American drivers squandered 6.9 billion hours stuck in traffic in 2014, according to a study released by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute(TTI) and INRIX earlier this year. Many of us living in traffic-congested cities, like Los Angles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., spend more than 80 hours sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Instead of squandering away our precious time, wouldn’t it be great if our vehicle had the capability of transforming into a plane? Well, your dream can now become your reality.
Enter the Aeromobil 3.0; it’s both a car and a plane crafted by a Slovakian company called Aeromobil. In seconds, the vehicle can convert to an airplane, giving you the freedom to move. According to the company, the AeroMobil 3.0 is predominantly built from advanced composite material. That includes its body shell, wings, and wheels. It also contains all the main features that are available in a small private plane and likely to be incorporated into the final product, such as avionics equipment, autopilot and an advanced parachute deployment system. It boast other conveniences like a variable angle of attack of the wings that reduce the take-off requirements from its previous prototype, as well as a durable suspension that enables it to take-off and land even at relatively rough terrain.
The world’s first flying car touts a maximum speed of 99 mph and more (160 km/h and more). The aeroplane boasts a minimum speed of 37 mph (60km/h), but can achieve a maximum of 124 mph and more (200 km/h and more). Take-off speed is roughly 81 mph (130 km/h). The automobile/aeroplane also features the world’s first single steering column, which allows the steering wheel to become an aircraft control column without switching gears.
As for size, the two-seater is no bigger than the standard luxury five-door Bentley.
Founders Štefan Klein and Juraj Vaculik dreamed up the idea during the late 1980s, while the two were still in school. The startup took about 25 years to come to fruition, but, finally, we may have the first-ever flying vehicle in 2017.
See the current flying car prototype AeroMobil 3.0 in all its glory below:
Featured photo courtesy of Aeromobil
