‘AirCar’ passes safety checks and is now certified to fly as Nairobi identified among launch sites
‘AirCar’, a car capable of transforming into a plane and taking to the skies has been awarded an official certification of airworthiness.
The ‘AirCar’ passed all of its safety checks and is fully certified to fly in its home country of Slovakia.
Officials claim that the flying automobile has completed 70 hours of rigorous flight testing in accordance with EASA regulations.
This equates to more than 200 takeoffs and landings.
The AirCar is powered by a BMW engine that operates on ordinary gasoline. It can fly at a speed of up to 170kph at an altitude of 8,200 feet.
The vehicle, which transforms from car to plane in under three minutes, took a team of eight experts over 100,000 manhours to create.
When it’s time to drive on the roads, it has narrow wings that fold down and tuck inside the car.
The car, which has been under development for the past five years, can carry two passengers weighing a total of 200 kg.
‘The Transportation Authority carefully monitored all stages of the unique AirCar development from its start in 2017,’ said Rene Molnar, the director of the Civil Aviation Division at the Transport Authority of Slovakia.
‘The transportation safety is our highest priority. AirCar combines top innovations with safety measures in line with EASA standards.
‘It defines a new category of a sports car and a reliable aircraft. Its certification was both a challenging and fascinating task,’ he said.
Will we see the AirCar making it to driveways and flight paths across the UK? Not for some time, we’re afraid.
In this country, the invention would still need to pass safety certification, and anyone who wanted to drive it would need both a driver’s and a pilot’s license.
Meanwhile, Nairobi has been identified as one of the launch sites for an ambitious flying cars plan by a startup called McFly.
The McFly.aero blockchain project is starting the set up of infrastructure for air taxis service in 23 cities in 13 countries, including Nairobi.
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