It might seem like a flight of fancy, but a Japanese firm says it is one step closer to making flying cars a reality after testing a drone-like prototype. Before this, a German company had tested a flying taxi in Singapore in October 2019, saying it hoped its invention would revolutionise travel in traffic-choked cities
Video from engineering company SkyDrive shows its manned compact vehicle using eight propellers to hover into the air and make its way—with a few wobbles—around a test field.
But while the clip may excite fans of Blade Runner and Back to the Future, the test run leaves mankind far from a future of airborne vehicles whizzing into the sky to avoid traffic.
The company hailed "the first public demonstration of a flying car in Japan" and said the aircraft, around the size of two parked cars, had circled the testing field for four minutes.
"We want to realise a society where flying cars are an accessible and convenient means of transportation in the skies," SkyDrive CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa said in a statement.