When Robert Stephenson first showcased his Rocket locomotive to the world at Rainhill back in 1829, its said numerous passengers on board fainted with freight as his train chugged along at an average speed of 12mph.
The idea of being terrified by such low speed seems absurd in today’s day and age, but will our great, great, great-grandchildren of tomorrow look back on us with the same ridicule as we wonder if we have the minerals to hop on board a flying car?
Probably.
We recently ran a poll over on our Instagram channel to see how confident people would be about flying in one of these vehicles and it was a 60:40 split in favour of ‘not today thanks’.
Its creator, Stefan Klein, will of course back its safety and why wouldn’t he? No failures to date and it cannot be argued what he has built isn’t a piece of sheer engineering brilliance.
In terms of his brilliance, his prototype flying car completed a 35-minute flight between airports in Slovakia last week. The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel.
It’s claimed it could actually fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked up 40 hours in the air so far, taking just two minutes and 15 seconds to transform from car into aircraft.
The narrow wings fold down along the sides of the car and, once in the air, the vehicle reached a cruising speed of 170km/h.
It can carry two people, with a combined weight limit of 200kg but unlike drone-taxi prototypes, it cannot take off and land vertically and requires a runway.
Not bad hey? We’ll keep an eye on this market with intrigue! Let us know if flying cars could be for you in the comments...