Meet the AeroMobil 3.0, a crazy beautiful flying car
The AeroMobil 3.0 brings us one step closer to what we all thought we'd have in the future -- a flying car.
Even though we're quickly getting lots of the "tech of tomorrow" that was promised when I was a kid (wristwatch phone anyone?), there's still one big gaping hole in futuristic technology -- the flying car. That hole got filled a little bit last week with a sleek, sexy, streamlined machine known as the AeroMobil 3.0.
The flying car, which was built in only ten months, made its world debut at the Pioneers Festival in Vienna on October 29. The company that produced it, AeroMobil, is based in Slovakia and has been at it since 1989. In 2010, with their release of AeroMobil 2.5, the team hit a major milestone when their flying car took off and received certification by the Slovak Federation of Ultra-Light Flying (SFUL) as authorized by the Civil Aviation Authority of Slovak Republic.
AeroMobil 3.0 has now entered a regular flight program in Slovakia and has been undergoing extensive flight-testing since last month. While this model won't be for sale, it does bring the company closer to having a flying car that is.
"Currently the AeroMobil 3.0 prototype will serve two main purposes," the company said in a statement. "First, it will be used to test and improve the final performance, features, and characteristics. Second, it will be used for initial marketing purposes, including presentations at major trade shows."
This certainly isn't the first flying car we've seen. Last year we reported on Terrafugia's Transition flying car, which debuted at the EAA AirVentures show. And just last month a flying car called the Maverick crashed in Marion County, Florida.
It's also not the first AeroMobil we've seen. As the name implies (sort of), this is actually the fourth iteration of the flying car that follows the 1.0, 2.0 and 2.5. But the AeroMobil 3.0 blows all that's come before it out of the sky -- um, I mean off the road.
You can find out a lot more about this miracle machine by scrolling through the photos in the slideshow below and, of course, by checking out the gorgeous video above.
