The legal system would buckle and break under the skyrocketing toll of litigation, protocol and accountability. Frankly, it would eventually corrode the nature and resilience of the human spirit. Burdened with the necessity to manage the populace at large (excluding auto-related incidents)...while achieving objective justice for all parties involved in vehicular incidents would be impossible for any jury...or any judge.

© Provided by AOL Inc.

With the weight of the world weighing down the flying car's lofty promises of the future...is there any hope? Any practical use? Surely, there has to be some grey area in the clouds.

Indeed, there is. The "flying car" simply needs to be redefined and repurposed. It's not a matter of creating a safe, fast mass-transit system from scratch. The Shinkansen trains in Japan have already accomplished that. They currently achieve upwards of 150mph on their daily routes and even boast an impeccable safety record. In fact, there hasn't been a single passenger fatality on those trains since their introduction in 1964. It doesn't even that mean flights have to be reinvented since plane travel is only getting safer and more efficient. What it does mean is that humankind can harness the power of invention and ingenuity to create a new, purpose-built method of transport that saves lives on mass rather than jeopardize them. What the future presents is a more efficient and affordable means for trained pilots or operators to use vehicles based on today's evolving technologies and manufacturing processes.

Currently, there are more vehicles on the road which utilize lightweight materials like carbon fiber and aluminum than ever before. The methods to produce them (including 3D printing) are becoming more affordable and accessible as well. These advances are unprecedented. By bringing the manufacturing costs down, the resultant vehicles will cost less as well. In addition, advanced, un-manned vehicle technology is currently available to the average teenager. When these elements combine it could mean a future where every fire station or hospital has the ability to purchase and utilize (potentially multiple) flying vehicles (vertical take-off and landing: VTOLs) to save lives. They can quickly deliver supplies and emergency services to those in need. They can perform search and rescue operations that previously would imperil even the rescuers. They can transcend traffic jams in order to save lives when minutes matter. These are real solutions that are faithful to the human ethos of exi stence. These aren't floating, isolation pods of delusion and self-indulgence. The dream of the flying car can exist and endure. In fact, it could very well embody this generation's legacy of harmonizing technology with responsibility.

Source: The flying car nightmare

Uber plans for the arrival of flying cars

FOR decades, when asked to imagine the technology of the future, the stock answer has been flying cars. In reality, the passage of time has brought us innovations of a sort we never foresaw: the ability to send information instantaneously to the other side of the world, to look up any known fact with the click of a button, and to swap faces with a cat. Meanwhile, cars have remained earthbound and transportation technology—planes, trains and automobiles—has retained its familiar form.

Until now, perhaps. Last week Uber, a ride-hailing app, released a 97-page white paper. Its title was "Fast-Forwarding to a Future of On-Demand Urban Air Transportation", and it proposed a programme called Elevate. But the two words that everyone took away from the report were the same ones that have always come to mind when the future is mentioned: flying cars.

Within the next decade, Uber aims to launch a network of flying cars that will turn a two-hour road trip into a 15-minute flight. And it claims that flying over the traffic will cost substantially less than a traditional Uber ride does now.

A promise to bring such a revolution to the way we travel might have been met with scepticism had it not come from a company that has been at the forefront of other big changes. Uber has already transformed urban and even intercity travel with its ride-hailing app. It is also taking the lead in the push for self-driving cars, introducing autonomous vehicles in one American city and aiming to make them the norm before long.

The flying cars wouldn't exactly be cars. Uber refers to them, clunkily, as VTOLs, for vertical takeoff and landing (pictured). They work like helicopters, disembarking from the equivalent of helipads, which Uber calls "vertiports" (with several landing pads and charging stations, since they will be electrically powered) and "vertistops" (with a single pad and little to no infrastructure). Uber claims that there are already plenty of helipads, parking lots and vacant plots of land that can be used for these purposes.

The bigger challenges will be navigational and regulatory. Before these things take to the air, there needs to be a system for making sure they don't crash into each other, or into buildings or planes. And any such system will need the government's consent. These hurdles are not small, and they make Uber's timeframe of a decade look rather ambitious.

What is more, Uber doesn't plan on developing the VTOLs and the accompanying technology itself. Instead, it hopes to work with private-sector and government partners who will do the heavy technological lifting, while Uber will create and run the platform to connect pilots and passengers. That, again, means a multitude of factors outside the firm's control.

But if, or when, Elevate does get off the ground, there is no doubt that it would be transformational, particularly if it works as efficiently as the company claims. Traffic is no object when you can rise above it and zoom past at 150 miles per hour. Uber predicts that the trip between its hometown of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley hub of San Jose—57 miles and an hour and 40 minutes by car now—would take just 15 minutes. Moreover, whereas an UberX currently costs about $111, the company says an Elevate trip would initially be $129, but that would drop to $43 in the "near term" and $20 in the "long term".

Gulliver will believe that when he sees it. But he will also gladly pay an extra $18, or far more, if it shaves an hour and a half off the trip.

The impacts of this technology are hard to overstate. For business travellers, an Elevate-like programme would make it possible to schedule meetings in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC in a single day; or to hit San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose and then take the afternoon off. The effect on cities could also be transformative. At first, flying cars (and yes, Gulliver does feel a little odd writing that seriously) would help alleviate urban traffic and make navigating cities far more efficient and pleasant. But in the long run, they could also prompt a migration to the suburbs of the sort effected by the adoption of the automobile in the 1950s, as the well-off opt for extra space and quiet without having to endure brutal commutes. 

Then again, it is probably too soon to be contemplating all this. Uber's proposed timeframe notwithstanding, we are still talking about flying cars—the same innovation we've dreamed of idly for more than half a century. Let's see if and how they actually develop before assessing whether the future of business travel and the allure of cities will be fundamentally altered.

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Source: Uber plans for the arrival of flying cars

This Battery Power Helicopter Could Kickstart Uber's Flying Car

Martine Rothblatt has invented a flying machine that could help transform the ride-sharing industry. Working with Tier 1 Engineering, the team has produced the world's first battery-powered helicopter, a breakthrough that could help the likes of Uber produce clean, energy efficient vehicles for short flights.

"This was a proof of concept," Rothblatt said in an interview published Monday. "Everyone told me this was impossible."

Innovations like these are exactly what Uber will need for its vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) ride-sharing service. Part of the company's 96-page plan involves using electric vehicles to reduce carbon emissions during operation. When taking off around congested urban areas, cutting fuel consumption will be critical.

Rothblatt's helicopter itself is not suitable for Uber's purposes. The company is avoiding traditional helicopters as they are harder to control when taking off in windy conditions surrounded by buildings. However, Rothblatt's team has overcome a major hurdle with battery powered flying machines. Before now, the batteries were thought to be too heavy for operations.

From here, the team intends to build a design better suited to its power usage. The current helicopter can fly for around 20 minutes. The team is also interested in licensing the tech to others.

Battery power will become a key area of interest in the coming years. Smartphones have pushed for longer running times through more efficient processors, but slimmer bodies have pushed batteries to smaller sizes. Advancements in charging speed have helped, but consumer demands are increasing and there may be a greater push towards increasing battery life itself.

Tesla plans to fully open its gigafactory in 2018, and when it launches it'll be the world's largest battery factory. CEO Elon Musk sees this as crucial to helping fight climate change, as renewable energy sources will be able to store the generated power for when conditions shut off generation, like when it's night time, for solar power. This drive for better batteries may help increase research funding, and if Rothblatt's creation is anything to go by, there are still plenty of areas battery tech can revolutionize daily life.

Photos via Tier 1 Engineering/YouTube (1, 2)

Source: This Battery Power Helicopter Could Kickstart Uber's Flying Car

The flying car nightmare

This post comes from Autoblog Open Road, our contributor network. The author is solely responsible for the content, and any opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Autoblog and its editors.

The personal flying car is a marvel of the 21st century. It enables the masses to travel far above terra firma and seemingly solves all of their earthly dilemmas. The problem is, that it doesn't exist...and likely never will. Unfortunately, for mere mortals, this level of technological advancement has been quite evasive. To date, it's only been possible via sci-if fantasy and pseudoscience. It's not that flight is impossible...or the automobile. It's that the combination contradicts the constructs created by enabling both technologies to exist...simply by default. Yet, automotive enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike continue to dream of a reality above the clouds of rationality.

It's naive to dream of a future that ignores both the present and the past. On one side, there's the sky o f the future rife with stamped metal dream machines soaring through the spring air. While on the other, there's a vision of a swarming mechanical grid that blots out the sun. Is there a middle ground or is it best to keep ones feet (or wheels wheels) on the ground? To answer that, it's necessary to analyze some hard truths.

Technological capability:Any goal is possible in the imagination without the tangible means to accomplish it. However, in regard to the automobile, after one-hundred years there's plenty to consider already. Mankind harnessed the power of stamped metal, rubber, electricity, plastics and combustible fluids to their fullest practical potential by the introduction of the 12volt automotive electrical systems in the fifties. Arguably, with few exceptions, the technology hasn't advanced much since then. By 1960 there had already been fuel injection, direct injection, fairly widespread use of composites (fiberglass) and much of the technology used to make a functi onal vehicle today. Beyond that, it's mostly been refinements. Yet, in the past fifty-six years there's been far too little investment in making these machines flight-worthy. This is fact. Beyond the superficial, there's little to suggest that it would be any easier for a vehicle from 1960 to take flight than a vehicle from 2016. Truth be told, due to manufacturers inexperience with aerodynamics at the time...cars from the earlier era are actually at an advantage in regards to lifting off the ground. This could potentially be viewed as a step in the wrong direction.

[The second-generation Dodge Charger is the most advanced flying car to date]

Moreover, the progress of the motorcar has already necessitated the development of an infrastructure and culture that inherently limits sky-bound ambitions. Everything from to the congest ed skyline of the average industrialized metropolis to the notable lack of established methods of safe, reliable transportation...there's seemingly a bounty of unaddressed issues. Would it be reasonable to expect concrete solutions to road travel before endeavoring to those that are skyward bound?

While the terrestrial problems of today aren't insurmountable, they are formidable. It's impossible to mention the future of mass automotive transit without considering safety. The safety issues of today are magnified once projected to "the flying car". This is highlighted by the fact that manufacturers and safety institutions (I.E.: the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, etc) have sanctioned specific tests to determine the crash-worthiness of contemporary vehicles. A ground vehicle is designed to manage impacts much differently than impacts encountered by an aircraft. Would it be possible to create structures with the capability to manage flight stresses and the average street c ollision? Possibly, but certainly not without compromise. Of course, it would necessitate new crash test methods. Would the new criteria demand drop tests...from five-thousand feet? Ten thousand? Would the mortality rates be on par with those of plane crashes? Not to mention, the current automotive landscape is littered with minor imperfections like grand theft auto and manufacturer recalls. How society has chosen to deal with theses occurrences also hinders automotive flights of fancy.

Recalls, unfortunately, are rarely issued before there is a widespread safety concern. The average recall that would render a conventional car immobile on the streets could spell disaster if a similar gremlin happened mid-flight. Surely, the result would be masses of encased electronics and powertrains (likely accompanied by a combustible and/or explosive energy source) falling from the sky. The problem is, that in spite of advances, there's still a safety risk associated with the world's curre nt vehicles traveling the roads. In fact, the NHTSA's (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) recently released data from 2015 indicates the trend of traffic related deaths actually increasing 7.2% from the prior year. The death toll was 35,092 people. If even a quarter of those deaths were single-occupant, "single-flying vehicle" related...that's a grim 8,773 vehicles (with their operators) hurtling from the sky. Remember, the statistics are understood to be based on human error, not vehicle defects.

Obviously, no matter the car, theft remains a constant variable that has yet to be solved or consistently prevented. The unsavory implications of that needs no further explanation. However, it's widely accepted that stolen cars are often "repurposed" for parts or utilized in high-speed pursuits to evade authorities. Transfer that to the skies, and it's a recipe for chaos. Too much chaos to control effectively using known methods. Needless to say, in regards to theft, can nibalized componentry installed by a novice would surely result in matters much worse than property damage.

Today, most consumers and accident victims rely on the legal system for justice. Even by ignoring detractors, it's easy to view the process as costly and inefficient. With flying cars, the number of citizens suing each other, citizens suing manufacturers and the endless cycle of scandal and discord would render every party legally impotent. The legal system would buckle and break under the skyrocketing toll of litigation, protocol and accountability. Frankly, it would eventually corrode the nature and resilience of the human spirit. Burdened with the necessity to manage the populace at large (excluding auto-related incidents)...while achieving objective justice for all parties involved in vehicular incidents would be impossible for any jury...or any judge.

With the weight of the world weighing down the flying car's lofty promises of the future...is there any hope? Any practical use? Surely, there has to be some grey area in the clouds.

Indeed, there is. The "flying car" simply needs to be redefined and repurposed. It's not a matter of creating a safe, fast mass-transit system from scratch. The Shinkansen trains in Japan have already accomplished that. They currently achieve upwards of 150mph on their daily routes and even boast an impeccable safety record. In fact, there hasn't been a single passenger fatality on those trains since their introduction in 1964. It doesn't even that mean flights have to be reinvented since plane travel is only getting safer and more efficient. What it does mean is that humankind can harness the power of invention and ingenu ity to create a new, purpose-built method of transport that saves lives on mass rather than jeopardize them. What the future presents is a more efficient and affordable means for trained pilots or operators to use vehicles based on today's evolving technologies and manufacturing processes.

Currently, there are more vehicles on the road which utilize lightweight materials like carbon fiber and aluminum than ever before. The methods to produce them (including 3D printing) are becoming more affordable and accessible as well. These advances are unprecedented. By bringing the manufacturing costs down, the resultant vehicles will cost less as well. In addition, advanced, un-manned vehicle technology is currently available to the average teenager. When these elements combine it could mean a future where every fire station or hospital has the ability to purchase and utilize (potentially multiple) flying vehicles (vertical take-off and landing: VTOLs) to save lives. They can quickly de liver supplies and emergency services to those in need. They can perform search and rescue operations that previously would imperil even the rescuers. They can transcend traffic jams in order to save lives when minutes matter. These are real solutions that are faithful to the human ethos of existence. These aren't floating, isolation pods of delusion and self-indulgence. The dream of the flying car can exist and endure. In fact, it could very well embody this generation's legacy of harmonizing technology with responsibility.

Related Video:

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Source: The flying car nightmare

Hovering aircraft raises suspicion that it's Google co-founder's flying car

Zee.Aero is one of two reportedly funded by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop revolutionary forms of transportation.

Even from a few hundred metres away, the aircraft made a noise strikingly different from the roar of a typical plane.

"It sounded like an electric motor running, just a high-pitched whine," said Steve Eggleston, assistant manager at an airplane-parts company with offices bordering the Hollister Municipal Airport.

But it wasn't only the sound that caught the attention of Eggleston and his co-workers at DK Turbines. It was what the aircraft was doing.

"What the heck's that?" saleswoman Brittany Rodriguez thought to herself. "It's just hovering."

That, apparently, was a flying car, or perhaps a prototype of another sort of aircraft under development by a mysterious startup called Zee.Aero.

The company, one of two reportedly funded by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop revolutionary forms of transportation, has set up shop in rural Hollister, far from its headquarters and the prying eyes of tech-obsessed Silicon Valley.

The secretive company, in its quest for privacy, has found allies in the small San Benito County town.

"Can I help you?" a woman from the airport's administration office said, after popping out to investigate when a reporter and photographer came looking for staff at the Zee.Aero building next door.

"They're not here," she said curtly. Asked when they were typically around, she snapped, "That's private."

In Hollister, population 40,000, the first rule about Zee.Aero is you don't talk about Zee.Aero.

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"It was known they wanted their privacy," said Hollister mayor Ignacio Velazquez, who declined to provide much information about Zee.Aero and its plans. "I just believe in people's privacy."

For a while, staff at one airport business said, a guard was posted outside the Zee.Aero building, telling people who approached too closely to back off.

The company has issued no public statements about its work. Bloomberg in June reported that Page had invested more than US$100 million in the startup but had tried to keep his involvement secret.

Zee.Aero's sparse website refers to "a revolutionary new form of transportation". 

In a May letter to the US Department of Transportation, the firm said it was building "an entirely new aircraft that will change personal aviation".

A Zee.Aero patent issued in 2013 describes in some detail an aircraft capable of the hovering seen by people working at the airport.

And the drawings showcase a vision of the future in which flying cars park in lots just like their terrestrial, less-evolved cousins.

Zee.Aero envisions our means of escape from the bounds of gravity as "safe, quiet, and efficient, as well as easy to control, (and) highly compact," according to the patent submission from Ilan Kroo, a Stanford University professor of aeronautics and Zee.Aero's founding chief executive and principal scientist.

Kroo brought in more than 100 aerospace engineers to work on the flying cars, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The patent depicts a car-sized aircraft, wings at the nose and tail, and along the top eight propellers, driven by eight motors, for vertical lift.

Two other propellers on the rear wing would provide forward thrust. The aircraft seen at the Hollister airport appears to showcase a change in design but retains some features described and shown in the patent.

Last week, an aircraft was spotted being towed down the runway on two consecutive days, although no hovering or flying was observed by witnesses.

Dual propellers in the rear fit with the description and drawings from the patent, but the aircraft appeared to have a single main wing, with pod-like structures beneath it, rather than the smaller wings at the front and rear shown in the drawings.

The means for vertical takeoff were not visible from a distance, but Eggleston and his colleagues said this was the same craft they'd seen hovering.

During both Zee.Aero flights witnessed by DK Turbines staff from several hundred yards away in September and October, the aircraft hovered about 8m off the ground, and landed rapidly, straight down, according to the witnesses.

 - MCT

Source: Hovering aircraft raises suspicion that it's Google co-founder's flying car

Flying car training school idea for Bermuda

Published Nov 1, 2016 at 6:43 pm (Updated Nov 1, 2016 at 6:43 pm)

Plane sailing: Mark Jennings-Bates and Andre Voskuil outlined details of the new PAL-V flying car at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in Hamilton

Up and down: an idea that Bermuda could host a training school for flying car owners is being explored

A school to train buyers how pilot a revolutionary flying car could open in Bermuda.

The makers of the PAL-V, which converts from a road-going vehicle to an aircraft, said that a flight school could take off in Bermuda due to its good climate and closeness to the east coast of the US.

Mark Jennings-Bates, vice-president for sales in North America for the Dutch-based manufacturers, said: "If we can arrange to have a flying school here, that's a very big deal.

"And the clients we attract are very likely to favour Bermuda for learning to fly.

"We are discussing that with a few officials at this point and we hope at some point to announce we have a flying school here in Bermuda."

Mr Jennings and PAL-V colleague Andre Voskuil last week visited the island to explore launching their flying car in Bermuda in tandem with the America's Cup — which is expected to attract the kind of person who can afford the $400,000 to $600,000 price tag for the PAL-V, which converts in minutes between road use and an aircraft using the autogiro principle.

The two men unveiled the final design for the PAL-V at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club on Friday. The model improved from the prototype and features two engines instead of one. It was designed with assistance from experts who have worked for a major luxury Italian sports car maker.

Mr Jennings-Bates, who is based in Canada, said: "What we see here is a wonderful tourism attraction in Bermuda. It's a smaller market, but it's very close to the north east coast of the US."

He added that he had also been in contact with Longtail Aviation, which already operates commercial aircraft from its airport base.

Mr Jennings-Bates said Longtail had expressed interest in talking to the firm about a flying school and "that they would be the natural people to talk to."

He added: "It's still very early stages — this is an exploratory trip, but I'm optimistic we can return and have some more discussions."

Mr Jennings-Bates said the first model, the PAL-V Pioneer, a model with special luxury trim and paintwork and restricted to 90 examples, is set to go into production in 2018, with the more basic Liberty Sport version starting production after that.

He added: "PAL-V's ultimate business is hundreds of vehicles a year and North America would account for 20-30 per cent of that. There would be 60 or 70 people on the eastern seaboard, quite possibly, who would require training."

Mr Jennings-Bates said Bermudian potential customers had also expressed an interest in the vehicles.

He added: "There might be two or three sales here on the island. But I wouldn't be surprised if we got some interest from corporate visitors as well."

He said that, although there is a flying prototype, full-scale production will not start until 2018, so the launch will involve a flight simulator and a scale or full-scale model of the PAL-V.

The PAL-V representatives also met officials from the new Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority and they said had been told that certification in Europe and the US would be acceptable — opening the way for the two-seater machines to be based here.

The company has already set up flight-training school in Utah to qualify buyers on conventional German-built autogiros, which use the same principles as the PAL-V in flight mode.

In flight mode, an propeller at the rear moves the craft forward. Wind then generates lift on the helicopter-type rotor, which makes it airborne.

The flying car needs around 600 feet of ground for take-off. The rotor and tailplane fold away for road use. The tricycle arrangement of the wheels allows for a patented tilting system to be fitted so in car mode it can lean into corners like a motorbike.

Source: Flying car training school idea for Bermuda