AirCar flying car completes successful flight in Slovakia

The AirCar is a vehicle capable of flying in the sky but also driving on the road, and Stefan Klein, CEO of Vision and its inventor, drove the prototype to Nitra International Airport in Slovakia and then flew for 35 minutes to Bratislava. After landing at the city’s airport, he drove the AirCar to the downtown area.

Klein has been developing the flying car for the past 20 years and now his vehicle has flown more than 140 test flights, but this week's final test was the team's most ambitious effort to date.

With the simple push of a button, the dual-mode vehicle retracts/deploys its wings and tail in a mere 135 seconds, enabling it to hit the road or take to the skies. The gasoline-powered AirCar uses a BMW engine and a fixed propeller. It has a maximum cruising speed of 119 mph (190 kph) and has flown as high as 2,500 meters (8,200 feet). The next version of the AirCar is expected to have a top cruising speed of 186 mph (300 kph) and be able to travel as far as 621 miles (1,000 km) on a single tank of fuel.

“This flight starts a new era of dual-transportation vehicles,” Klein said in a release. “It opens a new category of transportation and returns the freedom originally attributed to cars back to the individual.”