Slovakian company Klein Vision received its official certificate of airworthiness for it’s flying car ‘AirCar’ on Jan. 2022, according to a company news release.
The AirCar is a two-passenger vehicle with four wheels, a pusher propeller, switchblade-style retractable wings and a telescoping tail that transforms into a road-legal package on the ground in just three minutes.
The vehicle has completed 70 hours of rigorous flight tests based on the European Aviation Safety Agency standards and has had over 200 successful takeoffs and landings.
The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. It takes two minutes and 15 seconds to transform from car into aircraft.
“AirCar certification opens the door for mass production of very efficient flying cars. It is official and the final confirmation of our ability to change mid-distance travel forever,” said professor Stefan Klein, the inventor, leader of the development team and the test pilot.
“Fifty years ago, the car was the epitome of freedom,” said Anton Zajac, the project co-founder. “AirCar expands those frontiers, by taking us into the next dimension; where road meets sky.”
The company also confirmed it has finished tests for a new powerful, lightweight, and efficient ADEPT Airmotive aviation engine and hopes to present a new model in about 12 months.
Exact pricing for the customer version has not been announced, but the prototype cost a reported $2.3 million to develop.
The AirCar takes off and lands like a conventional plane and requires a pilot’s license to fly. But a number of companies are working on unpiloted air-taxi services with autonomous flight and vertical landing and take-off.
- Agencies