German engineers celebrate as the Volocopter, one of the world's first electric helicopters, takes off on its maiden flight.
Featuring 18 rotors on a 10-meter-wide carbon frame, the eco-freindly flying machine has been €4 million ($5.4 million) and two years in the making.
The brainchild of German company e-volo, the sleek Volocopter is a long way from e-volo's prototype -- the Multicopter -- pictured here in 2011.
"Sometimes we were astonished ourselves at how fast we've been able to develop this. Everyone in this business usually develops things over 10 or 20 years -- we've done this in one-and-a-half years," said Wolf.
The futuristic two-person helicopter is powered by a 100 kilogram battery.
"If you let the joystick go, the Volocopter will just hover in the current position, so there's nothing the pilot has to do," said e-volo co-chief executive Stephan Wolf. "But if you do that in another helicopter it will crash immediately."
They don come again now. No one will talk about it's safety until it starts taking lifes.
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