of the strangest flying machines yet built. Its body resembles a small whale—though, when flying, the whale is facing backwards. Attached to its nose and tail are two wings, angled to the horizontal. Each wing sports four propellers. Seen from below when airborne, the thing resembles a slightly flattened letter. Its inventor, Marcus Leng, and its sponsor, Larry Page, co-founder of Google, hope it will spawn a transport revolution.
Urban air mobility is the buzz phrase behind Blackfly. And the firm is not alone. A bunch of companies, many of them, like Opener, founded specifically for the purpose, have come up recently with a plethora of designs for single or two-seat personal air transport. That is catnip to technophiles like Mr Page.
Another firm building a scaled-up drone is Volocopter, a German startup. The two-seat cabin of its eponymous vehicle is attached below an 18-propeller structure that resembles a spider’s web built of curved strands of silk. This, like eHang’s craft, will offer a preprogrammed point-to-point service for avoiding traffic jams. A second German company, Lilium, has another approach.
Unlike everything else discussed in this report—even the return of supersonic passenger aircraft—urban air mobility has the potential to change the way society works. It is not exactly a disruptive technology, at least not yet. Planes, trains and automobiles will continue to run more or less as now. But if flying cars really take off, as it were, it would be a transformative technology, for local transport networks would surely change quite a lot.
Looks like those little polystyrene planes the kids used to throw about.
Flying cars are called helicopters. The point of a not-flying vehicle is something called 'normal force'. It keeps you from falling through the ground. Imagine the effort of jumping, all the time, without touching the ground. A lot of energy and effort. Or, you could walk.
Flying cars of the future will not be powered & ran by drone technology, sorry that's not it or practical. To loud & not enough power for long term flight...try again. But I do have multiple designs on the topic myself. AzrealFoyi2020 productdesign inventbklyn flyingcar
I do not want flying cars disrupting my view of the sky, the clouds. I cannot think of anything more horrid except Starlink string of sattelites obstructing the astronomers view. Damn elonmusk & Gwynne, except for Boring. That's an unbelievable idea, goal
Future 'cars' will be triangular or round and will fly like UFOs, without wings and propellers!
Good Idea!
Air mobility? Check that: air surveillance is more likely to come first.
You see how taxi drivers drive on the roads – for god’s sake stop this talk of flying taxis, would you want one of them over your head?
Yeah, sure. Just imagine 5 million 'cars' in the air. Forget about sunshine...
Ok, but this is a flying car, not a drone... 🧐
Check
I won’t hold my breath.....
Flying cars just seem like such a dangerously bad idea.