World’s first commercially available flying car will be unveiled by AeroMobil in Monaco

When we were little boys and girls, we would imagine we were flying or riding on a magical broom or even a flying car. Flying has always tickled our imaginations, broadening our perspective of what could be the future of the automotive world. Movies such as the Harry Potter series (the Weasley’s flying Ford Anglia 105E), Star Wars (Luke Skywalker’s Landspeedster), and The Fifth Element (Bruce Willis’ flying taxi) have shown us how convenient it is to fly around in a flying car. Sure enough, flying is more convenient than being on the ground – what with having to deal with traffic, potholes, rude drivers, unruly pedestrians, and what not.

A small advanced engineering company based in Slovakia, called AeroMobil, is one of the few manufacturers that are constantly developing ways on how to make a car fly. Technology has been growing fast, and as hard to believe as it may sound at the moment, companies such as AeroMobil are taking a big leap into the future. For the past few years, this Slovakian firm has developed several unique concepts; none of which have crossed over for production. But all these may change soon enough as AeroMobil is out with yet another new flying car concept that will be unveiled at the Top Marques show in Monaco, which starts on April 20, 2017.

Although there is only a limited amount of information about this soon-to-be true-to-life science fiction based vehicle, there are a few promises that AeroMobil will make for the said vehicle. The new flying car concept is a new and improved version of the 3.0 concept that was first unveiled in 2014. According to AeroMobil, it will receive “hundreds of improvements” that will touch both design and engineering. Two photos of its new flying car concept have been revealed at a press release, which confirms speculations that the car will share various characteristics with the 3.0 concept, but of course, offer a much better (and updated) design.

There is no technical information regarding the new concept as of the moment, but one could guess based on the characteristics of the previous concept how much “improvement” the Slovakian firm plans to do. The 2014 3.0 prototype had a seating capacity of only two people and was powered by a Rotax 912 four-cylinder air-cooled engine. This powertrain delivers 100 horsepower (74 kilowatts) which enables the 2014 3.0 prototype to achieve a top speed of 124 miles per hour (200 kilometers per hour) in air, and 99 mph (160 km/h) on the road.

Moreover, the previous model had a recorded fuel consumption as high as 35.3 miles per gallon (8 liters/100 kilometers) on the road, and 4.0 gallons per hour (15L/hour) in the air. It had an estimated total range of about 544 miles (875 km) on the road while on air, it could go for about 435 miles (700 kilometers). AeroMobil projects that deliveries may start as early as next year, provided that there are no major setbacks in the production process.

With this much information about the previous model, we’re hoping that the new concept will provide as much, if not better, stats. Hopefully we get more information on this bizarre yet interesting vehicle that will get the wheels turning to step up in the automotive game. With the numerous inconveniences linked to road driving, a flying car just might be the best way to get to our destination.