Flying car

Flying Car: Moller Skycar M400

Type of Vehicle: Flying car Production Status: Prototype; currently not available to the general public Function: Flies; drives; future ride of Harrison Ford’s Blade Runner character Maximum Speed: 375 mph (in the air)

Under the Hood: The Moller Skycar M400 is a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) car that is currently in development. It is meant to be used by anyone who is capable of driving a car, and would require no flight control know-how as the user would simply have to indicate direction and speed and the vehicle will automatically fly to its destination. The use of Wankel rotary engines rather than jet engines would mean that the M400 would eventually cost about the same as an ordinary car (although right now the early production run units will probably run you about a million bucks).

Chances of Owning One: At the moment, nil, but moving forward it seems that the Moller Skycar or one of its competitors will finally get the whole flying car thing perfected. But that said, Moller International’s vehicle has been in development for some 40 years and still hasn’t been perfected. So don’t trade in your Honda Civic just yet.

Heliboarding Concept

 A helicopter ride sure sends an adrenaline rush and is fun in its own way. Timon Sager has designed a Heliconcept that comes specializes for Heliboarding christened as the AvA 299 DROP. The most important part of a helicopter is its rotors that are wedged on the top. But the rotors of the DROP are special, as they are coaxial. The concentric shafts come with a pair of helicopter rotors that have been placed one above the other.

The rotors spin opposite to each other but their axis of rotation is similar. This not only makes the helicopter efficient but compact as well. On the contrary, the presence of two rotors pulls the height of the helicopter a little. Normally what happens is because of a tail rotor power is wasted that otherwise would have been aptly used to provide lift and thrust.