RIGHT: Urban
Aeronautics’ Fancraft
flying car
FLYING CARS
5 YEARS AWAY
“The fabled flying car will finally become a reality as the cost of
superconducting super-magnets drops”
– Summer 2011
You wait 50 years for a flying car, and then three come along
at once.
First up is Vahana: an Airbus project to develop battery-
powered, single-seater aircraft, designed to follow
predetermined routes, only deviating to avoid collisions.
Swivelling rotors on the wings will let it take off and land
without a runway.
Second, Dubai recently announced plans to use autonomous
air taxis as a way to beat the UAE’s notorious traffic jams.
The Volocopter is an electric multi-copter with 18 rotors and
a fully autonomous control system. It’s essentially a scaled-up
drone with two seats and up to 30 minutes of flying time.
But, if you want something more like the airborne cars of
1950s sci-fi, try Urban Aeronautics’ Fancraft. The Israel-based
company wants to fulfil the dream of “an aircraft that looks
like the classic vision of a flying car: doesn’t have a wing,
doesn’t have an exposed rotor, and can fly precisely from point
to point,” says Janina Frankel-Yoeli, Urban Aeronautics’ vice
president of marketing.
Earlier flying cars needed runways to take off and land which
was, as Frankel-Yoeli says, “not much better than owning a car
and an aircraft.” To go from point to point requires vertical
take-off and landing, but, for decades, that could only be done
by helicopters or larger aircraft. Urban Aeronautics’ solution
is to use light but powerful engines, lightweight composite
materials, and automated flight controls. Their ducted fan
design – propellers housed in aerodynamic tubes – is powerful
but unstable, so the Fancraft would be challenging for a human
to fly unaided. Instead, computer-aided control tech takes over
the tiny, split-second adjustments required to keep the car stable
at speeds of 160km/h (100mph) or more.
But don’t put down a deposit yet. The main obstacle to a sky
full of flying cars is regulation. Not only will every aircraft
need to pass stringent safety tests, but a new system of air traffic
control will be needed to cope with three-dimensional traffic
jams above unwitting pedestrians. NASA is already working on
that – tests have shown that multiple unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) can communicate with each other to avoid collisions.
In the meantime, flying cars will mainly be reserved for
emergency services and a few VIPs.
