Slovaks presented flying car

THE FLYING car designed by Slovaks, Juraj Vaculík and Štefan Klein, and presented on October 29 at the Pioneer Festival in Vienna is a sensation. Its previous version surprised even NASA scientists, the pair claims.

THE FLYING car designed by Slovaks, Juraj Vaculík and Štefan Klein, and presented on October 29 at the Pioneer Festival in Vienna is a sensation. Its previous version surprised even NASA scientists, the pair claims.

The AeroMobil 3.0 which combines a car and a plane has a maximum flight speed of 200 kilometres an hour and a range of about 700 km, with a consumption of 15 litres of fuel per hour. It has two seats. On the ground, it can reach the speed of 160 km/hour and it needs eight litres of fuel per 100 kilometres, according to its official webpage.

Its Slovak creators believe it could be the first step to “change passenger transport on a global scale”, according to the aktuality.sk website.

“Our ambition is to create the perfect product,” Vaculík told the Hospodárske noviny daily. “What we show today is one of our milestones on the road towards the finish, we do not consider this as a final product.”

The vehicle can use ordinary airports, but is can also take off or land on any stretch of grass or solid surface, needing about 50 metres for landing and 200 metres for taking off.

“AeroMobil is a flying car that perfectly uses the existing infrastructures made for both automobiles and planes,” the designers say, as quoted by aktuality.sk. “It fits into any parking lot, uses common petrol, and it can be in regular operation on roads, like any other car.”

Slovaks presented previous model of flying car AeroMobil 2.5 also in NASA conference in Montreal in September 2013. Unlike other innovators who show documents and designs, they presented car which was able to ride roads and fly, Vaculík told Hospodárske noviny.

“Honestly, we shocked them and they admitted it,” Vaculík he told the daily. “We gained a great deal of respect.”

Vaculík, who worked in advertising for decades, is the head of the company that developed the hybrid, while Klein is the father of the project – he has been toying with the idea of creating a flying car for about 20 years. In the past, he was in charge for innovation research projects for Audi, Volkswagen and BMW car companies. Klein is also a passionate pilot.

“For me, the freedom of movement is the real DNA of this project,” he told aktuality.sk.


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