Flying cars: Slovak-engineered AeroMobile may be first off the block

Several firms are in the race to develop a flying car; but little-known AeroMobile is threatening to be the first off the block.

The Slovakia-based company has built a prototype flying car that it hopes to market as soon as 2017.

The first commercial product will be a two-seater and include a parachute. It runs on regular petrol.

It is not clear whether the firm be able to achieve its launch goal, but experts say the first prototype is working.

The latest prototype, the 3.0, is built from carbon-coated steel, and runs at top speeds of 124mph in the air and 99mph on the road.

Measuring around 8.3 metres by 6 metres, it's slightly longer and narrower than the average hatchback.

Speaking at the 'South by Southwest' Interactive conference in Austin, Texas on Sunday, company co-founder and chief executive Juraj Vaculik said that Aeromobil aims to launch its flagship product in just two years, CBC News reported.

The limited edition car-cum-plane is aimed at a niche market of ''wealthy supercar buyers and flight enthusiasts'' and will have a hefty price tag in the region of hundreds of thousands of US dollars, although a final figure has not been set, he said.

To reassure potentially nervous customers, he added that the craft, which can fly for almost 700 km without refuelling, is equipped with partial autopilot and a parachute that will automatically deploy if the pilot falls ill.

''Nobody has to jump out,'' he stressed.

But the firm also has plans to bring flying cars to the average driver, and has set its sights on next creating fully autonomous, self-driving and self-flying machines.

Citing popular taxi-hailing apps Uber and Lfyt, he added, ''If something like a flying Uber and flying Lyft will be on the market, I think many users will find this a very efficient way to move.''

The AeroMobil comes as part of an effort by engineers to move transport technology forward in the 21st century. The development comes just months after Google revealed its self-driving car. 

Realising a dream
Vaculik and his co-founder Stefan Klein's dream of building flying cars wasn't simply a result of wishing to free cars from the bonds of Earth.

As natives of what is the present-day Slovak Republic, they were motivated by a desire to escape the oppression of the then-communist government of Czechoslovakia.

The Iron Curtain was shattered in that country 25 years ago, but the dream of driving and flying in the same vehicle remained.

While political restrictions on travel are no longer such an issue, Vaculik still sees the world's drivers and air travellers restricted by other bottlenecks: traffic jams, inefficient air travel (particularly for trips under 400 miles), and a lack of infrastructure for places where people want to go. "We need to move traffic from a 2D space to a 3D space," he said.

Of course, there remain daunting technical, financial and regulatory hurdles, besides the additional infrastructure needed to accommodate flying hordes.