We have had helicoptors for all these decades
this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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I hope its a popular buy among all our billionaires.
The vehicle, certified for airworthiness and flight-tested over 170 hours with more than 500 takeoffs and landings, is now headed for mass production.
Jesus fuck please tell me that's a typo and they left some zeros off. Your average commercial pilot has more than that before any airline is even willing to consider hiring them, that is absolutely not sufficient testing.
Still, early adopters may face bureaucratic turbulence. Potential buyers must be both licensed drivers and certified pilots.
No shit. And that is never going to change, becoming a certified pilot is a lot fuckin harder than getting a driver's license, and for very good reasons. If some BMW-driving cunt can't even be arsed to use his turn signal do you really want to ease the "bureaucratic turbulence" just so he can fuck up and crash into a packed airliner? These things still have to use runways, the people flying them still need to know how to behave themselves at airports, how to identify and avoid restricted airspace, how to communicate with ATC and how to behave if (let's be honest, when) they get Intercepted.
And all of this so you can have a car that's worse at being a car, and an airplane that's worse at being an airplane, but hey at least you won't have to book a rental car at your destination airport, which I remind you they still have to use.
As long as they're only using smaller airports. Let the millionaires and billionaires have this. It's like another ocean gate scenario.
I agree with everything you're saying though haha.
I still don't get how these companies keep getting funded. There's literally no way these things will ever become a thing. It's simply ridiculous.
I'd be willing to bet if you put a calendar reminder in one year to check back on this you'd find that this car did not actually reach the mass-produced stage of industry.
Investors and venture capitalists fronting money and riding the Hype-Go-Round, but when the music stops and the lights go out someone's going to be out a shitload of money.
Seen this like 10 years ago lol
No thank you, I'll take a drone cab over this any day.
So it's a small plane then?
I swear I saw this on TV like 20 years ago, it's a stupid idea, if I wanted a plane I would buy a plane and then drive to the airport in my car, attempting to combine the two technologies just makes both of them worse.
Apart from all the discussion regarding how stupid this is, how the fuck would this even fit on a road? I doubt the wings would be durable enough if they were retractable. This shit would take up 2 lanes and fuck up any and all intersections. And as a added bonus, it would fuck with everyone elses perception who are used to the distances you keep away from regular vehicles when theyre turning in front of you. This shitheap wouldnt even make it to the airport because someone will probably misjudge the turn radius with the wings and fuck it up on the way there.
They fold to the rear. So apparently they are - at least supposed to be - durable enough.
I feel like "mass-produced" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Also, insurance is going to be insane.
Also “car” - can my local mechanic service it and give it a flying certificate? If not, it’s not a car.
More like a barely road-worthy airplane.
You don't get insurance on these
You're right; I forget insurance is for the poor.
How much can a replacement plane car plane even cost?? 1 million dollars? Better just buy 2 and keep one spare.
That's not very expensiv...
It’s called a plane.
Oh just like they did 5yrs ago every 5 years since the invention of powered flight
Mass-Produced
I want to see these masses who can pay the million :)
A million doesn't get you what it used to, and you'd be shocked at how many quiet millionaires there are out there.
There might be a lot more millionaires than before, but it’d still be a much smaller number who could drop $1M on a flying car.
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It’s not a flying car. It’s an airplane.
It's by definition trying to merge two opposite specs into one vehicle using the worst aspects of the two.
Damn, we really got flying cars before
- GTA 6
- Elder Scrolls 6
- Half Life 3 (but barely? Hopefully?)
It's a Lamborghini with wings stuck on the sides, it's not a flying car.
a plane. A flying car is called a plane.
I bet it handles like a boat on the roads though.
A plane that looks a bit like a car.
There are street legal autogyros that are a lot cheaper and make more sense as a crossover vehicle
“The AirCar fulfills a lifelong dream to bring the freedom of flight into the hands of everyday people.”
The price? Between $800,000 and $1 million, depending on specs.
Don't forget the cost and time investment in getting your pilots licence.
Also there is no way this is going to be legal to drive on public roads in most countries - just look at the massive tail boom that sticks out. This is just a fancy aircraft for people that want an overcomplicated Cessna.
The tail boom is massive compared to a sports car but I think the folded-up package looks not bigger than a giant American SUV.
Speaking as one who routinely has trouble parking a motor home and driving over curbs with it — this big awkward-looking vehicle doesn’t look like a great city-car but it does not compete with motor homes for the awkwardness prize.
What's crazy is you can build a kit plane for less than what this costs, and flying a kit plane does NOT need a pilot license in the US.
Woah woah woah. Not even close to true. The only things you can fly without a license is a single seat ultralight, paramotor, and similar things that most people would barely think of as a plane. There are very specific and restrictive requirements, both on the aircraft and what you can do with it.
Anything bigger, homebuilt or not, will require a LSA license at least ans many (if not most) a full PPL.
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I don't trust must drivers on roads, much less the air. No good will come of this.
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Yeah, I too once thought flying cars were the best idea since sliced bread. I've since grown up and realized that they're just airplanes with extra steps, cause it's not like you're ever going to be able to land it on a highway or whatever. It will always be cheaper to just buy an airplane and a car and use one to get to the other.
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Or you could buy a Skyhawk, three Toyota Camrys and fuel for a year.
Sweet. We need more ways for the 1% to kill themselves.
Okay I will admit it was impressive to see how they solved where to stow the wings and essentially shrink the airplane footprint to a long car footprint, but who is this for? Who out there has $1mil to blow and is like, "I have to drive directly from the tarmac to my hotel"?
This thing needs 300m of runway in its airplane form to get airborne, so forget city or even suburban takeoffs. And you're not going to just drive this thing around. At the end of the day, this is still a (very fancy) plane that drives.
Just find the tallest rooftop parking structure with a low wall sturdy enough for a ramp.
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