![]() One example is Volocopter, a German firm which has attracted investment from Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, and interest from Intel, a big American chipmaker. Focusing on flight keeps things simple and helps save both money and weight. Many of Terrafugia’s competitors, though, are abandoning the idea of flying machines that can also drive. Most conventional drones achieve this with a number of small, electrically powered rotors mounted on the corner of the vehicle, or on extended arms. The TF-X’s ability to do without a runway is a common feature of many of the new designs. In 2017 Terrafugia was bought by Geely, a Chinese firm that also owns Volvo. ![]() The idea has attracted interest from bigger firms. Although it is several years away from making its first test flights, Terrafugia says the TF-X will be able to operate autonomously with four people on board for 800km (500 miles) at a cruising speed of 320kph. ![]() ![]() The TF-X is a plug-in hybrid that can drive but can also take off and land vertically, like a helicopter. That machine is already flying and is due to go on sale next year. The TF-X is based on the Transition, a petrol-engined car with foldable wings and a rear-mounted propeller. One of the most advanced is the TF-X, developed by Terrafugia, a company from Massachusetts. Some of the new flying machines are modern variations on the familiar flying-car design. Not to be left out, aircraft makers such as Boeing, Airbus and Bell Helicopter have also shown off in-house designs of their own. Larry Page, one of the co-founders of Google, has put his money into several such projects, including the Kitty Hawk Flyer, which the rider sits astride much like a flying motorcycle. Lilium’s investors include Tencent, a giant Chinese investment firm. Some of their products are convincing enough to have attracted powerful backing. They include Workhorse, an American maker of electric vehicles Joby Aviation, a Californian company whose backers include JetBlue Airways and Toyota AeroMobil, a Slovakian company and Lilium, a German firm working on an air taxi that uses jet-type electric thrusters. The ultimate goal is a pilotless passenger drone that can either be parked outside your house like an ordinary car, or even summoned with a smartphone app, like a taxi.ĭozens of firms are trying to build such machines. ![]() Several entrepreneurs have had the idea of scaling up such machines to the point that people can fit inside them. Developments in electric power, batteries and autonomous-flight systems have led to a boom in sales of small drone aircraft. Most designs require a runway to take off and land, and a pilot’s licence to operate. That is not because they are impossible to build, but because they are, fundamentally, a compromise, neither good on the road nor graceful in the sky. “But it will come.” In 1970 his company considered marketing the Aerocar, one of the few flying-car designs that managed to gain an airworthiness certificate. In the 1920s Henry Ford began tinkering with the idea of making cars fly. It took another 60 years and the arrival of the internal combustion engine before Orville and Wilbur Wright flew the first practical aeroplane. In 1842 William Henson, a British lacemaker, somewhat optimistically filed a patent for an “aerial steam carriage”. ![]()
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