An artist's impression of the MyCopter personal aviation vehicle. The European Union wants to make the dream of a flying car a reality, researching the feasibility of small commuter air vehicles to ease the world's traffic congestion.
An artist's impression of the cockpit of the MyCopter project. Research institutes have spent years designing a cockpit that resembles a car and that anyone can pilot with a minimum of training.
Several flying cars are already in production. The Pal-V can carry two people at 180kph and has a range of 350-500km.
The gyrocopter cruises below 4,000ft and needs 540 feet of runway for take-off and 100 feet to land. The MyCopter project is looking at a design that can lift itself out of traffic with very little headway.
In terms of road performance, the Pal-V can reach a maximum speed of 180 km/h (112mph) has a fuel economy of 28mpg and a range of 750 miles.
There may be plenty of idiots on the road, but is putting them in the skies taking it, quite literally, to the next dimension?
For Dr. Heinrich H. Bülthoff -- one of the leading researchers on the'MyCopter' project -- it's a serious question.
Making an idiot-proof flying car that anyone can pilot has involved years of painstaking research and may be the secret to the long-held dream of firing up the rotors, levitating and simply flying out of the bumper-to-bumper grind.
Now the European Union wants to make the dream a reality, researching the feasibility of small commuter air vehicles to ease the world's traffic congestion.
"It's been a dream of mine since I read it in science fiction books and in the movies as a kid, but science fiction is becoming the reality these days," says Dr. Bülthoff, director of perception, cognition and action at the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany.
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