Flying Cars | Our Childhood fantasy have now been a reality
Pic Credit : Klein Vision
Flying cars have always been fascinating since childhood. We saw them in cartoons and Sci-fi movies and to us, they always seemed very far from reality and something like a matter of far future. But now "The future is here", as a Slovakian company Klein Vision's launched 'AirCar' and successfully completed a historic 35mins flight between two international airports Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. During the flight, it attained a speed of whooping 190 kmph (118 mph). Anton Zajac, the cofounder of the company, and Stefan Klein, founder, and CEO of R&D company Klein Vision, piloted the flying car. Stefan was the man who created the prototype hybrid ‘Air Car’. The company also released a mesmerizing video of the flight on their official YouTube channel.
AirCar Prototype 1 has a dual-mode in it. It can run on roads like normal cars and can fly in the sky, unlike normal cars. It has a 160 HP BMW-made petrol engine, a fixed propeller, and a ballistic parachute. It has the ability to fly 1000km (621 miles) and at an altitude of 2500m (1.5 miles). According to the BBC’s report, the time it took from being a typical sports car to a 'ready to fly' car is 2 minutes and 15 seconds. This grabbed the attention after the video’s release, but the company told that before this they have tested it 141 times with a flying time of over 40 hours and this was its 142nd successful landing. Moreover, Klein Vision now has patented the AirCar.
The company also told that they will be launching AirCar Prototype 2 which will be even more advanced and more well equipped as it will have a more powerful 400 HP engine and receive the EASA CS-23 aircraft certification with an M1 road permit. With its variable pitch propeller, Prototype 2 is expected to have a cruise speed of 300km/h (162kt) and a range of 1000km.
Stefan Klein and Anton Zajac
In an interview with the engineer, Anton Zajac was asked about the motivation behind the flying car he said, "There are about 20,000 small, private planes in the United States. I’m an owner of one of the planes, and I know what my pain point is: when I… want to fly and go to a hangar, usually I have to take three planes out of the hangar before I can pick out my plane, and then I have to push back the three that I took out. It’s just…too inconvenient". He said, “There are 30 million taxis across the planet, and if we could convert 0.01 percent of them, we will have a huge market". According to Morgan Stanley, the market size of Flying will grow and will be $850B in 2030. Moreover, Anton asserted that to fly an AirCar, a driver, or a pilot for that matter, need not be an aviation student or have any extra training or skills, "It behaves exactly like a small aircraft". Stephan, a co-pilot of Anton said, “I almost didn’t have to touch anything because the AirCar was flying itself". They said that it is virtually an autonomous vehicle - with GPS and all other pilot technology, it also has a 'very special' patented transmission making it very stable.
On asking about the future plans regarding AirCar, they will start working on the next prototype with the experience and data collected by Prototype 1. He told that people in Bratislava welcomed them and said this looks like a Ferrari or Lamborghini. So according to Anton the design part is good and will not need any big changes. Moreover, he said, "We created one prototype which was powered by a 15-hp engine. We attached [sensors] on the surface of this model, and we flew it for many hours. We saw that whatever we calculated was in line with what we measured in this model. So after this, we decided to create a real thing, and we built this prototype that is flying. We are very happy with how it behaves; how stable it is". In the end, he said that with the next prototype they will be flying from Paris to London.
