Russian Defense Company Demos A One-Person Flying Car (futurism.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Futurism: Russian defense company Kalashnikov has revealed their single-person flying car... As reported by Popular Mechanics, its body consists of a simple metal frame with a set of eight rotors used to lift it off the ground. A pair of joysticks are used to control the craft, while a set batteries found beneath the rider's seat provide the necessary power... Using electricity makes it lighter than a craft that relies on gasoline or a diesel engine, but as noted by DefenseNews, the batteries probably only enable it to fly for about 30 minutes before it needs to land.
There's video footage on YouTube of the flying craft lifting off.

Comments

Yes please!

[rylyeh]

I'll take one for free evaluation!
 

Boy, that thing looks safe...

[CaptnCrud]

nothing about it looks remotely car like, it looks like a flying blender / head decapitator.

Re:Boy, that thing looks safe...

[ShanghaiBill]

nothing about it looks remotely car like, it looks like a flying blender / head decapitator.

I watched the Jetsons when I was a kid, and since then I have been waiting 50 years for my flying car. Now it is finally here, and the millennials are whining about its appearance? Look, I don't care if it is ugly, just put the damn thing into production. I will buy the first one off the assembly line.

Well...

[hcs_$reboot]

it's a drone! Big enough to carry a human being.

Re:Flying cars! Woooooo!

[Tablizer]

Back in my day, we had goatse trollin'. Not this weak shit

Not a car.

[Gravis Zero]

Seriously, which part of that thing reminds you of a car? Feel free to list which parts.

I can see the marketing now

[Dartz-IRL]

Tired of driving?

Stressed out from all the traffic?

Take a Kalashnikov to the office today!

Re:Very cool, not viable until battery breakthroug

[vtcodger]

Seriously -- No "breakthrough" required -- just steady progress for a decade or three. Two things though:

General to this class of devices: You probably have to land them near a power socket capable of delivering a fair amount of electricity at specific voltages, currents, and phases through a plug that matches the socket on the vehicle.

Specific to this particular vehicle: It looks to about as safe as Lawnchair Larry's Weather-balloon hoisted Sears lawnchair. darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-11.html I don't think many insurance companies are going to underwrite a policy for either the driver or for bystanders.

Nice try

[Errol backfiring]

Apart from the vertical take-off feature, a simple gyroplane would:

• be cheaper
• be easier to handle
• be safer
• be easier to transport (take the rotor blades off)
• be able to lift more
• have a greater range
• be more efficient

But the only drawback is that, as it is an existing type of aircraft, nobody would call it a flying car.

Re:Looks like KittyHawk (TM)

[Megol]

The Buran had enough differences that it couldn't be a shuttle copy according to some NASA people (don't remember who - it was a while ago after all). The differences meant (according to the NASA people) that Buran had to be redesigned essentially from scratch to not break up during reentry. Inspired by? Absolutely, strongly inspired by but with several critical differences.
People involved in the design have hinted that a lot of the development was done simply because 1) they didn't want to be behind the US and 2) to try to understand why someone would design something that essentially useless. There were a lot of theory of it being part of a space weapon of some sort.

IIRC, from what I read etc. etc. take with a mountain of salt.