AeroMobil 3.0 transforms from car to flying car

A flying car is revealed: AeroMobil 3.0 was introduced this week at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna. The current prototype AeroMobil 3.0 incorporates improvements and upgrades to the previous AeroMobil 2.5.

Whether you think of it as a car that morphs into a plane or a plane that changes into a car, said Isaac Bober on Thursday in Practical Motoring, it was "mind-blowing." AeroMobil's founders are Juraj Vaculik, CEO, and Stefan Klein, chief designer. Quoted in Practical Motoring, Klein said, "These objects [the flying car] are coming from absolutely opposite worlds. Aeroplanes need lift, cars need downforce." To mesh the two, you can integrate two functions in one object or use metamorphosis, he said, with transfer from one position to second position. The two-seat device has a steel framework and carbon coating and could even land on stretches of lawn or farmland. "As a car it fits into any standard parking space, uses regular gasoline, and can be used in road traffic just like any other car. As a plane it can use any airport in the world, but can also take off and land using any grass strip or paved surface just a few hundred meters long," said the company site. Practical Motoring noted they had this flying car in mind for use in places where infrastructure is difficult; the 3.0 would support people who could drive as far as the road allows and then fly the rest of the way toward their destinations.

Top speed is listed by the company as 200km/h and takeoff speed is listed at 130 km/h. The range is 700 km and fuel consumption is 15 l/h. The engine is a Rotax 912. Appearance at the festival marked its world premiere as a prototype, displayed for the first time to a public audience. "At Pioneers we cannot imagine a single piece of technology that is a better representation of the future other than the flying car," said Juergen Furian, co-founder of Pioneers.

Last year, The Wall Street Journal observed how "Flying-car designs have been coming and going almost as long as cars and airplanes have been around. Some, like the 1950s Aerocar, worked but never caught on, possibly because people considered them impractical or lacking adequate performance on the road or in the air. Today the combination of lightweight materials, more efficient engines and more flexible rules in civil aviation could make flying cars feasible for a broader audience."

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