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‘Transformer’-Like Flying Car With Popup Wings Completes Inter-City Flight
By Mikelle Leow, 01 Jul 2021
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Image via Klein Vision
Just imagine flying from city to city not by plane, but by car.
This has been made possible with the ‘AirCar’, a flying car designed by Prof Stefan Klein of startup Klein Vision, which has successfully traversed between Slovakian international airports in Nitra and Bratislava over a 35-minute test flight.
The AirCar is powered with a BMW engine and runs on petrol-pump fuel, the BBC reports. Prof Klein says it can fly for about 1,000km (600 miles) at 8,200 feet above ground. At its test flight, it reached a maximum speed of 170km/h (105.6mph).
Unlike most flying cars already previewed, the AirCar requires a runway to gain momentum and transform from car to aircraft. It can make this metamorphosis in just two minutes and 15 seconds, extending its wings and tail before lifting off.
At present, the AirCar can carry two people weighing up to 200kg (441 pounds).
Klein Vision details that the prototype had been two years in the making, and required “less than €2 million (US$2.4 million)” in funding.
Watch it take flight in the video.
[via Futurism, video and cover image via Klein Vision]
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