[ARABNEWS] Flying cars ‐ which have graced cinema screens for decades ‐ are about to be launched for real, with the unveiling of a commercial model in Geneva this week.Now that we live in The Future, we need these things. I'm not sure the huge quadracopter's gonna fit in the normal garage though.
From James Bond to The Jetsons, flying cars have long captured our imaginations. Now Dutch company Pal-V said they are almost ready to take to the streets, and the skies.
License requirements are gonna be restrictive too. If you need a pilot's license to fly to the office, I doubt there's gonnna be a mass market. If you don't need a pilot's license, there are going to be occasional knotheads driving into 757s and such.
It unveiled its Liberty Flying Car ‐ a sleek, red three-wheeled gyrocopter-type vehicle ‐ at the Geneva Motor Show and said client deliveries could start next year.
The potential for car bombs would be extraordinary.
The vehicles allow drivers to zip through traffic on the ground or simply fly above it.
An alliance between Airbus, Audi and Italdesign also presented a concept flying vehicle, "Pop.Up Next" at the Geneva show.
That modular system, made up of an electric car with a huge quadcopter fastened to the roof, is expected to be commercialized from 2025, the companies said.
"Frustration" sparked the idea for Liberty for Pal-V (Personal Air and Land Vehicle).
In a plane, "you start at a point where you don’t want to start and you end up in a place where you don’t want to be," company chief Robert Dingemanse told AFP.
"The Pal-V is the perfect product for city-to-city mobility," he said, as "outside the cities you fly, inside the city you drive."
The two-seater vehicle has retractable helicopter blades and is powered by a gasoline-fueled engine.
It can fly 500 km (310 miles), or drive nearly four times that distance without refueling, reaching a maximum speed of 160 km an hour.