For Steve Burns, CEO of SureFly, the future of driving is in the skies. Burns imagines a world where flying cars whisk us to work and issues with potholes are but a thing of the past.
He’s not alone.
Henry Ford famously explored the feasibility of creating a flying car in his day. His “Flying Flivver” was never quite able to match his ambitions.
This past Monday, SureFly was at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to show off the company’s new eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) octocopter, a manned drone vehicle that some have taken to calling a flying car.
The SureFly octocopter can travel a maximum range of 70 miles with a top speed of up to 70 knots or about 80 miles per hour and is expected to be priced around $200,000.
Burns said:
“We’re thinking of it as a flying car, it’s super simple to fly, by the time we get through our certifications, we expect to be able to prove that (it’s) safer to fly to a destination than to drive a car.”
The flying car is designed to carry up to two people or one person and cargo with a maximum weight allowance of 400 pounds. This craft is powered by gasoline, features emergency battery support and includes a ballistic parachute for emergency landings.
A human pilot merely needs to point a joystick in the direction that they wish to go for the craft to operate because most of the operations of the octocopter are computer controlled.
SureFly is currently negotiating with the Federal Aviation Administration to establish what credentials a potential driver, er, pilot would need.
Source: CNBC