World’s First Flying Car To Go On Sale This Month

By Mayuk Saha

Man has always had an obsessive preoccupation with flying. Ever since the ancient times, civilization has imagined flying as a kind of weird, often dangerous, salvation.

The Greeks had the myth of Icarus, the Indians had the myth of the Puspaka vimana and the Chinese had myths about their dragon-kings who could fly.

Till the invention of the modern aeroplane and helicopter, the damage had been done. Science fiction got people absolutely hooked on the idea of flying.

It seems having air transport as an everyday affair however might just not be a Jetsons episode anymore.

Flying cars?

Say what?!

 

Well, yeah.

Flying cars seem straight out of Blade Runner, doesn’t it? Believe it or not, but the world’s first flying car might just be on sale next month.

And just like anything else, you can pre-order it.

A Volvo-owned brand named Terrafugia is going to bring out the world’s first flying car for the public. And by God, it is FAST!

Called Transition, the car will be able to fly into 400 miles and that too at a speed of 200mph.

Of course one can expect a huge price tag, as is the case for most technologically advanced things at first.

Maybe Elon Musk could afford one if he paid off all his court settlements.

Jokes apart, the car will offer everything a normal luxury Sedan would, but also will come with a parachute in case things take a tragic turn.

Now for the things you will need to be George Jetson. Well, for starters, despite it being so-called road-legal, you will need a pilot’s license to take it off the ground.

 

The Company’s market would be very small for starters. This is because, as preached, the only probable customers would be pilots of small aeroplanes who can afford something priced in the millions possibly. To call it a niche market would be a gross understatement. It would be like calling an iPhone a common man’s phone.

A website quipped humorously that it would be ideal for a lazy pilot, who didn’t want to get out of his ride in order to get home.

Well, it is kind of close to the truth, if you give it a moment’s thought.

Despite the romantic notions of flying attached with it, and the hint of danger sports, it will be a gross luxury item for crazy-rich or the phony-brave.

It would be perhaps an understatement if we merely consider this modern marvel of engineering to be a car as it can fly upto an altitude of 10000 feet with 1300 pounds of load capacity.
Though we have our reservations (and quite justified ones) as it would be quite redundant in the current context of global warming and rising pollution levels in the 21^st century.

That money, if spent correctly can bring an end to poverty and hunger for a lot of people.

Moreover, its maintenance costs too would be staggering.

We would just have to wait and watch if it ends up as our future (an optimistic one) or something out of a science fiction novel that we were warned against.

IMAGE CREDIT: Terrafugia