The AeroMobil 3.0 is a road-legal car that flies. It might be a prototype but this ‘roadable aircraft’ showed its airborne prowess at Vienna’s Pioneers Festival. For Štefan Klein, chief designer and co-founder of Slovakian firm AeroMobil, this is more than just soaring above jams: it was inspired by his student dreams to escape from behind the Iron Curtain.
At 6m-long and 2.3m-wide – with the scissor-action wings stowed! – the claim that the carbonfibre-clad, two-seater AeroMobil fits in a ‘standard parking space’ is probably stretching things. But it can be refuelled at a petrol station and driven on the road, yet packs a 430-mile airborne range. You don’t even need a proper runway: the AeroMobil’s ‘variable angle of attack’ wings require just 200m of flat ground to take off, and only 50m to land.
But if a flying car runs out of fuel, it’s going down: that’s why AeroMobil talks of ‘full-vehicle parachute capability’ to float the composite and steel capsule to terra firma.