The AeroMobil 3.0 weighs just 450 kilograms with a wingspan of 8.2 metres, and can fly about 700 kilometres before refuelling, easily enough to cope with most journeys across the UK. There is even room for a flying companion, if they don't mind squeezing in fairly close.

 

It may sound like something from a science fiction film, but AeroMobil co-founder Juraj Vaculik is adamant² that the flying car is more than a "boy's toy" and could become a viable³ transport option by 2017, once it has undergone extensive testing. 

 

"It's not something just strange for Hollywood movies. It's as I said, first trial was 1970 in the U.S. There was plenty of other projects, so it is something which is really necessary for the personal transportation because it is more efficient. It is much more emotional and it is much faster because you are really travelling from A to B," Vaculik said.

 

Consuming just 8 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres travelled as a car and 15 litres while airborne, designer Stefan Klein said the AeroMobil will need a new classification before it becomes road and air legal.

 

"We don't want to make a flying car or a road aircraft. We would like to make a new category .And this category is the same as a motorbike or car. We want to open a new vehicle which has the capability⁴ to be on the road as a non-handicapped car and in air as a non-handicapped aircraft, but it is necessary to open absolutely new category," said Klein, himself an amateur pilot.

 

The makers⁵ say it has particular potential in countries where light aircraft are already frequently used, such as the United States and Australia, and those with underdeveloped road infrastructure⁶.

 

The project is the brainchild of engineer and designer Stefan Klein, head of Transport Design Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. He had dreamed of creating a flying car since childhood, but began seriously working on the idea at university in the early 1990s. An amateur pilot himself, at the time he saw the travel opportunities across Europe expand with the fall of the Iron Curtain at the end of the Cold War. More than twenty years later, he may soon finally be able to roam Europe's skies in his dream invention.　

 

Vaculik believes this is the start of a transport revolution, with the potential to "make freedom more emotional, more democratic and more efficient."

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